One of my favorite inquirers sent me a quote by Geneen Roth from her book Women, Food and God (which I highly recommend).
In the passage, Geneen writes that holiness is not in what we achieve or eat or weigh.
It reminded me of the sweet awareness that holiness is also not here in Bali, in some extra special way, or out there on a Hawaiian vacation, or in Mexico, or in Paris, or London, or Istanbul.
Holiness, or the awe of this world, can come upon you in a moment, in your mind.
You might be taking out the garbage, and then suddenly think about All This, and the strange, wild magic of it all.
That is a little moment of awe or holiness. It’s like you wake up from a trance…or a tendency to pop from one thought to another in a sort of speedy-zipping way, and you get a bigger view of everything.
So back to Geneen and her most important topic….food and eating.
As so many of you know, also my most important topic, or so it seemed, for many years. I say most important because it was a matter of life or death.
Starvation, limits, stuffing, emptiness, desperation, panic, doubt, determination….all these elements were present in my relationship with food and eating. It was in my mind constantly.
I would NOT have said it was holy. It seemed like anything BUT holy.
Food and how I felt about eating and my body was dark, terrible, full of anxiety, and totally twisted and confusing.
I was a total scaredy cat in my mind. This world was not holy, my body not holy, many people not holy, money not holy, my mind not holy, my work not holy, my thoughts not holy.
No wonder I was so freaked out so much of the time! Day to day life was a danger zone!
The way I viewed the universe quite a bit of the time, if you had asked me, was that it was profane, an abomination, unconsecrated…. all the opposites of holy.
And I was a part of the universe, of course.
But what if this moment, this next hour, is a holy one? No matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what is going on around you?
What if it’s this way for some important reason…and you don’t even need to know what reason?
What if when it came to food and eating, that most important baseline wonderful topic, you imagined that just for a moment today (if that’s all you can do) or for the entire day, that you are an incredible holy entity that you have been gifted with caring for.
In this caring, you close your eyes and feel what this body needs, and with gratitude and perhaps awe, you cared for it like it is a most sacred visitor…like Jesus, or Rama, or your fairy godmother arrived to stay with you?
Don’t think about permanently changing your relationship with food and eating. Don’t think about losing twenty pounds, or dieting, or punishing yourself, or exercising, or healing.
This exercise in seeing what is holy around you is for now only, dropping all the plans for the future.
Dropping all thoughts that holiness will appear when you weigh, eat, or do something different.
If you begin to think of ways your life is not going well, or that you can’t do this exercise, then write them down—you can do The Work on these, they are like gold for your awareness.
Holiness is right here in this moment, not because the moment has wealth, happiness, money, or a perfect body in it…not because this moment is in Bali or someplace that looks pretty!
Anyone can do this exercise, it is for everybody. You could be sitting beside a road on a freeway in a pile of garbage. You don’t need any special information or to go somewhere or understand better.
“To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful.”~Anthony De Mello
Even right here, traveling, my whole entire diet is completely different than it is at home (so I think). But it turns out the humans eat here, and have plates and stores and gardens and stoves.
Once again, all I have to do is take care of this particular body, today, and un-learn and un-know whatever I think has to happen to make things holy around here.
Love,
Grace
P.S. I eat papaya, mango, banana, honeydew, watermelon, sticky rice and meat on a stick almost every meal, it seems. OMG where are the green vegetables? “I’m supposed to eat tons of raw green veggies every day.” IS IT TRUE?
P.P.S. If you’re ready to question your stressful thoughts about food and eating, we start an 8 week telecourse soon on this topic–check out the website www.workwithgrace.com