Healthy Weight Sadhana – Day 39 – The Web Of Life

It’s Valentine’s Day, a day where many are happy and many are sad, many are spending time with someone special and many are alone.

I’ve decided after seven long years to finally finish one aspect of my life that I had been putting off for some reason or another for ages; becoming a labor doula. I have two lovely children both born at home. They were awesome births and I had always wanted to have more children, four to be exact. Coming from a small family of two I loved the idea of creating a large family and four has always been my favorite number, but hey, when it came down to thinking about having babies I would have gone past four if I could have. My husband, on the other hand, has three children, now grown, from a previous marriage. When we met he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to have any more children and after a breakup, many hours, days, weeks and months of therapy and talking we decided on two. I won’t lie, I still would love to have more, but my husband is also now a cancer survivor and with his age and his health it has become yet another reason to not go past the two children limit. I had a hard time dealing with it and many more hours and weeks and months of therapy and talking about it helped me to come to terms that I was not going to be having any more babies. It didn’t stop me from crying when we all recently visited my midwife’s office for a well woman visit. I hadn’t been in her office since I was pregnant and being back in that cozy space with such an inspirational woman as my midwife and looking at all the familiar pictures and birthing books people had made…well…I needed a moment, or two, or three….I needed a couple of moments. How could I turn around this passion for pregnancy and babies and make it work so I could deal with the strong feelings of desire to be part of that world again? Through service of course!

Like many things of importance that happen in my life, the universe led me to the answer. I had been enrolled in a labor doula and childbirth education course for seven years and hadn’t done a thing with it. I am admittedly not a good online learner. I need someone to engage me, give me a deadline, tell me it has to get done. With online work and no deadline I allowed other things to get in the way and put off learning. I saw an advertisement for a labor doula training happening right in my own neck of the woods by people I knew who ran a successful doula business. I went to my husband and said, “That’s it, I’m signing up for this course and I am going to get certified once and for all!” He saw that gleam in my eye that showed that there was going to be no room for discussion with the issue. He saw that I needed this, he saw the spark, the reigniting of the flame. So I begin my training later this month and in the meantime am looking for pregnant women to allow me to serve them as a doula in training, since I need three births for certification.

Pregnant anyone? Contact me!

What does this have to do with Valentines Day or a healthy weight sadhana, well, I’m getting to that, just in a long round about way. One of the required books to read for certification is, “Birthing From Within” by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. This book had been sitting on my shelf for years collecting dust. This morning I took it down and began to devour every sentence. While reading I found the inspiration for today’s post.

We are never alone.

I spoke to you about cooking consciously with love the other day, really connecting with your food. Today I am going to go deeper into mindful eating. In the “Birthing From Within” book the authors talk about “Eating The Universe”, the act of breaking down all that is contained in the food you are about to eat. They used milk as an example, I am going to use an apple. If you have an apple around (of course you can do this with any food), go get one and do this exercise:

As you eat your apple come to full awareness that absolutely everything in the universe is contained in that apple .

You will find the clouds that created the rain that helped the seed to sprout out of the soil, the Earth itself. You will find the sunshine that made the sprout grow into a tree and the bees that helped pollinate the tree and the farmer that supported the tree in its growth. You will find all of the farmers workers who assisted that apple to get to your plate, from the pickers, packers, and drivers, to the employees at the store or farmers market that took your apple and placed it out with others to sell. You will find the cashier who rung your sale up.

The universe is in your apple. You are not alone when you eat it. As you eat this apple it will nourish you, become part of you and as you are part of the world it’s link continues on in you.

Practice eating with awareness, being in the present and being mindful. Make eating a meditation realizing that we are all connected, even down to the food we eat.

If you are alone this Valentine’s Day realize that really, we are never alone. Open yourself to the beautiful web of life that we are all part of and do so with love.

Much love from me to all of you!