I want to be the best mother I can be,
to honor my children
by providing boundaries.
Allow me to be in the moment with them,
soaking in all their love
and giving back with mine.
Create the will for my children
to come to me with their problems,
feeling safe, loved and cared for
comforted by my presence.
Today, I will love, care and provide for myself; only then can I give these priceless gifts away.
* for other inspirational affirmation and prayers, please go to: Prayables.
One of the hardest things in life for me is to stay in the moment. I need to really practice it. I am especially reminded of this as my eldest daughter turns six this week. I am shocked at how fast we arrived at this point in time. Six? Six? The night before Lil had her birthday, my husband (Tim) and I looked at each other as we sat on the sofa, without saying a word. Our eyes said it all: “Where did the time go?” We grabbed each other’s hands to soothe each other. Our children are growing up (fast!), so a mindful consciousness of every moment is all we have to preserve our memories of this precious time.
Time and again, I recognize my resistance to be outside of myself and, instead, dwell in the wreckage of my past, or future…the worrying about what has happened or may never be. It was only this morning that I gathered up my light, peaceful, purple Gaiam yoga mat (bought a year ago and still with its packaging on it), and took off to my local gym for a yoga class. As I lie in corpse pose, at the end of the class, staring at the bright, illuminated lights of the indoor basketball court, I catch myself: “Come back Rob,” I say in my mind. Refocusing, right there, I place my attention on the brightness of the yellow light radiating out of the industrial silver fixtures that remind me of a gigantic margarita glass. “I am here,” I tell myself.
How many times have I been with the loves of my life, captured in an embrace, or chatting with my best friend and yet I am only half there? Continue reading
It is Mother’s Day
You are not here
Are you?
It is a time
place
mixed with memories
and the creation of new ones
I am a motherless daughter
I am a Mother
Without you
Yet
Let this poem not be about sadness
Let it be of joy
Of love
Of thanks
That you once were
That I once had
That your legacy remains to witness
you still being
Apart of
I’ve never been one for exercise. Well, let me rephrase that. I’ve never been one for consistent exercise. With my eating disorder history, which included yo-yo dieting and compulsive thinking around my body image and food, I really couldn’t be bothered with exercise after I got into recovery.
I have been fully recovered from my eating disorder for ten years, and I am a mom with two young children who need my attention. I get tired. I have “down” days. Some days I get really down, especially in the winter. I get restless, angry and quite frankly moody. It was because of this that I decided to try exercise. Truth be told, people had been telling me to do it for years: “It will help your mood,” “It will cut down fatigue,” “It will help you feel good.” But the sense memory of having to exercise after a binge, or trying to control my weight by not eating and therefore not exercising, in order to stave off hunger — it was a tape that had played in my mind so often that exercise just wasn’t worth it for me…or so I thought.
I have lived with self-imposed urgency most of my life. I think having children has encouraged it. At times I have made myself so busy, I feel like my head is going to propel off my shoulders. I’ll tell you something; it would probably do me a world of good if my head would leave my body for a bit. It just gets in the way sometimes.
You know that acute sense of having to get something done? That’s what I refer to as Self-Imposed Urgency. We experience the feeling, even though there is nothing externally demanding that we must rush. It’s like when we race through traffic, flipping people off because they won’t get out of the way and we need to get home. Only when we get home, there is nothing to be done. Or when we have a to-do list that we run around to complete before the end of the day so that we can go out to a function…only it’s already afternoon, and we need to get ready. Our heads are telling us that we must finish the to-do list first! There’s no impending doom if we don’t. But somehow in our minds we have managed to work ourselves up to a point of urgency that has no truth to it whatsoever — that’s self-imposed urgency! Continue reading
Sometimes I lose my voice. Well, it may not seem that way because I’m busy yelling at my children or spouse, or grunting at everyone in my way at the grocery store, but I’ve lost my voice, all right.
When I say I have lost my voice, I am referring to that voice I hear deep inside myself when I am in the midst of a conversation with someone, and they start telling me something that I don’t agree with. I just sit there biting my lip, feeling judged, wanting the drama to go away, but that little voice inside me says, “Hey, what about me?”
That’s my voice. That’s my truth wanting to be heard.
It’s almost innate to ignore myself on some days. I want to be everything to everyone. I want to be liked. But I’m not convinced, having lived this way for quite some time now, that it is worth it. Surely, it’s okay to be me? It’s okay to be you, after all!
In our culture, many of us have been taught to keep our mouths shut. Good girls don’t talk back or rock the boat. So good girls get a lot of headaches, feel exhausted and depressed and suffer because their insides are screaming…all because we think it’s “bad” when we have to correct someone or stand up for ourselves. That’s how I feel. The truth is, I can have a voice without being bad/rude. I can have a voice and keep friends, too. I/We can have a voice and be heard. Continue reading
I love cupcakes. Even though I’m more a frosting person, if I get a really good cupcake, like those from Sprinkles Cupcakes, located in Beverly Hills in California, I’d for sure eat the entire thing (Its not only the delicious sweet shot of soft delectable frosting that magically blends into airy cake tasting of pure love, it is also about the guilt-free message I send to my brain each time I allow myself to have what my body asks for when it is hungry: “You can have your cake and eat it too.” There is something about the permission of having my cupcake in all its fine yumminess that removes the forbidden qualities of it and alter the way I look at the food. Lets face it, cupcakes are one of the most “forbidden” diet foods there is. With it’s perfectly sized, sugar laced enticing flavors we immediately label it “unforgivable,” to achieving our “perfect,” “ideal,” “socially acceptable” body weight that we often set up a craving for it by the simply fact that we have told ourselves we can’t have it. Emotionally we set ourselves up for the “good” and “bad” mentality that leaves no room to clearly hear what own body is asking from us.
What would happen if we gave ourselves permission to have anything we wanted to eat, following only three basic rules? Continue reading
Eating disorders are BIG FAT liars. It told me so many things that had me confiding in it on a daily basis.
Looking back, if I had only checked out the lies sooner, I could have saved myself some time, calories, lack of and had a lot more joy in the life that was sucked out of me.
Its not like I was naive, or even close. I knew deep down in my “don’t hurt yourself” chakra that the things eating disorder was saying didn’t add up. I knew that the diet industry supported a lot of the big fat liars crap it was feeding me also.
I also knew the crap that went along with modeling and the airbrushing that took place after models’ often-unimpressive photos shoots. I even knew this first-hand. I had been a professional actress. I knew the moves to make during a photo shoot to make your jaw line look defined and pointy. I knew what angle the photographer needed to shoot to make me look rail-like. I knew that most of the “glamorous world” was smoke and mirrors, but somehow, I wanted to be the exception. I was seeking a meaning of perfection that made me worthwhile. It was a state of mind that would never be obtained. The bar rose as my weight went down. It wasn’t real! Continue reading
I am not kidding you when I tell you that I use to feel crazy every time I dieted. I was angry, annoyed at everyone, and just outright rude most of the time. So wanting to be well informed, I decided to do some research myself, on what I had already imagined must be true.
The link between poor diets and depression is something scholars and mental health physicians have been researching for many years. With anorexia nervosa having the highest mortality rate of any mental health issue, there is no wonder there is an interest in such research. Continue reading
If you have ever asked yourself how you can help those you love and care for who suffer (as I have) from an eating disorder, then this article is for you.
Eating disorder awareness has been growing stronger over the past ten years, with many giving voices to the crippling impact that eating disorders have on lives. But still millions are suffering and dying from this predominantly misunderstood disease. Its devastating effects create the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Those suffering are stuck in a world of disturbance that not only consumes them, but greatly impacts the lives of those around them. Continue reading
