Belle's Journey

[bellefrogette]

well , well, just finished watching the bbc programe about processed foods- mainly WW- and its affects on the body ....all I know is that I knew that I was one of those people who cannot and does not want to do any VLCD without a big dose of green every day, green green green ..no wonder my mood swings are titanic in magnitude ..as for artificial sweetners..sigh..all I can do is cut back cut back cut back and in the end, end it.

 

[bellefrogette]

Gosh I just had such a long shower..I wonder what I was washing away..bought some lime shower gel in boots yesterday and the smell is utterly fab...I am off to my workshop on lucid dreaming and dream traveling. But I am not going to go off and sit myself because I am not at goal weight.I tend to do that. I am going to mingle and speak up.


Inspirational women of the day -Bebe

Her album Pafuera Telaranas is a stunner.

 

[bellefrogette]

Week 22.

Honestly I don’t know what I will do in week 22, I might understand better what works in retrospect. I would love to be in ketosis by the end of the week 22 . All I can see is that I need far more sleep than I am getting and find ways to get to sleep when I do get home.

Review and week ahead

In week 22 I did get more sleep, I certainly paid attention to the importance of dreams and I think that setting up a dream practise will be of great benefit to me..so well done me. I did feel freer during the week at time fending off phone calls with both clarity and warmth. Funny enough the vampires who I said needed me to set up an art group of their won seemed to have set it up cos I saw times listed for the meetings so I was thinking, well I was wrong. I saw one of them and realised that she did not even know the listing has gone up. They had not done anything for weeks but a few weeks ago had given the publication guy the information..in the hopes that by now, it would all be done..a small thing but I still felt that My instinst was correct.


Got more done regarding creativitywise, but still felt that I was waiting and weighting..but well , good week ahead? no plans, just the basics....



So, Week 21,

be busy, but keep a still point within, avoid unnecessary conversations and keep walking, water, weight training and the daily practise of painting in mind.

Women food and God workbook questions for week 21-

4. The fact that 75 percent of Americans are overweight is an often-discussed topic in the media. How has your physical size actually affected your life?


5. On page 52, Geneen reveals that "food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb." This applies to whatever situation or problem is causing you discomfort. She writes, "It could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine. Surfing the Internet." Can you see your own pull toward being unconscious? What has this cost you? Are you able to acknowledge the similarities of these behaviors?



6. Many people think they overeat because they just love the taste of food. "But when you like something, you pay attention to it. When you like something—love something—you take time with it." You want to be present for every moment of it. Weight, Geneen writes, is what happens when you use food to "flatten your life."

How are you flattening your own life? Have you given up on yourself but aren't willing to say so? Do you believe that it's just not possible to live any other way?



7. On pages 53–54, a reader writes to Geneen about her struggle to be Someone Special when she feels like No One in Particular. Were you able to empathize with her? How do you face what you don't want to face without eating?



8. On page 57, Geneen writes that "there is a whole universe to discover between 'I'm feeling empty' and turning to food to make it go away. The problem of weight is predictable. We know what to do when we have that problem. Beat ourselves up. Make ourselves wrong. Eat fewer donuts. But staying with the emptiness—entering it, welcoming it, using it to get to know ourselves better, being able to distinguish the stories we tell ourselves about it from the actual feeling itself—that's radical."

When you think about "emptiness," does it make you want to eat? Is it actually the emptiness itself or is it what you are telling yourself about the emptiness that makes you want to run for food?



9. Just for this moment, just for this hour, imagine not being frightened by any emotion. Imagine you are bigger than any situation, any feeling, any state of being you could ever experience. How does it feel?



10. What do you actually want from being thin or losing weight? And what if it was already here?



11. On page 62, Geneen writes that "Whatever it offers, the reality of your day-to-day life has to be better than the self-inflicted misery you are creating through the stories you are telling yourself. … What if what you needed was right in front of you and you were not recognizing it?"

Look around you right now. Right here. Notice the sounds, the colors. Pay attention to your breath, your arms, your legs. Make a mental list of what you already have. Of the abundance that fills your life. Notice how that changes everything.

 

[bellefrogette]

Inspirational woman of the day- Rosa

Cos sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do .That took a hellava lot of courage..just reminds me not to be such a wuss over small things .

 

[bellefrogette]

Review and week ahead

Women food and God workbook questions for week 21-

4. The fact that 75 percent of Americans are overweight is an often-discussed topic in the media. How has your physical size actually affected your life?

/4...


4-In some ways being over weight has become the main thing in my life every day for years and yet its not being overweight that is the issue though that has been front and centre stage, it’s the sheer amount of mind space that has been devoted to it.

When I think on the reasoning behind using CD, apart from rapid weight loss, the main reason was liberating my mind and my thinking in the everyday. However this has not happened as I wished. - Which is something to think about and become honest about.
It’s the thoughts of food and eating or not eating and dieting. It’s the thoughts that are the crazy makers... giving in or nibbling are only way to negotiate or pause the merry go round of thoughts. To try to give myself some peace ., for s hort while because those thoughts , they never stop.

Its not being overweight that has really stood in the way of anything I have wanted to do, it’s the crazy making thoughts…which have to satisfied, placated, reasoned with, negotiated with in the end given into...so I can get some respite . I can gain some ground but ultimately they back off only to return and sometimes I am too exhausted to do battle.
Being on a great nutritional programme with exercise and green juice and Cd at the core does some good but even that is not dealing with the core issue of the crazy making thinking.

It’s the thinking that is like the hungry ghost; the thinking is the merry go round. The hungry ghost can never be satisfied. Feed it, don’t feed it, it makes no different, it’s hunger is the force of its nature. It is my supreme‘ignorance’ and to think anything will satisfy it. I think I see it, I really think I do.
So what is the solution? Because I simply refuse to accept the cards I have been dealt in this regard . I refuse to accept that this merry go round of thinking is my fare. I refuse.
I looked at a few sites on obsessive or addictive thinking and while some have a lengthy analytical workbook or solution with involved logistical analysis, the most potent to me was from

Find happiness.com

"So, how do we stop addictive thinking? "......
Addictive thinking is unconscious thinking. Thinking is going on without any awareness that thinking is going on. Most people spend their entire lives like this. Addictive thinking is slavery to the mind. The solution is simple. We don't need to change anything. We just need to be aware. Each time we become aware that we are thinking, thinking is interrupted. Each time the chain of thought is broken, peace is there. Awareness is the key.

So to come back to Geneen Roths question my physical size has affected me because it has become a distraction to the main issue.Dieting and even healthy eating has been a solution to the distraction but tnot a solution to the issue. My physical size has become a huge red herring and dealing with my physical size and dealing with the thinking has meant I have spent years going round in circles, missing the point and missing the exist again and again.


Be aware. Be Not being deceived, the thoughts are real enough, but at their heart they are empty, just like the hungry ghost.

I can chose what I want. I am the Captain of my ship,Mistress of my destiny..
aka
The Boss.

p.s as big thanks to 'girlygirl' in her post
cos for me what she wrote about the folly of trying to reason with addictive thoughts was a hugemonster light bulb moment

 

[bellefrogette]

Review and week ahead

Women food and God workbook questions for week 21-

5. On page 52, Geneen reveals that "food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb." This applies to whatever situation or problem is causing you discomfort. She writes, "It could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine. Surfing the Internet." Can you see your own pull toward being unconscious? What has this cost you? Are you able to acknowledge the similarities of these behaviors?

-

/4

5- part 1-

Geneen's emphasis on ‘the food’ yet again misses the point for me. Perhaps because I am not a food addict, and I never was. Likewise I know my natural appetitive for food is quite small. Once I have had the taste of something I have often had enough of it. Eating to fullness was an acquired habit. Having a small appetite is nothing I trained myself to have it was just that once I had tasted it (whatever it was) I has ‘got it’. So food per se was never used to alter emotions, altered emotions were expressed as eating.

So was there a pull to becoming unconscious as Geneen Roth says? Again no. I had become unconscious first and that is the only reason I could and did eat as I did. The acting was actually a kind of protest at what i saw and felt when I was conscious .



I do not have a pull towards being unconscious as Geneen talks about here. So in that respect it doesn’t cost me. The price if there was one was due to being conscious. The price of being conscious, of being awake inside the matrix, and of not knowing the way out. That was painful. Being awake to the everyday trivial, the everyday superficiality, the gossip mags and reality TV and a world which calls the next fluffed up blonde silicon breasted woman beautiful is a confusing world to be awake in. A world rampant with cruelities and bigotries and wars and misues of resources . A world where I am conscious of all that and to cap it all a world where I know just how little it takes to be thought of as a person who matters, ‘be a size 0 or 4 or 6 or 10 ‘ then you matter, you get to go to the ball. To be conscious of that and not know how to navigate through it was too raw.

My eating behaviour has not been some dysfunctional coping mechanism I visited upon myself; it was actually a way of keeping myself sane till I knew how to be captain of my ship and master of my destiny. the fat has been a crafty protective cacoon,well done me.


I never wanted to be part of a group of air headed bimbos talking about nails, hair and relationships on and on . Even though relationship is important and I love fashion and shoes….thats not enough .

The trivia that was supposed to matter to me and restrictions put around my life here as a women , that made me ill . I questioned from a young age, puberty , what is wrong with this picture ? And how can these other people I call friends or family enjoy themselves talking about this crap. But to them it was not crap, it was life. To me was just crazy and idiotic.it was like " I was born to this and for this? Please tell me it isn't so."


Sure food offered some sweetness some satisfaction but I could never eat enough of what I did not want. Hunger for food was not the issue. Hunger for a creative sparkling, vibrant growing evolving life was. I was constantly hungry for something that could really nourish myself with. And I wanted to do it myself .

 

[bellefrogette]

Inspirational woman of the day ,Pandora

 

[bellefrogette]

/2

5-(part2)


The problem with diets is not the diet. The diet is fine. But the diet, in a way removes the distraction of food and worry about ‘when am I going to begin’ .I do have a new distraction which is the fear of coming off , but still..without the major food eating bloatedness foggyness distraction, primary consciousness comes rushing back .Not that it had ever gone anywhere. And then once again I am accutely aware of the superficiality around me and its all too much, I get overwhelmed..and I do not know where to begin.



One thing about ketosis is the alertness it fosters , the weight loss is great but the real jewel for me is the alertness of mine, the clarity, the lifting of the fog and I can hear myself s. I can see clearly into things. And sometimes life coming back into clear focus is all too much .

Or it used to be. I am not the same person I was. I know how to stay away from and remove myself from superficial, trivial people places and things. I know what nourishes me. I know how to navigate, I know what feeding myself means and what it takes . I just have to create th elife I want one step at a time .I have paid a price for this learning, but I would pay the same price many times over to ‘get it’.

This time my weight loss is nothing to do with CD or power walking or going to the gym. This time the weight loss of the after effect of getting it. Which is probably the reason I have told so many people to back off. I do not need their opinion around weight loss. It was never about the weight, it was always about finding my way back home and realising that I never left and that I get to choose the shape of my life and my body.





I am accountable only to my loved ones, and to those who really care about me and can support me as I need to suported. You could be on the surface the most supportive person in the world , but if your support is leading me in the wrong direction, then its my responsibility to know this and to make changes.




Well coming to the end of answering question five and knowing I was never an an addict I am not so sure how much good it is for Geenen to be lumping very different types of behaviour together as she does.





But never mind, the important thing is hat I, finding my way through the maze of life and keeping to my path of light.

 

[bellefrogette]

Inspirational woman of the day-Jodie

 

[bellefrogette]

6. Many people think they overeat because they just love the taste of food. "But when you like something, you pay attention to it. When you like something—love something—you take time with it." You want to be present for every moment of it. Weight, Geneen writes, is what happens when you use food to "flatten your life."
How are you flattening your own life? Have you given up on yourself but aren't willing to say so? Do you believe that it's just not possible to live any other way?

/12.


'Flatten is an interesting phase..but I woke late this morning cos I got in late...so I will not address the question now.

But yesterday was full. It was my first day back at the fashion course and one of the machine girls was there without her mates..she did her best all morning to drag me into talking with her, I ignored her..for freaks sake i even had my ipog plugged in..but could she respect my quiet space..could she hell..she came over and grabbed one of the patterns on my desk and I just told her quite sharply -don't do that- I had to tell her twice before she got that I was telling her to back off.

But one thing i did learn is that for some people talking is almost like a complusion, for them to be silent feels wrong and feels restrictive. All the same I have no need to feed her complusion.. I am taking my quiet space into the world. that way I keep on my programe.

 

[bellefrogette]

Inspirational woman of the day -Bette

 

[bellefrogette]

6. Many people think they overeat because they just love the taste of food. "But when you like something, you pay attention to it. When you like something—love something—you take time with it." You want to be present for every moment of it. Weight, Geneen writes, is what happens when you use food to "flatten your life."
How are you flattening your own life? Have you given up on yourself but aren't willing to say so? Do you believe that it's just not possible to live any other way?


/13
6.( part1)


Its seems like basic common sense to see that with life in this dimension there are highs and lows, intensities and a whole range of emotions and feelings. There are sticky seemingly stuck places. There are things, which fill me with despair and anger, and other things which if I let them I am quite happy about. The thing is, life is variety, intensity and all manner of odd and ends. So how does the urge to flatten come about?


I think the urge has much deeper roots than anything to do with either food or eating .I think it’s an expression of a desire to still, or slow things. Not that deep spiritual stillness and silence that is so necessary to my well being. But a kind of stilling the impact of the noise of the world on me, I was also trying to suppress and numb myself to overwhelming stimulus.

Eating for me is a response to some of the stresses of living and the biochemical effect of eating the carbs and sugars is a type of numbing. I actually do not like that numbing and flattening effect. There may have been a time when it was effective, but it stopped really be useful, many year ago. All I have left in that regard is a coping mechanism, which really doesn’t help me cope to a situation that isn’t really the same problem it was many years ago.

In truth all the flattening and numbing does is divert a lot of attention and resources to the business of eating and weight loss. Everything else moves to the background, the far background, because the wrestle with eating and weight loss becomes all consuming...and that is not just metaphorical. The all consuming-ness just eats all the energy and attention and resources in my day and of course the circularity of it all exhausts me.

 

[bellefrogette]

inspirational woman of the day Rachael

 

[bellefrogette]

Week 20


Does time fly or what?

 

[bellefrogette]

:character00115:/13

I have set my target lower 128 instead of 138. I have gone 10lbs lower because I was to have a greater margin for muscle . I like 128, which is 9/2. since I am 5.8 I can still be healthy at 128.also I was looking at

todays

Inspirational woman odf the day -Naomi

she is 5'9" and at 110lbs and she looks both athletic curvy and healthy, not skinny at all. So 128 for me is fine.

 

[bellefrogette]

7. On pages 53–54, a reader writes to Geneen about her struggle to be Someone Special when she feels like No One in Particular. Were you able to empathize with her? How do you face what you don't want to face without eating?

 

[bellefrogette]

8. On page 57, Geneen writes that "there is a whole universe to discover between 'I'm feeling empty' and turning to food to make it go away.

 

[bellefrogette]

9. Just for this moment, just for this hour, imagine not being frightened by any emotion. Imagine you are bigger than any situation, any feeling, any state of being you could ever experience. How does it feel?


:character00115:/12


9- Bliss, normal, how I am supposed to feel.I recall some thing nina simone said on an interview, she wondered what it would be like to feel 'no more fear'. We'll that is what it would feel like- no more fear.

 

[bellefrogette]

Inspirational woman of the day, Anais

 

[bellefrogette]

- update on 128lbs

just to be sure i went to this website to check out again what 128lbs looks like on a 5'8" body cos I read somewere this morning that Naomi Campbell is closer to 105lbs and she is almost 5'10 , who knows what is accurate , but I would like to stay at 128.

So on My Body Gallery..130 on a 5'8" looks slender and healthy , not skinny, not thin, but definately slender . I like this website cos the women look real.

Bella