Tag Archives: healthy food choices

What’s to Love about Canada Food Guide 2019

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You know when you’re expecting something and it’s late and you begin to doubt it’s ever going to happen, and then it does and it’s better than you had hoped?

That’s pretty much how I feel about the Canada Food Guide 2019 which was finally released this week. Here are my thoughts as to why you might want be just as excited.

Health Canada has been sharing food rules since 1942, to help Canadians get adequate nutrients during rationing, as well as stimulating the agricultural economy. They developed it over the years, based on what researchers (and politicians) considered the best nutrition for us as a general population.

As a recent report on Global News so aptly stated, it has always included “dairy, beef and grains with a side of vegetables”. The new guide, however, takes the focus off those particular foods, does away with the 4 food groups we all grew up with, and places the emphasis on the composition of your meals.

canada-food-guide-2019-health-canada
Health Canada – Canada Food Guide 2019

Before even reading the details, this image speaks volumes in a clear and simple way. The big picture of this Canada Food Guide 2019 plate: whole food and the importance of eating habits!

Here’s my take on the key points of Canada Food Guide 2019:

1. Eat vegetables and fruits

Half your plate’s worth!

Again, the picture says it all: eat as many colours and textures and types of produce, cooked and raw, as you can in a given day. If you take this to be your plate at every meal, it tells you to eat fruit or veg every time you eat. Yes!

The benefits:

  • a variety of flavour
  • a mix of fibres – soluble and insolube
  • key vitamins & minerals, such calcium, magnesium, iron and vitamins A&C
  • each colour comes with its own array of phytochemicals – the plant-based antioxidants that provide your cells and immune systems with the wherewithal to prevent and minimize disease

2. Eat protein foods

While we’ve all become aware, to the point of obsession, that we need to eat an adequate amount of protein, this section makes for a more inclusive approach.

In former versions, the Canada Food Guide emphasized meat and dairy as 2 core parts of healthy eating. It all but ignored people with different health concerns, cultures and values whose diets don’t necessarily, or can’t, include those foods.

While critics have worried about the elimination of beef and dairy, they are not gone entirely. You will find these foods among the vast array of proteins you can enjoy, depending on your tastes, etc.

That this category puts a focus on plant-based protein allows for a more balanced intake of that nutrient. The plate as a whole is mostly plants; animal food is there in a healthier proportion.

Other than fibre, vitamins and minerals in plant-based protein, having a variety of sources allows you to stay within the 15% your body is best suited to consume. An animal-based diet tips you over than amount. Too much protein displaces the other macronutrients from your daily intake and makes your liver and kidneys work harder than they need.

3. Eat Whole Grain Food

This one made me jump up and down with joy!

Canada Food Guide 2019 encourages the consumption of whole grains or products made from the “whole grain”, that is, it tells you to cut down on most flour-based products.

These are part of your good carbs, ladies!

While the debate continues as to whether we should be eating grains at all, this is a step in the right direction.

Fibre, vitamins, minerals, a bit of protein and good fat are what they provide nutritionally. Not to mention deliciousness and texture and feeling satisfied longer… the best kind of comfort food!

4. Make water your drink of choice

…rather than sugary alternatives, which, yes, includes fruit juice.

More than simply replenishing losses, staying properly hydrated

  • improves digestion and elimination
  • regulates blood pressure
  • helps clear out the garbage
  • supports all metabolic functions, that is, keeps you energised!

Each of the above sections of Canada Food Guide 2019 offers practical information about how to prepare or incorporate items into your lifestyle. What a pro-active way to get people taking those first baby steps!

The most exciting part about Canada Food Guide 2019: a focus on eating habits as part of your nourishment.

These sections are

Be mindful of your eating habits: the importance of your physical and emotional environment as you eat; AND listening to your body for hunger and satiety signals, as well as using all 5 senses to eat!

Cook more often: even one meal a week to start (for those who don’t yet cook) makes a difference!

Enjoy your food: includes being open to try new things and maybe even grow some of it yourself; cultural and food traditions are an integrative part of that enjoyment. Read: bring your meals back to an experience much greater than your body and the food on your plate

Eat meals with others: shared meals is a part of how you connect to each other and has an impact on appetite, healthy food choices and how well you digest.

eat-meals-with-others-health-canada

The new guide raises a red flag around food marketing. Furthermore, the committee refused to meet with special interest groups in developing Canada Food Guide 2019. The emphasis for these new Canadian Food Rules is about what’s best for our health as individuals.

Canadians are encouraged to steer clear of processed food, read labels and make room for the way Nature offers nutrients. Little or nothing added, little or nothing taken away.

What Health Canada has proposed here feels like we’re moving back towards what we now refer to as “traditional diets”. It takes some of the focus off specific food and elevates the necessity of eating to an essential element within cultural and community health… all part of your physical health.

Not every long anticipated event can be without its small disappointments

The guide is lacking more comprehensive, up-to-date information about fats & oils, and the best choices. The good news here: action has been taken to eradicate trans fats and their production from our food.

My colleagues and I will continue this part of the discussion, teaching Canadians about the benefits of adequate fats and how to best assimilate them as part of your ideal eating pattern.

How to eat better is an on-going conversation about what is optimal foodwise for Canadians, well, for all modern people. I look forward to being a part of the, for the benefit of my family, my clients and my community.

How do you feel about the changes to the Canada Food Guide? Does it bring up questions, confusion, frustration? Are you as excited as I am about the possibilities of where this can lead us? When you share your thoughts in the comments, you open those possibilities for others.

The Perfectionist’s Guide to Good Eating

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There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

That old Mother Goose nursery rhyme comes to mind often in my work. Women sitting there telling me of all the beautiful meals they make for themselves “when I’m being good.” There’s a self-righteousness to these parts of their food day, a certain pride in the fact that they’ve learned the rules and show a sense of discipline.

These same women go on to tell me about later in the day – during that afternoon dip or once supper’s over and they’ve settled in front of the TV. That’s “when I’m being bad” and their poor food habits show up. When the office candy bowl and cookies and ice cream and the repeat visits to the fridge take over all sense of reason or strength of will.

One client recently referred to such bad habits as “sins” – insinuating that there is a moral transgression being committed, one punishable by God. Ouch.

Is that tendency a part of the perfectionist’s personality? That when you’re being good, you’re very, very good, and when you’re bad you do so with equal zeal? Which certainly translates to those sins being well worth the self-flagellation and berating you offer yourself in return. Double ouch.

 

That’s the kind of black and white thinking your inner perfectionist no-doubt craves. There ends up being no room for grey zones.

Unfortunately, nutritional advice has evolved into nothing less than one huge grey zone.

The lines get very blurry from one style of eating to the next, and even blurrier between experts on a given style.

Even so, when you decide on a specific set of rules, you will accept nothing less of yourself than following those rules to the letter as outlined by one of said experts. Sometimes to the sacrifice of your likes and dislikes. Or in ignorance of your emotional state or how active you’ve been or the fluctuations through your cycle. Sometimes cutting out any sense of celebration.

Yet, when it comes to “good” and “bad” food choices, there can be no absolutes.

I do the air-quote thing on purpose when using those words with students or clients. I want to emphasize the fact that the goodness or badness of a food or an eating habit is relative.

good and bad food choices

Here’s what I mean:

We all know sugar is “bad” for us, more so for those dealing with such conditions as Type II diabetes or cancer. Even when calming inflammation of any kind (including those 15 lbs that have set up camp on your middle), sugar will feed the issue.

In that sense, sugars from any source need to be taken into consideration, whether it’s from a candy bar or a PB&J or a carrot or a glass of wine. At the end of the day, they all contribute to how much sugar you’ve taken in. That is, the carrot has potentially become one of the “bad” guys.

That said, sugar is our cleanest energy source and getting a certain amount (up to 10% of your daily calories) makes life a heck of a lot more pleasant and your body function more efficiently. When you focus on whole foods and eliminate the added sugars, you can easily stay within those limits. At which point a carrot, full of fibre and antioxidants along with the sugar, is a “good” source.

Make sense?

In In Defense of Foods, Michael Pollan shares another great example from psychologist Paul Rozin.

From a list of foods, study participants were asked to consider which food item from a given list they would choose to have on a desert island (along with water). Participants chose bananas, spinach, corn, alfalfa sprouts or peaches over hot dogs or milk chocolate.

However, on that desert island, that hot dog might be your only source of protein for a few days, the chocolate will keep your blood sugar happy and your mind alert. Of all of the above, they would increase your chance of survival.

 

And then we get into the actual enjoyment of good food.

How well will your body take in and use the nutrients of a healthy bowl of steel-cut oats and ground flax if the texture grosses you out and you can barely swallow, let alone chew it? If you pinch your nose to get through the steamed kale, is it possible your cells will be pinched on the inside?

In Chinese tradition, when the shen (your spirit) tastes the food or herbs in your mouth, that is the first stage of your organism’s ability to take it in.

If you prefer physiological facts, think about your parasympathetic nervous system. You know the relaxation response, that is, the part of you in charge of “rest and digest.”

Call to mind the most delicious thing you’ve eaten this week. (Seriously, do it!)

Remember taking that first bite – how buttery or complex or pungent it was – what happens in your body? As you imagine the flavours expanding in your mouth, don’t your shoulders drop? Do you maybe let out a big sigh and fall back in your chair ever so slightly? You’ve relaxed –  engaged the PNS – improved your digestion by simply savouring your meal.

Now repeat the exercise with the last thing you ate out of righteousness. I’ll bet you feel a little more tense from that one.

Which brings up the question, is food “good” because of its nutrient profile or because it tastes good?

Engaging your taste buds also attunes you to the fact that tasting “bad” may mean that a food has gone bad; mouldy or rancid or rotten. It may be telling you that the food in question is actually bad for you in some other way. Try eating a fast-food burger slowly, savouring every bite. How does it actually taste?

Feeling bad – physically, mentally or emotionally – after eating a particular food is another way your body tells you to steer clear. This is your individual decision, regardless of how nutritious the actual food.

 

Do I have a solution to offer you for maintaining good eating habits?

I prefer to think that you have the solution by listening to your body through practices such as

* Mindful eating – slow, deliberate and seasoned with gratitude. This extends to mindful planning, grocery shopping and cooking. As they say, most of healthy eating is in the prep.

* Engage the relaxation response throughout your day, with breathing exercises, meditation or generally loosening the strictures on your image of what the “perfect” (yes, that one’s relative too) meal, or the “perfect” life, need be.

* Forgive yourself when you’ve been “bad”, knowing you can start again at the next meal. Beating yourself up for your less than “perfect” choices does you more harm in the long run that the junk food.

* Take responsibility for your choices. Stay away from stuff you know is “bad” for you (see above). If, however, you choose to go ahead, know that it may involve consequences on one level or another. YOU have the power of choice over the food you put in your mouth, not the other way around!

* Step back and explore your emotional state before you go back for that second helping of [insert “bad” choice].

Rather than a grey zone, I prefer to think of healthy eating habits as a full-spectrum. Not black & white, but exploding with colour. Just like all the best food.

The word “healthy” comes from the same root as “whole”. By letting your whole self be a part of the action – the “good” bits and the “bad” bits of you – you are feeding yourself from a place of fulfillment. You fill yourself with more than parcels of nutrients (or junk) and will be more satisfied and healthier for it.

 

Which part of your eating habits do you consider “bad” and what do you do to make it better? When you offer your thoughts in the comments, you open the possibilities for others.

Share this post with any friends struggling with getting control of their eating habits by using any (or all!) of the pretty green buttons.

The Magic Wand for Eating Right

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“I want to eat right, but I want it to happen like magic.”

OK, maybe the request isn’t spelled in such blatant terms, but the message is there. Clients arrive in my office with the apparent hope that I will have the magic wand to turn their belly fat, their fatigue, their achy joints and all their troubles into happy endings.

In a sense I do, though, like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, I’ll make her work for it. Have her gather all the necessary pieces so that I can help her turn them into what she wants.

Being the diverse mosaic of humans that we are, there’s obviously no one-size-fits-all solution to the quandary of eating right. The map for your healing journey will be different from anyone else’s.

And yet, there is a common ground to that human-ness, to the nourishment it takes to feed a vibrant woman. So, that the answer to that question of “How do I eat better?” really is as simple as the wave of a magic wand. It’s a guideline that goes like this:

Reduce any food that causes you trouble and increase those that nourish you.

Bibbity-bobbity-boo!

Very general, yes. Think of it as a forest path with several possible routes to get you to that garden of health you long for.

 

Explore the possible paths by listening to your body.

Eat less of anything you know you are, or to which you even suspect you are, sensitive. This could mean a full-on allergy (walnuts give you hives), an intolerance (lactose gives you cramps), or just some random item that makes you feel “wrong” (raw cabbage makes your eyes itch, grapes make you sleepy, oats turn you into a screaming banshee).

Logical or not, common or not, if you react to it in an adverse way, your body is saying “No” …at least for now.

Periodically avoid the items that are generally hard to digest or make your body work harder in other ways. These include such items as dairy, gluten, red meat, sugar, alcohol, poor quality fats, chemical additives. You don’t necessarily need to give these up permanently (ok maybe the additives and the poor fats), but give yourself a periodic break.

Whether you notice that they cause distress or not, they do add to your stress load.

Holistic nutritionist Jessica Sherman sees our capacity to deal with stress like a glass: the more you add to it, the more likely things will spill over into an inability to function or disease or irritability or weight gain or any of the myriad reactions we experience when our energy is drained under stress.

Staying away from foods that cause you stress, physical or otherwise, will allow you to keep enough room in that glass for the stuff you can’t avoid (the jerk at the office) or for when the rug gets pulled out from under you (your husband says it’s over) and you need the reserve.

Eat more nutrient dense food. Food that gives you more nutritious bang for your caloric buck.

Whole food. (Not sure what that means, or think you do? Read more here.)

Here’s a fairy godmother trick for you to ensure nutrient density.  Think of it as the Magic Looking Glass through which you can consider everything you eat.

magic of eating right

Make sure every meal and every snack contains some amount of protein, fat and fibre. Bonus points if you include something green.

Here’s why:

Protein: Needed to make all the functional molecules in your body and to maintain all of your structure. It’s easier to access when consumed in small amounts with other foods through the day. Get details on how much protein you need daily and food sources here. Get the deep story on why we need protein here.

Fat: Slows your digestion to help level out blood sugar; needed for your hormone balance, efficient metabolism and to help you absorb minerals and fat-soluble vitamins. Get the skinny on fat here.

Fibre: Will help you feel satisfied (and stay that way longer); feeds the friendly flora in your gut; gives your digestive tract a good workout and grabs all the garbage for removal. Here’s the real reason you need fibre AND this one outlines the benefits of whole carbohydrates (where you find fibre).

Green (plant) food contains magnesium. Of the 500+ jobs that magnesium does in your body, it is key to your hormone balance (in men that magic mineral is zinc); it helps your body release energy from food; it gets depleted under stress and yet it helps your body recover from the effects of stress.

Ex. Apple with nut butter (pumpkin seed butter)
Eggs with sweet potato and leafy greens
Chicken & vegetables (at least one green)
Rice cakes (or other whole grain/seed cracker) & black bean dip, drizzle with olive oil (add a pinch of arugula or cilantro)
Red beans & brown rice with avocado (really yummy with steamed broccoli)

What about all the other vitamins and minerals?

I’m glad you asked.

When you choose nutrient dense food, whole food that is naturally nutrient dense, you are choosing food that already contains the vitamins and minerals needed to digest, assimilate and metabolise that food.

And here’s my little secret: when you feed your body such nourishing food on a regular basis, then, having felt the difference, your body will start to crave those very things!

Like in the fairy tales, this magic mirror reflects something more than the beauty of your meals. It is showing you a way that you can up your self-care. It shows you one of the ways that you express self-love.

How’s that for a magic wand?

 

Think about the last 3 meals you ate through that filter, and let us know how they fared. Any improvements may be one small step away and sharing these tweaks opens the possibilities for others.

 

Let all your friends know about this simple trick by clicking any (or all!) of the pretty green buttons.

Why Guilty Pleasure is Good for You

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My neighbour and I had been trying for weeks to get together. With opposite work schedules and kids’ stuff, it was getting ridiculous. Last week, she noticed that the movie we’d been attempting to see in the theatre was available on demand, so she suggested a daytime date.

Perfect. We found an afternoon that suited us both. “Any guilty pleasures foodwise?” she texted. “We should treat ourselves to a fun lunch while we watch!” Which translates as junk food: anything greasy, salty or sweet.

I loved the idea – a yummy lunch AND a movie while our kids are at school! So as not to fall completely into eating junk, I picked up some local cheddar and fresh sourdough, made upscale grilled cheeses with a fennel salad, sweet potato fries and a delectable ginger cake. It was a fantastic meal that fit the junk food bill without going so far overboard that I’d regret it later.

We indeed had a fun lunch.

The movie wasn’t as fabulous as we’d hoped, given the weeks of anticipation, but it fuelled our conversation through tea and dessert before the kids got home. Though we were in the kitchen by that point, her son walked in, took one look at the placemats we’d left of the coffee table and asked accusingly, “Did you eat in front of the TV?!?”

Up until then, the day had been pleasurable. I was gob-smacked to notice that those words from a 9-year-old brought on the guilt. For the briefest of moments, I was frozen with my hand in the cookie jar.

 

Guilt comes from doing something we feel we shouldn’t do. It’s about stuff we’re afraid to admit we do, like, want.

For me, guilt doesn’t show up with eating chocolate cake or ice cream or a bag of chips – I have no qualms in satisfying those yens from time to time. That said, I’ve recently woken up to the fact that eating what I ought not eat, especially too frequently or in too large quantities, is actually a punishment – the part that flies right past the guilt and hits hard. (You can read that particular story here.)

The guilt that day came from the feeling that I’d been breaking the rules.

As a mother I work damn hard to uphold the rules. In terms of eating, that might mean ensuring that meals happen at the table and with a good dose of vegetables. I’m also known to harp on to anyone who’s not present to their food, by reading or checking email during breakfast.

There’s an assumption – a self-induced theory to the structure of my days – that while others are busy at the office or school, I too am working. Whether it’s paid work or volunteer or getting Christmas planned doesn’t matter, so long as it’s work. Something useful and productive. As a result, I seem to have created compartments in my mind for when one is expected to be serious and when one is allowed to have fun.

Choosing to watch a movie over lunch in the middle of a random Wednesday afternoon broke that rule…even if the naughtiness of it was a part of the pleasure.

The guilt – the shame – came in the being found out, like a teenager who sees the only thing wrong with her behaviour is getting caught.

Was it in the 90s when people started spouting that “guilt is a useless emotion”? I remember my mother-ex-in-law explaining it to me; how, like worry, it doesn’t have any function other than to tie you in internal knots. Perhaps, like worry, guilt’s function is to point us in the direction of that which needs to change, where we need to set something in motion outside of ourselves.

This particular afternoon of hookie brought my awareness to how much I strive to, if not always follow the rules, at least give the impression that I am. This is my inner teenager, who learned how to rebel without getting caught…and perhaps, without willing to go too far out of her comfort zone.

My predilection for rules got me labeled as the goody-goody more often than I care to admit. This week’s taste of guilty pleasure reminded me that I can follow the rules and be productive and useful, but I don’t need to take it all so seriously. I’m not going to be struck from above for having a bit of fun.

Yes, it’s important that I stick to a certain structure for the sake of my business and my family. It’s important that I take proper care of myself, to feed myself nourishing food and avoid the things that cause me harm, but it doesn’t need to be serious. Those 2 attitudes don’t need to walk constantly hand-in-hand. In this case, it means that a “fun” meal can also have elements of healthy – that a healthy lunch can be fun.

The pleasure of food comes from the delicious combination of colours, textures, flavours,… without going overboard into the realm of punishment. Within that pleasure, letting loose into “cheating” or being “naughty” means making choices that veer from my daily regime, and for the most part, they happen consciously. While this may sound like the goody-goody version of letting loose, I’ve been having a lot of fun with how I nourish myself lately.


Playful smoothie combinations or topping my bowl with (sweetened, but beautifully jewel-coloured) dry cranberries

Opting for frozen sweet potato fries and melted cheese

Eating lunch in front of the TV…by myself!

Cooking a meal just for me, that I will adore.

The nourishment of pleasure goes beyond food choices:

  •       Waking a half-hour early to have the whole house to myself while I journal and pull a card or two
  •       Working in the hot sun at the dining table (the deck in summer) rather than my desk
  •       “Abandoning” my family to walk home from the hockey arena on a warm day.

 

By taking delight in these small moments through my day, I’m rejuvenating body and soul at a whole other level. I’m raising oxytocin levels, boosting motivation and charging creative energy in one fell swoop.

By putting the focus on enjoyment, it lightens the guilt, takes the shame out of the closet for air. (As I’ve said before, air and light are kryptonite to shame.)

Have I been so steeped in the model that that “useful” is the only acceptable daytime activity, that I’ve come to fear judgment from on high if I choose otherwise?

In taking my need for pleasure out to play, letting a crack open in the veneer of perfection I think I need to maintain, I’m opening myself to the momentary freedom of not having to care what others think.

Where the guilt I noticed the other day felt like hiding, instead I’ve created the space for my needs to step forward, step out, be seen – regardless of whether others find them acceptable. In opening up those needs, I take away the struggle and give them permission to be met.

If that’s not healthy, I don’t know what is.

 

So, tell me, which guilty pleasure is calling to you today? Tell us here – when you share in the comments, you open the possibilities for others – then go and fulfull it! …Then come back to let us know it felt!

If you’d rather rather whisper this stuff quietly, join the WH community and share your secrets with us in the comfort of the closed Whole Health Dinner Party group. I’ll be in there later in the week to mull over more thoughts about guilt, pleasure and creating better habits.

Are You Your Body’s Worst Enemy?

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Have you ever been hit with a smack-in-your-face reality check and wonder why it took you so long to figure this out? The kind that makes you wonder how you could be so stupid…how could you have let it happen when you clearly know better?

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling terrific. I was emerging more & more from the shell of safety I’d built around myself during the big move. My thoughts were much more clear than they had been since the car accident, and though my belly was giving me occasional grief, my body was reacquainting me with the strength and resilience I thought I’d lost to the downhill slide of middle age.

I took a little trip home to Montreal to visit friends and such. At an acupressure session, I was reawakened to the deep healing you get from going for tune-up support rather than damage control. I walked out feeling like a million bucks!

That night, I went out for the first in a series of overly permissive meals, all in the name of my birthday. I proceeded to indulge, at one point or other over the next 2 days, in ALL the things I usually avoid out of concern for my health… at times, all at once.

I mean, come on, this was a time to be celebrating, a time to let myself go and enjoy.

While I’d just had all this lovely energetic work done on my digestive system, and was fully aware that taking it easy was important – in the same way that it’s best to avoid a big workout after a massage or chiropractic adjustment  – I still let my elbow be twisted about sharing a bottle of wine, I ordered the veggies smothered in sour cream. I didn’t refuse the invitation to share a slice of chocolate cheesecake.*

Little wonder that I felt like crap warmed over on the train home, sipping lemon water and swearing to eat nothing but vegetables and broth for the next week.

My logical brain wanted to pin the hangover on some particular culprit: too many late nights, one glass of wine too many, the chocolate, the pasta, the ice cream.*

The fact is, this had nothing to do with the dairy or the gluten or the chocolate or the sugar or the alcohol – they were incidental to this story.

The worst offender in all of it was myself.

 

Yes, there are certain foods and habits that you are best to avoid. If you’re trying to fit back into your favourite dress, if your arthritis prevents you from opening the pickle jar, if your gassy gut makes it too embarrassing to go out, there are definitely foods you know to stay away from, there are habits that help you feel better, that prevent things from getting worse.

It’s so easy on those days that you feel bad to stick to the tried & true routine. Once you start to feel good again, your resolve slips. The better you feel, the more exceptions you allow.

If you’re listening closely to your body, you will be aware of the subtle whispers when she hints that it’s time to ease up and be “good” again.

 

Then there are the times when you feel great, when you’re so high on yourself, you feel invincible, and you somehow believe that nothing could harm you. These are the days you understand what you want your new normal to be. This is how you dream of feeling every day.

Integrate that sensation when it comes; sit with it, get to know the edges of this newly expanded container around you, seek its wisdom. Settle into it.

If you don’t you’re liable to crash as I did.

The Hendricks’ call this the Upper Limits Problem – when you get to a state of more positive energy than you’re used to, and you (subconsciously) find a way to knock yourself back down a few pegs.

 

Is there a fine line, though, where the knocking down isn’t quite so subconscious, when celebrating becomes damage?

 

This may be harsh to say, but that’s what I call abusive.

What I did to myself the other day – ignoring the pleas from my inner knowing and ingesting things I ought not, and in large quantities; hurting my system more because it was extra sensitive, then back-tracking with promises to do better next time. Sounds like abuse to me.

bound in self abuseThe Bach Flower Essence for abuse/self-abuse is Vine. Think of the plant itself: perfect tool for self-flagellation. Even after you do the thing that hurts you, that was so stupid, you continue to beat yourself up about it for days and weeks to come. A vine is the perfect plant for tying yourself up in a knot.

Then it hardens, so that you end up being fully bound in old growth.

Thinking about vines reminds me of the princess in the tower, locked there by a nasty old witch, the character we’ve come to associate with evil personified. Could it be that witch is the part of you that keeps you locked inside the perceived limitations of your issues?

The witch is selfish in the way that she prevents the princess from sharing her beauty with the rest of the kingdom. In squandering your good feelings, in hoarding this better version of you by keeping her hidden or small, you deprive others of the opportunity to love you. You deprive yourself of an opportunity to love you.

The witch cares for the princess so much that she hides her away out of fear for her innocence, not wanting her to get hurt. Are you caring for yourself when you don’t give yourself the chance to heal, or is that a form of cruelty? It’s true: the more open you are, the more you stand up for what you value, the more vulnerable you are to ridicule and attack from the world around you. Yet, the more open you are, the more space you have to grow and blossom into that million dollar version you usually only glimpse.

As much as some of your back-sliding may be subconscious, there are times when perhaps you’re more aware than you’re willing to admit. There are times when you ignore your better judgment, your inner voice and the advice of your health-care practitioner in favour of the momentary freedom of not having to care.

There are times when your fears of stepping out of the familiar shell that is your life and state of health keep you bound in inertia.

 

The good news is that making mistakes is all a part of learning.

Deliberate or not, every time I overstretch the current limits of my body, I’m brought back to a place where I can regroup with compassion, and find a new route by which I can find my way out of the familiar in comfort.

 

I will say this again, because I want to be sure you heard it:

When you get to that place of feeling better that you have in ages, of having shifted into a gorgeous expansion (albeit unfamiliar):

Integrate that sensation when it comes; sit with it, get to know the edges of this newly expanded container around you, seek its wisdom. Settle into it.

 

Do you abuse your body with misplaced care? When you share your thoughts and experiences in the comments, you open the possibilities for others.

* Note: none of the food items I mention in this anecdote are bad for you in and of themselves. They represent the worst culprits in this particular phase of my healing journey. We’ll talk more about permission and concepts such as 80/20 in an upcoming post.