turn the beat around

My character, success and happiness do not depend on other people’s opinion of me.  I cannot control how others interpret my behavior nor am I responsible for their thoughts about what I say or do.  I have no expectations of other people.  I do not concern myself with what they think about me or anything else.  Furthermore, there is no way for me to know!  I bring my best to what I do and it is enough.

These are the words I’ve decided to live by today.   I’m tired, irritable and especially sensitive, so it makes perfect sense for me to return here.

 Over the past year I’ve constantly fought my natural inclinations.  I dream about running and yoga all the time but haven’t done as much as a set of simple stretches in several months and haven’t laced up my running shoes in over a year. 

There are a few positives.  I’ve stopped compulsive gambling.  The shopping has slowed, but hasn’t quite stopped yet.  I don’t feel high from it anymore, though, so it’s just a matter of time.  The biggest change is the reduction of my sexual desires to little more than an occasional passing thought upon resting my eyes on a nice-looking man for a moment.  I’ve even stopped dreaming about it.  It scares me a bit, but I am facing it just as I do the walk from the bus stop to the house at night.  The fear of what comes next is just one of those things I have come to accept as unavoidable.  Besides, just because I’m afraid of it doesn’t mean it’s something bad.  I’m afraid of many things; most of them would make me very happy.

I often hear words out my own mouth that come from a peaceful abiding place that is achieved only by mental, physical and emotional balance, but I do not feel balanced.  I do not behave as a balanced person does.  I do not often think what I speak.  In my mind doubts and fears are prevalent.  I have intense highs and lows to my moods that I do not express.  I have withdrawn.

 

This morning I finished “Finding Ultra”.  The story itself was a thoughtful recount of the life-changing decision Rich Roll made that led him to become completely transformed inside and out.  I didn’t find his physical and spiritual development particularly inspiring necessarily, but I was particularly interested in the appendices.  Rich Roll, just like Scott Jurek, is a vegan world class athlete.  He went through in detail his experiences with highly nutritious, animal-free superfoods and research he had found about microbes, intestinal flora and what all these things have to do with eating habits and cravings.  At one point I touched my palm to my gut and thought, “This is what’s happening inside me.  The flora in my intestines feed on the unhealthy, oil and sugar-laden, meat and dairy-rich foods I’ve been consuming.  I need to get them out of there.  I need to detox.”  I ate the banana pancakes in the employee café for breakfast, mostly out of convenience.  For lunch I walked to Berkeley Bowl and purchased four items: a cauliflower and walnut bean salad, a quinoa and edamame salad and two bottles of chia seed kombucha.  I’m on my second fill of the 96-ounce Klean Kanteen I keep at my desk.  This is the solution or at least the beginning of it.  I am absolutely convinced.  It is going to be a difficult transition, and likely some bumps along the way, but I have to get back to my happy, healthy, energetic self.

In support of the detox, I’ve also decided to reread “A New Earth” and “Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul.”  This is the way I will recover, with the physical.  It is the only thing I can grasp right now, and I am desperate for control.