Intermittent Fasting

 I am two hours into my new practice of intermittent fasting, and it is already evoking emotion in me. I am pairing with a fasting app to help monitor my progress, and there is a feature where I can report my mood. What I find interesting about these health apps, is they help me align with the status quo, which I like. I don't need to overthink my mood. While I can customize it, I can also just keep it simple, and note that I am struggling. 

Fasting has always pulled emotions buried deep within me. From reading in the Bible that only certain ailments can be cured through fasting (and prayer), to feeling pressure to partake during the lenten season, I always feared being hungry, despite having periods of purposeful starvation due to vanity in my unrecovered past. 

But I did last minute decide to practice fasting for Lent this year, and it was so unbelievably powerful and emotional, that I not only chronicled every single day, but for the first time now have an outline for what might very well be my first book. What really struck me back in March during my fast, was when the pandemic hit North America and the shelves went bare across the city, and we didn't know what stores would stay open, I didn't fear hunger. It also helped strengthen me spiritually, and I got to sincerely experience some raw healing. 

I now, pretty much on a whim once again, decide for the second time this year embark on a radical healing journey, through intermittent fasting. And while I am a little uncomfortable, I am so grateful to close 2020 in a way that is aligned with my values and strengthens my intentions. 

Intermittent fasting can look different for whatever a person's goal might be. The length of the fast can vary to accommodate whatever a person's struggles are, whether obesity, diabetes or other diseases, etc. For my personal goal, I want to reduce inflammation and aid digestion, so I will do the minimum amount of hours, which is 16, going from 5 pm until my morning coffee at 9 am. 

As I discovered lifestyle medicine this year, which catapulted me into my new direction of studying to become a Wellness Coach, I knew I had some significant obstacles to achieving the diet I envisioned. Intermittent fasting I believe is an effective and safe way to work around these roadblocks, until my longterm goal of a plant-based, whole food, and organic diet can be fully realized. 

An Apology To My Readers

 I was premature with my decision to close my blog. It turns out my walk with God cannot be wrapped up with a nice little bow, because I've decided ten is a good number. I learnt that having orderly direction, which I was forcing through self-will, comes from following God, not my own ideas of what looks "good". God IS Good Orderly Direction, but I still went my own way, and called it righteous. I listened to false spirits, and made a poor judgement call, and have atoned for that. 

God is eternally merciful, and King David wrote, "The steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in their way. Though they fall, they shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds them with His hand.." My heart has received this psalm in a new way, because for the first time I admitted I didn't know what God's will is, and that I go outside of His word for guidance, regularly. 

The simple fact is, I need to have this blog actively up and running, because I am still walking out God's will for me, and I need something to chronicle that. I was so prideful to think that I had God figured out, and that I would just go on my way and become some sort of wellness guru, no longer sharing how He works in and through my life. But another confession is, I have wrestled with self over God since I chose, and I do believe by God's permission, to become a professional in a secular industry. 

I understand today why being humble means to go before God and admit that I need a saviour, because I am unfit to deliver myself from my own askew instincts and poorly made decisions. But this does not mean that I come out defeated, for as David poetically wrote, God always brings victory to those who mean well. 

There's a beautiful release in admitting that I don't have it all figured out, and that humility involves being powerless, open to receiving power and direction. That's the best part. Through recommitting to my walk with God, to know His will for me, and to remember that no matter what missteps I might and invariably will take, I can always reconnect with the One who has all power, and who waits to bless me with it. 

Not Going Home, For Home Never Was

In this cancel culture of "Go home", whether for socio-political advancement, or for public safety during the 2020 pandemic, I am reflective of what "home" really is. 

So much of my recovery this past decade has been trying to return to this idea of where I came from, and how my memories of old have either been contorted, or lost. Indeed, the collective consciousness itself cries out to return to a sort of Eden, and I have come to realize that the appropriate response to this lamentation, is to stop looking to recollect these days of old, and to start building new ideas and structures of who we  are, and where we come from. 

One of the best quotes I have heard regarding this global crisis is from author and activist, Sonya Renee Taylor, who posted to her Instagram account, "We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was never normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, My friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature."

I believe this quote epitomizes the crossroad we are at, and is also an invitation to abandon our preconceived notions of what success looks like to us, and to establish new ways of living in freedom and dignity for all. 

Next month this blog will reach its ten year anniversary. I am incredibly proud of this blog and what I accomplished as a writer on it. This collection of work illustrates my journey back home, the messiness of the past decade through the early days of my recovery journey. Today though, almost on cue, as I have intended for a couple of years now that this blog would not be active past it's ten year mark, I ascertain that it's not about returning anywhere, it's about forging new grounds, new ideas, and new goals unlike what I had the capacity to conceive. 

A mixture of morbidity and release encompass my heart as I draw a completion to this body of work, as I embark on new adventures that take me out of my comfort zone and into a new realm of tension and growth, of acceptance and connection. The return to Eden is not up to me to find or circumvent: my journey, our journey, is to go forward, not backward.

This concludes my journey, "From Within" (or, "The Good Wheel"). This project is one of the only things I have been consistent with, and knowing when to let it go, for me, is a sign of real growth. I will share my new website next month, on this site's ten year anniversary. 

Blessings to all, love to all, peace to all.