One Love, Self Love

Everyone has heard the quote that you can't really love anyone till you love yourself.  I never really understood that quote till recently and it goes way beyond love relationships.
    I have also always been taught that when it comes to a job or career, one has to sacrifice everything even the self and sometimes the self worth to achieve success.  To get where you want you almost need to be a minion of others to stay out at a place of employment.  Boy, is this wrong.
    Self-love or self-respect is a hard concept because it comes across as selfish.  And in some ways sounds like it goes against zen principles.  This concept is very much misconstrued.
    At my place of employment, I have been trying to stand out in hopes of getting higher pay and a good position.  I took a position for a lot less money to get my "foot in the door" and "pay my dues." This past year, I ran myself ragged trying to impress others at the expense of my health.  I often wanted to say that I was doing too much, but was afraid of being called "weak" or "lazy."
     When time for new contracts came around, my pay was barely increased as if I could have done half the work and made the same amount.  Old me would have cowered at this and became angry.  The anger would have blinded me from living the present.  In some ways, I believed that cause  I didn't feel I had much self worth, this happened.  Instead of getting angry, I let go and decided to gain confidence.
     Through this confidence, I was able to speak up and say from a place of love that I thought I deserved more.  Whether I get it or not, the point is I feel revived.  I feel like I took fear and grabbed it by the horns.  And from now on, this is the way I choose to live my life.  All of the great books and teachers say "happiness comes from within."  Yes, we cannot control what happens in our life, but we can really control our reaction to it.  I chose to have a positive reaction and turn an issue into an opportunity.
  Since allowing myself to be confident without guilt, I applied for a scholarship/grant at Brookdale Community College for people in Hurricane Sandy affected areas looking to start or improve their small business.  This is something I always wanted to do and now was my chance!  For a second, I wanted to hide.  I was doubting my own worth.  I quickly picked myself up and said, I'm going to do it.  When you have self love, really, magical things happen.

Goal with this Blog

In addition to becoming more zen in my daily life by living with awareness...I plan on trying various holistic therapies, classes and reading up on different philosophies then blogging about them here.  This means you may see me try a new form of meditation or try Tai Chi, salt rooms or whatever else.  I am welcome to suggestions even if they seem bizarre. Please share below!

A Bout with the Green Headed Monster/Learning to Love Your Back Fat

For as zen as I want to become I still get jealous.   I have to keep this a secret as my new agey, zenny friends might look down on me.  However, does being zen or enlightened really equate to perfection? For a long time, I thought it did.  I would get frustrated that I wasn’t like my yoga teachers and friends because, well, they seem so damn happy and perfect all the time (More on letting go of the idea of perfection in a later blog).

            However, I’m sure even the most enlightened people can jealous sometimes.  I wonder if the Dalai Llama wonders what it’s like to not have to be so Dalai Llammaie all the time.   This weekend I experienced two bouts of jealousy.  First, I must say on my quest to zen one of my goals is to actually like my body.  I have a disease called PCOS (my positive thinking class teacher would call this an "opportunity" more on that later), which is a hormonal imbalance, where is it extra hard to loose weight.  Basically, it sucks.  It makes you have extra fat around your waist line in addition to oily thin hair and a sugar processing problem.  It also can increase problems with depression and anxiety, YAY! I am also very short with a small torso, therefore, any ounce of fat looks very obvious on me.   In addition, it is very hard to buy clothes cause I am very small in height yet have jimongous boobs, which makes it even harder to find clothes that fit.

     I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I went out with my boyfriend and others this weekend and noticed another female ate about 5,000 calories and was still thinner than me.  In addition, they kept trying to feed me cookies and pretzels and I had to decline.  Am I not expieriecing the nectar of life cause I am deprived of these greasy joys in life? My hot headed evil twin wanted to throw a corndog but needless to say, I lost the fun of the present and focused then on how my body was worse than hers. 

            But luckily, it didn’t last long.  I may not look as healthy in some areas, but I’m pretty sure I’m a generally healthy person.  After reading about how most American food is absolute poison in my Paul Pitchford holistic nutrition book, why would I want to touch that? And I thought back to the lesson in my positive thinking class…instead of staying jealous, delight in other people’s fortunes and happiness.

Examples:

Big no-no:  Ew, what a rich bitch.  Does she really need to have such a big house?

This is not for us to judge but instead the more zen thing to say is.

Big yes-yes: (not sarcastic) I am so happy that she is able to afford such a big house and a closet full of shoes!

Or in my case

Big no-no: Omigod! How is she able to eat Fried Oreos? My body would create a special section of fat just for that!

Big Yes-Yes: God Bless her race car metabolism!

The other thing I learned is to tell yourself how much you love things you may not really love.  But if you say it enough, that may change.  Therefore, I should say something I like this to myself.

I love my love handles and extra large ass! It is as beautiful (and as large) as the moon in the sky! (In fact, my boyfriend always says my butt looks like a moon.  He has no complaints).  Thank you God for my huge boobs that give me back pain and make it close to impossible to fit in a dress, but at least I have boobies! Some people pay to have boobies! Mine are free! Woohoo! How many things in life are free! Money may not grow on trees, but my boobies do!

When I was younger, I used to do this regularly.  I have two pieces of back fat and I named them.  I gave them cutesy Disney movie sidekick names.  I named them Flub and Blub.  I would never call them my back fat.  Just flub and Blub.  In a way, it put humor into the situation.

From now on, I’m going to walk around and say, I love my back fat! I love my back fat!

Zen  lesson of the day:  Love your flaws.  Maybe they aren’t even flaws at all.  And you know what love other flaws too. 

Hey, this stuff isn’t easy.  It wasn’t my last bought of jealousy, which I will explain in another blog. But it’s a journey, not a straight, no bumps, one way ride. But for now, Namaste.

           

           

Join the Journey with Me.

I never thought I would blog.   However,  I am a creative writer and sometimes chronic complainer so I thought I'd combine the two in a hopefully, humorous fashion.  I have always been fascinated in enlightened ways of thinking and holistic practices.  I am a certified yoga teacher, however, something is still missing.  I feel like I want to be more zen.  I want to be like those cats on You Tube who can hold oranges in their paws and never budge!

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iepGwoZXmkA

And not get pissed off and want to chuck a pumpkin or pepper at someone's head!
I consider myself in general a pretty decent, compassionate person.  I have volunteered with several animal organizations and  helped friends and students out in self-less ways (I am also an English teacher).  Yet, I want to be like a cat. I want to let insults float by me....I want to quell my hot-headed evil twin....I want to be happy all the time.  I want to see the beauty in everything and enjoy simple pleasures! I want to grab life and bath in all it's glories! I want to know what it is truly like to live in the present.

But damn, this shit is hard.

This blog is going to be about my quest to be zen.    (In movie trailer or British documentary host voice)
This is how a whimsical (I love that word) 29 year old woman from Jersey who is slightly angry, sometimes depressed, often anxious, somewhat nuts decided to become enlightened.

Join me on my journey!