Snapshots

I had a hard time overeating last night. The "fun" has been sucked out of it.

In her book Women Food and God, Geneen talks about "bolting". How each time we binge it's a way to bolt from life. But not from this life, we are bolting because of the way we perceived life to be in the past. The way we dealt with things before. Because we bolt right here right now, we have no idea how this life will actually be. We are so stuck running from something we perceive, that we're missing the opportunity to live our lives.

She encouraged us to feel the feelings and to breathe in the moment. Remember the times, probably when you were little, when you just felt alive and happy with the world? When you just breathed in the moment and lived? That's what Geneen is encouraging us to do. To sit and soak in the moments.

Last night I did that. I did not realize how many times I wanted to flee the moment and bolt. It is hundreds and hundreds. Instead, I forced myself to stay present with myself. To breathe.

I opened the window on my vehicle and breathed in the air. I listened to the sound of my children laughing. I looked at the sky and just breathed. Over and over again, I forced myself to stay present in the moment.

This.

This is what I had been trying to find. It was here all along. These moments that stand out like snapshots in my memory. They're right here. Right now.

It's extremely hard work. It's hard to sit in the moment and resist the urge to bolt. Surprisingly, I was able to stay present more than I thought I could. And when I finally did let go and escape to food, it had lost it's appeal. I found that I wanted the peace of being back. 

The book is radical. It isn't a sugar-coated, sweet, you'll be fine book. It nails my thoughts and behaviors to the wall and is ripping a self-imposed scab right off my life.

It's time.