A Little Backsliding – it doesn’t do a body good - Day one again

Buddha
Ojai Foundation

I recently backslid on the eating better program.

It started with me being tired on a Friday night. Instead of dragging my behind into the gym, I said “doesn’t some fried fish and French fries sound good while I watch Fashion Police?” dreadful mistake.

Cause then the next night, it was wouldn’t a little rice dream frozen treat taste good? 

Well, it wasn’t much, but it was too much for me and it made me sick and weakened my tired immune system and triggered my allergies. So then I was sneezing and feeling bad and like I was going to descend into the old terrible eating patterns. 

My schedule has been very busy with all my new changes and going to the gym sort of slid onto the backburner…..but not too far.

I am picking myself up, dusting myself off and getting back on track. I have to acknowledge that sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad.  I was eating so well and so in charge that I had to see how bad I would let myself get.  And really I didn’t do anything really, really terrible that I can’t recover from. 

But it made me aware that I have to pay attention all the time.  I have to have my food prepared ahead of time and do the shopping and meal planning that has helped me be successful.

There is a saying that “you can’t rest on your laurels”.

I have made substantial progress in my eating and caring for myself plan: I can’t think that life is all good and I don’t have to work anymore.  I do. I do.  I do.

This reminds me I am human. Having a human experience. Food is my weakness. And I have to plan some treat days now, making sure I work extra hard in  the gym on those days.

I love the eating program I have become accustomed to. It helps me organize one of the most important aspects of my life: taking care of my body.  

Note: I will say the fried fish did taste good. Was it worth all the bother? No, not really, I was curious about how it would feel to eat something off limits, as anything deep fried should be.

The other stuff I ate, that I am not telling about, was it worth it? No.  And I won't do it again soon.

Fashion rules or fashion mistakes

Like most people, I have rules that I follow, strange though they may be.  Mostly they involve being kind to others, you know: treat others the way I want to be treated.  The rules I am specifically talking about are my fashion rules. 

Recently I was in a store that had a sale on long sleeve t-shirts.  I was buying one and had to decide on the color, was it red? Was it orange? White? Or black? Or green?

This is where the rule thing comes in to play:

I don’t wear red and green together: too Christmassy.

I don’t wear red and black together: just don’t like for me. 

Thus my conundrum.  I left without a new long sleeve t-shirt, because I wasn’t buying 2 and I couldn’t decide.  It made me realize about my fashion rules.   Sometimes I think I am so easy going about stuff and I am not. For example:  I am OCD about my workout shoes, I only wear them in the gym.  And gym clothes only in the gym. 

This made me come home and empty out my long sleeve t-shirt drawer to see what was in it and why I feel like I don’t have anything to wear.  I counted at least 4 grey  long sleeve t-shirts, a few black ones, three green ones (different shades), one orange one, one blue and white striped one, one red one (new) and one white one.  No wonder I feel like I have nothing, I have several shades of the same THINGS.

Back to the rules, my wardrobe used to consist of black and white and grey.  It worked.  Now I want to break out of that mold and be in living color.

Like Rome wasn’t built in a day, my wardrobe change won’t be either. 

I am experimenting.  Trying to be open to new possibilities and get myself out of the box. The rule box of choosing what colors I will wear together. 

I guess the first step in changing is taking inventory of what I have.  And then adding and playing with that.  Now that I know I have so many grey long sleeve t-shirts I won’t be buying any more.  I don’t think I will wear black and red together, why? When black and pink and black and green look so great together. Oh, new note: I don’t wear black and orange together either.  Just a thing.  It isn’t going to change.  I also don’t wear yellow.  Just doesn’t go with my skin color.

I am going to be more mindful of my color choices: actually gray goes with black, red, orange and green….. I might be on to something.

Colorful collage

You know it’ good when your son asks to learn the recipe

“You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.”
Julia Child

clay food

This summer I had the experience of having my son want to learn how to cook one of the dishes that is a regular in the rotation in our house. 

It pleased me beyond measure to have him be interested in learning how to prepare a meal.  It meant that one day he could cook this dish for his friends, that maybe one day this might be a dish he prepared for his children.

I was so excited, I thought I would burst with joy and happiness.

He actually went shopping with me to purchase the ingredients.  And then when it came time to begin the cooking, he balked. He wanted to watch.

I said I would walk him through; the best way to learn was by doing.  I pulled out my cast iron dutch oven, poured some olive oil in it, put the onions in the pan and then he took over.

It was weird telling him how to prepare the Bolognese sauce that he loves so much.  I always make it the night before so the next day it is delicious, all the spices and sauce melded together.  I now pass on this tradition to my son.

It is the first one. And thus makes it special in my heart.

We cook for our children. Painstakingly preparing dishes we hope they will like: the pasta mama, the chicken curry, the teriyaki salmon, etc. These were popular dishes in our house.  It always cracked me up when there was a complaint that it wasn’t just right. And of course they wouldn’t eat it (another topic).

Food is an important memory of home and family.  Sitting around the table talking at dinner.  This was a bonding time with my sons, checking in, reflecting on the experiences we had each had in the day, telling jokes, the latest sports mishaps. 

And now, here I am, beginning to pass the recipes on. It was summer and thus too hot to bake so we didn’t get into making cakes or cookies, also his favorites.

But there is Thanksgiving Break when we do a traditional

dinner and dessert.

Back to making the Bolognese sauce, during the preparing time my son did get a little grumpy with me about the directions.

I have been making this sauce for so long, I do it by a pinch of this and little of that. How to pass that on?  Demonstrate.

Put the spices in his hands and let him feel it.

It doesn’t get any better than that. Teaching my child, my son, my young man person how to prepare a dish he has loved.  Now it is his. Like a giveaway, I have given him something that he can have with him forever.

Fall

 “Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardners

who make our souls blossom”

  -Marcel Proust

It’s that time of year.  Fall.  The time when children go back to school, the orderliness of schedules comes back into our lives after the looseness of summer. 

Fall catalogues arrive bursting with the latest fashions.  One such catalogue arrived in my mailbox and I almost went out of my mind.  The J.Crew fall catalogue had me salivating.  It was the colors.  As an artist, that is what I am attracted to and the colors were jumping off the page and I was ready to buy everything, vivid, brilliant and pink and bright blue and it was a sensory overload.  I even talked to my son’s about it and they don’t care about fashion or clothes.

I couldn’t help myself.  I felt like someone finally had my sense of color and style.  I can’t, really don’t have that kind of budget, but it will influence my color scheme.  I don’t fit into J.Crew pants anyway. But the colors had me going for a while.

Fall.  Football.  College ball, pro ball, high school ball.  I love football. Even if I forget how the game is played until someone reminds me again.  But I pick my teams based on the color of their uniforms(I am girly like that) and if it is Stanford, UCLA, USC I have to represent, also Longhorns and Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida unless they are playing one of my aforementioned teams.

Fall.  The air is cooler, the air begins to get a little cooler everyday. Crisp, fresh with infinite possibilities.

Children go back to their classrooms ready to resume their learning processes.  They are a little bigger, relaxed from the summer of hanging out.  Or they are children beginning their first school experience.

For the latter learning to be a part of a community, to sit together, eat together, play, laugh and learn together. Huge. Wonderful.

Teachers also go back to their classrooms, rested from their summers, ready to pick up with children they are continuing with or getting to know new children.  Hope, Faith,

Patience. Just like children, teachers learn at different paces.  And hopefully are just as excited to begin the process.

watercolor abstract
watercolor on watercolor paper
8/2011

That is how I feel.  Ready to begin the process of getting to know new children, new parents, new teachers.  To begin new curriculum, engage in joyful and meaningful interactions with children beginning the process of school learning.

Watch some football, college ball, pull out my long sleeved t-shirts, watch the trees change colors, watch the day gets a little shorter, watch the little children growing, watch the grownups growing. 

Fall.  We are beginning a new journey.  Fall promises new beginnings, revisiting experiences past.  I can’t exactly watch myself grow but I hope I am as well.

Inspiration from Marianne Williamson

Urban Venus on the Half Shell
watercolor pencils on watercolor paper
8/2011

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful

Beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

Gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel

Insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people

Permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson

I recently found these words written by Marianne Williamson in a drawer where I put them a few years ago.  Finding them was like finding a secret stash of inspiration.  These words remind me to not get stuck in the muck of communication gone awry. 

We are all here on this planet to have an experience.  As humans, we have a capacity for deeper, more meaningful connections and interactions.  They begin with our family and branch out into the world, friends, coworkers, people we see in our daily interactions.

We all have beauty, we are all magnificent and glorious.  But we don’t always remember this especially if someone is yelling at us and messing with the flow of karma.

Recently my son’s father left me mean messages on my answering machine, instead of calmly explaining what his problem is.  In another time, I would of shrunk and let this bother me all day.  But today, I decided that it isn’t worth letting go of my joy for.  

Why are we as women so hard on our selves? Beauty is more than skin deep

It's important for all types of women to know that you don't have to fit a prototype of what one person thinks is beautiful in order to be beautiful or feel beautiful.... People think, Sexy, big breasts, curvy body, no cellulite. It's not that. Take the girl at the beach with the cellulite legs, wearing her bathing suit the way she likes it, walking with a certain air, comfortable with herself. That woman is sexy. Then you see the perfect girl who's really thin, tugging at her bathing suit, wondering how her hair looks. That's not sexy.

JENNIFER LOPEZ, Readers Digest, Aug. 2003

Urban interpretation of Manet's Olympia
watercolor, oil pastel on paper
2004

Why are we as women so hard on our selves?

Why do we lack confidence in our abilities?

Why does it take so long (getting older) to realize we are competent, capable, incredible and fabulous just the way we are, with or without makeup, plastic surgery or other stuff?

Why? Why? Why?

In reading several biographies in magazines by and about women, one of the things I have noticed in older women is them commenting they wish what they know now they knew when they were younger.  Younger meaning twenties, thirties. 

I wonder about and question how is it that so many women are insecure about their looks, their abilities and talents.  Our hair is too straight, too kinky, our breasts are too big, too little, our legs are too long, muscular, our bellies to big, too flat, our noses, lips, etc., one could go on and on about how self conscious and critical we are of ourselves. 

Until we reach an age where it doesn’t matter anymore.

Or until we reach a point where we don’t care anymore.

Somehow on the path of life, I think in our younger years or preadolescent years we become self conscious of our bodies, our selves.  I think we begin to compare and wish for straight noses, blonde hair, or big boobs or long legs or curly hair or something other than our self.

I think the majority of these conversations go on in our heads because we are too embarrassed to say what we don’t like about our self out loud or do say it outloud.  

And also I think even if someone says you are okay the way you are, we don’t always believe it.

I really thing this needs to change and in a serious way.  What messages can young girls receive to support her in not falling into any of the traps of self-depreciating behavior? 

One thing I think is that it goes back to families.  What kind of message do we send our daughters when we comment on what they have done or think about doing.  Try to have conversations about loving who they are and how they look.  Discuss peer pressure, realistic expectations and letting her know she can always count on you (her parent to be there).

In my story, I had a father that thought nothing of calling me a dummy on a regular basis and I also heard Aunt Jemima on a regular basis, there were worse things but that is still pretty bad - no horrible for a preadolescent girl, I didn’t have a chance.  My self- esteem didn’t exist.

One book that is an excellent resource for parents is Self-Esteem: A Family Affair by Jean Illsley Clarke.  It is a developmental book that lists the stages of development and messages it is important to hear to support positive self- esteem.  It lists affirmations a child can receive beginning at birth with: I am glad you are a boy/girl.  Affirmations can be verbal and nonverbal.

Beginning affirmations are about being and being accepted.  Then she lists affirmations for doing (for learning).  Affirmations for thinking, affirmations for identity (learning who we are), affirmations for structure and affirmations for sexuality.

In her book she lists the ages at which receiving the message as a young child is important, but also that at any age a message can apply.  

woman holding up the world
mixed media on wood
2003

This is one approach.  Maybe it can make some shifts in women’s perspectives of themselves.

I am positive that experiences in early childhood are important.  Experiences in problem- solving, exploring and learning about self and others are important components of most preschool curriculums. 

One large factor I haven’t addressed, for a reason, is the plethora of advertisements to buy cosmetics and this and that to make one look or feel beautiful.  I think the issue is deeper than that.  I don’t think it wrong to wear makeup or lipstick or dress nicely.  That’s the outside.  My main concern is the inside.  What happens when the inside voice lacks confidence and self- esteem.  Then we make bad choices. 

Each and every female on the planet is beautiful and has the capacity to be who they want to be.  Really it’s each and every child but I am focusing on women. 

Questions I ask myself: Self Reflection

“As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.   I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, a child humanized or de-humanized.”  - Hiam Ginott

Self  reflection is a part of who I am, or better yet, who I have become.  I am always asking myself about the choices I make, or made and why I chose that.  Did I make the most informed decision that I could make? What prompted my motivation? 

Particularly in my work with young children do I utililize the powers of self  reflection.  I guess it is a professional tool, were my choices of lesson plans successful for everyone? Did I teach it in a manner for all to understand? Was I/am I patient with the children that require more guidance. 

It isn’t the work the children are doing that requires me to pause and think, it is the social/emotional interaction – my connection with them.  Did I hear/understand correctly what was being said? I know this sounds silly. But learning takes place on so many levels.

 It isn’t about learning to mix paint, or clay techniques, it’s how the child can interpret these learnings to express their ideas about the world and themselves.

When the lesson is challenging for a child, for example drawing a representation of a fish or musical instrument, guiding them through the process, without doing it for them.  I call it helping he or she get “to the otherside” (through the part that is challenging), to where the child feels confident about his or her ability to continue a representation and like it.  I have seen children use erasers a lot (a whole other blog entry).  

I feel like I straddle that fence of how much information do I give, how much visual do I show children in order to get them to do their own interpretation of a work. 

So I self reflect on my teaching style.  And if I feel I haven’t been successful for all the children in my group I change the lesson plan.  Even one child not being successful will make me change the plan. 

When I reflect on my self and my work, my goal is to help me be better at what I do, at least more mindful.  It doesn’t make it easier to work like this, it can be harder: to slow down and figure out how to support a child’s development and learning.

I filter the experiences I have with children through my own experiences.  And my upbringing while some aspects of it were delightful, others were horrendous.  Consciously or unconsciously we filter our lives through the lenses of our own experiences. 

So I choose to try to be as aware and mindful of the way I interact with children and adults.  I had teachers that didn’t really like me: I don’t know if it was my skin color or the way I acted.  I had a few teachers that I knew really wanted to help me learn and grow.  One of those was a math teacher in high school.  She was the only teacher that I did well in math with.  She also wore really pretty dresses. 

As a teacher, I am aware that I am responsible for the children when they are in my care, but that their parents are wholly responsible for them.  As a parent I realize that I am wholly responsible for my children and teachers support their growth and development when they are in their care.

When ever there were issues with my son’s in school, I looked at the whole picture of where they were developmentally, emotionally, what was and wasn’t happening in our family and what my gut feeling was about the situation.

watercolor on watercolor paper
summer 2011

I reflect on my parenting style.  Especially because I didn’t have good role models and I re-invented myself once I became a parent.  Becoming a teacher helped me immensely.  The requirements to understand early childhood development and psychology really supported the opening of my brain to grow and for me to begin to heal the wounds of my childhood and adolescence. 

I witnessed brutality in my childhood home, I strongly and very clearly knew that that kind of behavior would not be tolerated at all in my home. 

Mindfulness in my actions sometimes means I am in slow motion.  I look through what I see, feel and how I interpret what is happening around me: not that I can’t go faster, I do, but self reflection is a way of being that I can’t change about myself .