On Soup & Peace

You can’t find peace by avoiding life. 

Virginia Wooli

I am in from walking FurButt Gigi for her usual constitutional around the neighborhood. A heat wave at 25 degrees, though much snow accumulated throughout the night and Husband started the snow-blower as we headed out to sniff, poop, and share secrets.

Gigi really is the best secret-keeper ever. As well as an amazing pooper. 😉

I decided to warm the atmosphere of the house by boiling the chicken bones from yesterday’s dinner. There’s just something about chicken soup that makes everyone smile, sink deeper into their sweaters, and ask for extra butter for the accompanying homemade bread.

What is it that makes food and eating just so darn magical?

Gah, I remember well the years and years I struggled in a dysfunctional relationship with food, eating, myself, my body. Whew, super rough years! I had a love-hate dynamic with food, which was actually a symptom of the very difficult space I lived in and from regarding relationships in general. Everyone and everything was scary. Trusting was nearly impossible.

I remarked often, “if I was addicted to gaming or sex or drugs or cigarettes or alcohol, I could abstain altogether… but addicted to food? How do I recalibrate the energies around this necessary aspect of my life?”

It was truly vexing.

Everyone’s gotta eat. But I remember wishing that if I could just forgo eating altogether, life would be easier, more peaceful, enjoyable. Less work.

Basically, I longed to avoid life and living and all the messiness of heartache, anger, sadness, complicated emotions twisting and turning in my guts. (No wonder I didn’t have room for food in there…)

Eating grounds us; eating brings us all together; eating is Happy Space. Even preparing the meal to be eaten is good juju, man. 

Thank God, I’ve done some freakin’ deep work over years and years… and am now finding myself on the other side of Fear… the work being walking through Fear, befriending emotions, feeling feelings, and reframing stories… and I continue to work and work and work, with the flow of the energies of Love within me and the Beauty of Friendships around me… and I am healing and I am already healed and I am perfectly making my way towards Peace while knowing, in some beyond-my-understanding way, I’ve already arrived.

❤ It’s been quite an amazing trip, really. ❤

Soup broth is smelling deliciously ready for the vegetables… it’s time to put on some music and dice, slice, and spice.

Peace.

It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work.

It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

It is a wonderful day already, indeed. ❤