WHEN YOU HUNGER and THIRST from Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy)

I came across the entry for April 14 today and it resonated with me .... I think, no, I am sure, because of the work I am doing / processing in the Read-Along with Dr. Brene Brown:

I THOUGHT I WAS JUST ME (but it isn't) - which can be found here: http://www.ordinarycourage.com/

So we're into Chapter Four, and for this week's podcast, Brene had a special guest visitor/speaker on the 'cast - author Katherine Center, who wrote THE BRIGHT SIDE OF DISASTER and her new EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL.

We're looking at areas where we get pulled into "what's wrong with me? why can't I be perfect like so-and-so" -- for some, it's in the area of motherhood. For others, it's in the area of body image. For others, it's career - education - religion - married life. Whatever it is that sucks you in and makes you feel LESS THAN, it bears a closer look so that you can HEAL that part of your world that is causing you pain & discomfort.

But let me get back on track.

What I turned to in SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy (April 14 entry) is this:

WHEN YOU HUNGER AND THIRST
'The body must be nourished, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We're spiritually starved in this culture -- not underfed but undernourished."
-- Carol Hornig

WOW. Then Sarah goes on to say ...

"Many women, including myself, swallow life in an attempt to keep it manageable. I mean this literally and figuratively. Whenever we're anxious, worried, nervous, or depressed, without thinking, we instinctively swallow food and drink in order to push away the uncomfortable negative experience we're feeling in our guts. We hunger and thirst, but it's not for a bowl of ice cream or a glass of wine. It's for inner peace and deeper connection."

HOLY COW. This is what hit me the hardest - what she says above. Talk about getting into my head!

Sarah goes on ....

"Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, believed that alcoholism was a sacred disease. M. Scott Peck relates in his book Further Along The Road Less Traveled how it occurred to Jung "that it was perhaps no accident that we traditionally referred to alcoholic drinks as spirits, and that perhaps alcoholics were people who had a greater thirst for the spirit than others, that perhaps alcoholism was a spiritual disorder or better yet, a spiritual condition." I believe this is also true about compulsive overeating, which is the addiction of choice for many women. We have such a passionate appetite for life, we just don't know what we truly need to satisfy our insatiable cravings for Wholeness."

WOW again. An 'insatiable craving for Wholeness.' That's powerful stuff.

more from Sarah:

"When I first became aware that when I 'swallowed' life I was really hungry and thirsty for joy and serenity, it was a turning point for me in learning self-nurturance. Finally, I understood that I wasn't underfed but spiritually undernourished. I realized I could go within and ask my soul - my authentic self - what I needed. 'How can I care for you at this moment? How can I love you? What is it you truly need?'

The next time you reach to put something in your mouth, take one minute to focus your awareness on what you're doing before you do it. ARE YOU EATING BECAUSE YOU ARE PHYSICALLY HUNGRY, or anxious? If you're anxious, a walk around the block instead of into the kitchen would be better for you and more loving. At the end of the day, are you pouring yourself a glass of wine out of habit in order to signal that it's time to relax? Instead, why not take a few sips of delicious fruit flavored mineral water as you prepare dinner, and enjoy the wine WITH your meal? Learn to create ceremonies of personal pleasure that can nourish your deeper longings. As you nurture your spirit with kindness, your physical cravings will loosen their grip.

Realize today that you hunger and thirst for a reason. Ask your authentic self to reveal your deeper needs, so that Spirit can quench and satisfy your parched and ravenous soul."

WHOA. Sarah hit my nail RIGHT on the head.

Her work is fresh and perfect no matter how many times I visit and re-visit it.

-- DAH

Simple Abundance for your CLOSET

Ladies, I am again resorting to "borrowing" a blogpost from the fantastic perennial, "SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy" by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

Today's entry by Ms. Breathnach {don't you just love her name?!} is SO pertinent to us all ... it speaks to the whole SPRING CLEANING mind-set that many of us are suffering from {er, experiencing might be the kinder way to say that ...}, but with your WARDROBE in mind.

REAL LIFE: Clothes That Fit Your Lifestyle

"I haven't got a thing to wear" does not, of course, mean that we must resort to nakedness or seclusion; it means that our wardrobes contain nothing that might match our mood or offer a just reflection of our current lives." -- Kennedy Fraser

Most of us have had the experience of looking at a closet full of clothes and finding nothing wearable that matches our mood. With a sigh of resignation we resort to a well-worn and time-tested "uniform", where it be a black dress and pearls or a denim skirt, sweater, and boots.

Actually, most of us wear, with few exceptions, the same thing or its incarnation over and over again. The outfits may vary according to the season, but not our dependence on a few staples, which, in their own way, offer a revealing reflection of how we view our current lives. The legendary editor-in-chief of Vogue, Diana Vreeland, was famous for favoring the same style black couture skirts and sweaters every workday for many years.

So what do we do with all the clothes we don't wear? Nothing. They just hang there abandoned, because of their size or color or lack of appropriateness, because they itch, or because we had that last terrible fight with our ex-husband in that sorry dress and don't want to be reminded of the pain. Sometimes clothes hang around season after season, phantoms waiting for some unforeseen occasion in the future that never comes.

Spring is the perfect time to take stock of our wardrobes and reconsider our relationship to clothes. The wind of refreshing change is in the air. We long to shed our heavy coats and sweaters for lighter garb. Let's shed our outmoded attitudes about what's fashionable, and replace them with new ideas about what works for us in our real lives and truly reflects our authenticity.

What if everything hanging in your closet were something you loved -- something that made you look beautiful or made you feel wonderful when you put it on? Think of how good you would feel every day. Embracing the second Simple Abundance principle of simplicity can spiritually induce such a miracle.

Later you'll clean out your closets and dresser drawers, but not today. Today, I only want you to consider your real life and the clothes you wear every day. Do they really reflect the woman within? What about the clothes that speak to you from the pages of your illustrated discovery journal? What about the clothes that hang abandoned in your closet? Every dress, skirt, pair of slacks or jeans, blouse, sweater, T-shirt and jacket tells a story. "Clothes have a life that is quite independent of their shape and color," Kennedy Fraser reminds us in The Fashionable Mind. Get quiet, go within, and be willing to really listen to the tale that the threads of your life have woven.

-- the end of the Simple Abundance entry for March 25th

So, my friends, what does all that mean to us? I'll tell you what it brings to MY mind.

It reinforces the decision I made to purchase some items from CAbi {Carol Anderson by invitation} through my fabulous CAbi consultant, Rebecca Oostra. The pieces I have picked up from CAbi are what my mother would have referred to as 'Wardrobe Builders', or 'staples' of my wardrobe. Not plain old wear-it-with-anything-and-get-away-with-murder clothes - not by any means. The pieces I've recently added to my closet were well thought-out, fun, flattering pieces that I could just see myself wearing - over & over again - and being very happy inside.

When Rebecca gently said to me {I'm sure she says this to all her CAbi customers} that her mother taught her to MAKE ROOM IN HER WARDROBE for the new pieces by weeding out the old pieces -- thus giving them {the older pieces, the ones you know you're never going to wear again anyway} a new life -- in someone else's closet -- I knew it was keen wisdom she was sharing.

I did just that -- bags and bags have gone to Goodwill and Amvets, and anything that I thought one of my girls might wear -- was passed by them first. What a difference it has made in my dresser drawers and on the closet rods !!! It's quite liberating, actually, to make a decision that something that just doesn't "work" any more is OUT THE DOOR -- it's so freeing!

Where can you find CAbi clothes? Look them up online, or contact Rebecca if you'd like to work with the most amazing woman in the business {that's my humble opinion, and I'm sticking to it} at rebeccaoostra@mac.com OR on her CAbi website at http://www.rebeccaoostra.cabionline.com/ ... you'll be so glad you did! By the way, Rebecca can work with you no matter where you live in the United States.

And what can you do with all YOUR wardrobe mis-fits? There's so many options, but I might suggest you check with your local women's shelter and/or your church to see if they're collecting clothes for women in need. Then there's always Goodwill, Amvets, or a local clothing resale shop.

Whether you donate them, consign them, or sell them on E-bay (!), just MOVE THEM OUT YOUR DOOR if they're no longer expressing WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

-- Davielle

Thanking God for SIMPLE ABUNDANCE ...

... and the amazing wisdom of the author of SIMPLE ABUNDANCE, Sarah Ban Breathnach.

I am still all tied up in knots about the Thanksgiving issues surrounding my husband's family and my children ...

Seeking solace, I came across a fantastic, meant-just-for-me-today entry in SA, the book, dated November 1, "Embracing the Ebb". Here, the entire entry from this lifesaving book:

EMBRACING THE EBB
The season when to come, and when to go,
To sing, or cease to sing, we never know.
-- Alexander Pope

There once was a mighty queen with a short fuse. One autumn, as the year was beginning to ebb, the queen fell into a deep melancholy. She could neither eat nor slumber, and tears of an unknown origin fell frequently, which infuriated her, triggering angry fits that made those around her quake in fear.

Each day the queen summoned a new advisor from her esteemed circle of sages to explain the cause of her baffling condition. In they came and out they went: the court physician, the stargazer, the psychic, the alchemist, the herbalist, the philosopher. All were dismissed as charlatans for their inability to unravel the mystery of the royal black spell. They counted themselves lucky to have only their illustrious careers shortened.

"Surely there must be one among you who knows the source of my suffering," the queen cried in despair. But her pathetic wail was greeted only with awkward silence, for all were wary of her wrath. Finally, the royal gardener was moved by compassion for the poor woman and slowly approached the throne.

"Come into the garden, Majesty, beyond the walls of your self-imprisonment, and I will disclose your dilemma." The queen was so desperate, she did as she was bid. When she went out to the garden for the first time in many weeks, she noticed the bright, vivid colors of summer had faded and the garden seemed bare. But it was not, she saw, wholly bereft of beauty, for it was regal in autumn's brilliant hues of crimson and gold. The air was refreshingly cool and crisp, and the sky, pure blue. "Speak, gardener," the queen ordered, "but choose your words carefully, for I seek the truth."

"Majesty, it is not your body or your mind that is ailing. It is your soul that is in need of healing. For while you are a mighty and powerful queen, you are not Divine. You are suffering from a human condition that afflicts us all. Earthly souls ebb and flow in sorrow and joy according to the seasons of emotion, just as the seasons of the natural world move through the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. These are the days to be grateful for the harvest of the heart, however humble it might be, and to prepare for the coming of the year's closure. Even now, the season of daylight diminishes and the time of darkness increases. But the true Light is never extinguished in the natural world, and it is the same in your soul. Embrace the ebb, my beloved queen, and do not fear the darkness. For as night follows the day, the Light will return and you will know contented hours once again. Of this I am sure."

The unhappy queen considered this wisdom thoughtfully and asked the gardener how she possessed the secret knowledge of inner peace during the seasons of emotion. The gardener led her to a brass sundial. It read:

This too, shall pass.

Now, then. If me, a lowly Princess, can take heart from this message - healing is sure to come. My husband's family is never going to be the warm, embracing, inclusive, welcoming family I had once and always hoped they would be ... but I can continue to carve out little moments with one or another of them, here and there, that make it okay to be an (albeit, extended) part of their clan.

Now if the gardener would just offer up some words of wisdom that will help me see what I can do to help my children heal from the hurts they've endured ... THAT would be a miraculous thing.

-- D.

Wisdom from SIMPLE ABUNDANCE

... courtesy of Sarah Ban Breathnach, one of the most inspiring writers I have had the pleasure to enjoy thru the years. I've said it before, but if you don't yet "know" SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy -- you owe it to yourself.

So - here it is -

THE PLIE OF PLEASURE

"What is your hobby? Every woman ought to have some pet interest in life, outside of the everyday routine which composes her regular occupations. What is yours"? -- The Mother's Magazine, January 1915

Isn't that wonderful? So validating for us who like having hobbies. Interests. Things "outside of the everyday routine".

Beyond that quote, above, Breathnach goes on (in this entry, July 28 if you want to look it up in your book) to say this:

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time this expression is unique", modern dancer Martha Graham advises us. "And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."

And she says this:

"Where are you blocked? A hobby is a wonderful way to start freeing ourselves creatively. That's because no one expects us to be perfect at a hobby. {I love that !!! That statement in itself is VERY freeing, giving me permission to try - and maybe fail - to NOT be perfect} Hobbies allow us to experiment, to dabble with the paint, the poem, the pot, the plie. When ballet dancers speak of doing plies, they mean bending their knees. Doing plies at the beginning of rehearsal warms up the leg muscles before the dance begins. PURSUING A HOBBY WARMS UP OUR TALENTS AND ILLUMINATES OUR NATURAL INCLINATIONS. We get to try on imaginary lives and see how they fit."

Fabulous stuff.

I can't wait to have my postponed tasks ALL CAUGHT UP {post Dad's big party} so that I can begin my plies :-) ... practicing my hobbies ... with a free conscience. So - back to HOME AS MY HOBBY, as our life here on the Lane returns to 'normal'.

-- D {and NO, that's not a photo of me ... in my youth ... but it COULD be}

The Last Day of September 2008