by Jamesscotthenson | May 26, 2017 | Blog
I chose the Whole 30 for our new way of eating because it’s
a lifestyle change, and is very focused on intentional choices.
It requires a lot of time and preparation, and a lot of
thought before eating. The one thing I miss about being vegan was how every
meal required thought and creativity because I lived in West Texas.
Choices are everything, but they become mindless for us very
easily.
We don’t think about what we eat, what we say, how we spend
our time, what we watch and listen to. Everything that creates our experience
of reality, and we don’t even consider it in any real way. We spend a lot of
time on autopilot.
Making choices about what I eat has been hard, especially
cutting out sugar in its dozens and dozens of different forms and names. I was
very unintentional with my food choices for a very long time, despite a large
number of half-assed attempts to do better. I ate just to feel full, not
considering what was actually going into my body.
This has had consequences, but that is what choices do. No
one inflicted this on me, it’s cause and effect. Basic math. It’s just how
choices work.
I’m past the detox/miserable hell phase of the Whole 30 and
I feel good. I am already a little shocked with how bad my eating choices were,
and I can already see the positive consequences of these new choices.
Call it what you want.
Sowing and reaping, karma, 1+1=2, whatever.
It’s the way reality functions.
Choices have consequences.
Make them mindfully.
by Jamesscotthenson | May 25, 2017 | Blog
The second we say “mine” in relation to anything we are
distorting our perspective.
My house.
My job.
My wife.
My kids.
My beliefs.
Nothing is ours in any real sense.
Other people can come and go as they please, and they
will always have a private internal work we have no access to. Someone else
will live in your house eventually, you will retire from the work you do. Your
kids have their own worlds and lives. None of it is “yours”.
We get to share time with people and in roles, but that is
it.
This isn’t even really “my” blog, it’s a synthesis of things
I’ve learned from others, which was a synthesis when they shared them. There
has not been a single original or unique idea in 247 posts, and there will not
have been when I hit #365.
Our beliefs are no different.
They are handed to us, pre-packaged, and we form a profound
attachment to them. They determine how we treat people, how we treat ourselves
what we think about the basic nature of reality, but we never really examine
them because they are ours. We will fight people who seek to challenge them, or
even just because they don’t share them.
It’s weird.
Think about what you believe.
Why do you believe it?
Do your beliefs serve you, or do you serve them?
by Jamesscotthenson | May 24, 2017 | Blog
I keep thinking the media can’t get worse, but I’ve been
thinking that for 14 years now. They keep proving me wrong.
I used to think that the internet would allow people to have
more access to more information, but it seems to have just allowed everyone to
live in an echo chamber. We can cultivate our news consumption in a way that
prevents us from ever having our beliefs challenged.
What we put in our bodies determines how we feel, what we
out in our minds determines what we believe, which, incidentally, also
determines how we feel. We act like this isn’t true, and we can watch anything
we want, and not be affected. Talk to someone who only watches Fox and reads
Breitbart and someone who only watches MSNBC and reads Alternet, and you will
find two people who seem to live on different planets. Neither will be happy
either.
I like to do experiments with my beliefs, like only
consuming right wing or left news for a set amount of time, or joining
communities built around a certain ideology or belief to see what it is like to
live within that worldview.
The best of these experiments involved not feeding either
side, and going out of my way to not consume news and ideology (as best I
could). The result? I was happier and paid more attention to everything that
was actually going on around me, and the world stayed exactly the same. My
being informed/not being informed had zero impact on anything.
How often do you step outside what you have always believed?
Are you able to put yourself in the shoes of people who
believe differently than you, in a real way?
What makes your beliefs “yours” in the first place?
by Jamesscotthenson | May 23, 2017 | Blog
Gossip is a tough one.
It seems to be present in almost every conversation. It has
invaded every aspect of our lives, from work and home, to our political
coverage. There are entire shows and even stations dedicated to it.
Why are we so drawn to gossip?
Why do we get such a kick out of knowing bad things about
other people?
Does it make us feel better about ourselves to see others as
being lower than us?
When it comes down to it, gossip is never about things that
are our business. It is never constructive or helpful or useful.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not, once again, a high and
mighty thing. I get caught up in gossip. Sometimes I have a hard time determining
the line between speaking honestly about someone and gossiping.
Being mindful of what we are saying and why we are saying it
might be useful when it comes to avoiding gossip.
Am I enjoying saying something negative about someone else?
That’s gossip.
Am I enjoying hearing something negative about someone else?
That’s gossip.
What would life be like if we focused on things that
mattered?
On things that were good and helpful and kind?
What would rise up and take its place if stopped gossiping?
by Jamesscotthenson | May 22, 2017 | Blog
Diet is a struggle for me.
I think that when I quit drinking and using drugs and all
that kind of stuff, I felt like I could coast and do what I want. I’ve coasted
for a very long time now.
Remember, though: all struggle is chosen, and this is no
different.
I choose to struggle when I eat what I shouldn’t, or when I
even start to entertain the idea of eating things I shouldn’t. I create that
fake debate where the outcome is predetermined and I eat a bunch of unhealthy
shit.
I am writing this right now because B and I are starting
that Whole 30 thing today, so it seems appropriate. It also creates
accountability for me, and leverages my ego against failing to make a change.
We are what we eat.
This is cliché so we don’t pay much attention to it, but its
cliché because it is true. There is no way we can eat a bunch of garbage and
not suffer any ill effects. It’s like putting sugar water in your car’s gas
tank and then wondering why you aren’t moving.
The difficult part is how obscured everything has become
these days.
Having access to so many things has allowed us to be pulled
off our path and into the weeds. So much of the stuff we eat is not food, but
this weird mixture of chemicals and things that may not make us die right away,
but are not “food” in any real sense.
So that’s my goal from here on out, to eat food and nothing
else.
It seems simple, and it should be, but we live in such a
weird world now. Just getting prepared for it has been harder than I thought it
would be.
Be mindful of what it is you eat today.
Is it really food?
Does it serve the purpose of providing you with nutrition
and fuel, or does it serve some other purpose, like comfort or relief from
boredom?
I’m not a fan of our societal constructions of beauty or the
unreachable standards of much of the fashion and health industry, but I am also
not a fan of people who say that what we eat is irrelevant and we are “healthy”
if we say we are. There’s a reality at work here that doesn’t care about our
post-modern deconstructions of colonialist/patriarchal norms, a reality of
garbage in/garbage out. It’s math.
What are you putting in?
What are you getting out?
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