Kelly helped me with her wise and loving words yesterday. (Thank you :-)She explained that doing Dragon's Way in the Fall is different than the Spring. Because we here in the northern hemisphere are internally driven to begin storing fat for the winter, it feels counter, not only to intuition, but to the way our bodies "feel", to cut out animal fats and proteins. And to be eating less. And not carbing up.
It feels very different to me. 24 hours in, I am hungry. I was hungry and grumpy by yesterday afternoon and this morning I haven't gotten past movement 6 because my hunger is driving me to distraction. I woke hungry, fed my online self, then began to practice. Gem woke up and migrated to the big bed.
Sag woke up and migrated, too, but he didn't fall back asleep and came back out soon afterward. His "tummy" hurt. I deflected his request to play with the DS and we snuggled and I rubbed his stomach spots on his feet and legs. Then he asked me to read to him which is a rare occurrence and I jumped at the chance. He chose a classic: Captain Underpants :-)
Funny how spending authentic time with your child (or anyone, really) can stave off the pangs of hunger for a spell. What's magical is when spending time with the words of a friend can do the same.
What Kelly told me yesterday was this: think of this process as storing qi. Transform the urge to store fat to the urge to store qi. That's what the Dragon's Way is: replenishing your personal bank of qi...most of us grown ups are operating with a deficit of qi, or with a teetering barely balance. Most of us are unaccustomed to even feel our qi and so the urge to have it in abundance, to gather it when we need more, is not primal.
But, maybe it never is... Maybe that sort of balance just "is" and there is no urgency that accompanies it. Maybe what I think I need to feel is moot. But, I can think of this hunger in a different way. Shift it, to make it work for me, rather than against me.
2 comments:
Personally, I'm trying to cut back on chips. I used to chew gum as a way to keep the munchies away but Mike sent me this email that when you chew gum it releases some chemicals in your gut b/c your gut thinks food is on the way. Over time, these extra chemicals that just sit there do damage to your gut. It made sense, so no more gum for me. Well, at least not a regular chewing schedule. So now no gum. No chips. I need to get a bunch of veggies and chop them all up and have them ready as needed.
Reading your comment reminded me that the Dragon's Way book mentions some breathing exercises you can do to help cut down on feeling hungry.
There are definitely more hands on (less heady) strategies we can use to help us change our habits.
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