Physical 3

Taste buds.  Mine are big.

My sensitivity, also big, encompasses my taste buds.  Those nerve endings light up big time.

So when I say I love food, I really really do.  Not all food, but what I love, I love big and deep.  I love flavor and I love richness.

Avocado.

Dark chocolate.

Chicken skin.

Pork butt.

Cheese.

Uni (sea urchin).

Liver (chopped/liverwurst).

Poached eggs with mayo on toast.

You get the picture.

It occurs to me that being a Dragon with my food and Qigong practice will help me eliminate the sugar-salt dependence I tend towards when I am in Qi depletion/imbalance mode.  The sugar-salt thing is sated by junk/take-out/processed foods, becomes a PMS symptom, and definitely tangles itself up in my overeating.

Julie's comment to my previous post has inspired me to expand on this thought: at some point down the road, or maybe now, from the outset, I know that I need to leave a window cracked open for the foods that I love.

One of the distinctions I am striving to make for myself in this process is being free/not being a slave.

The stormy need for sugar-salt, when it arises, feels like a prison.  Freeing myself of this, which has been possible in the past, would be a good thing.

Depriving myself of sublime food experiences for the rest of my life would be like enslaving part of who I am for a perceived greater good.  Yes, I want to break deep and old patterns of overeating.  But, a blanket obliteration of all foods which do not fall under the Dragon's Way would be heavy-handed and fatally flawed.

I already know that dairy, cheese, on the above list, is too tricky for me.  Once I have a bite, it is impossible for me to stop.  Part of it is its easy accessibility, physically and mentally.  Part of it is chemical, I think.  So I know that I need to cut that out completely until I am better equipped with the ability/capacity to stop after one bite or serving.

In all of this, I don't think there is only one answer, one solution.  All I know is what I am thinking and doing now.

So the next few days will be spent on preparation.  Monday I will begin Dragon's Way Level Two food and daily Qigong practice.  After six weeks of Dragon's Way (the prescribed amount of time) I will see what's what.

I may, at that point, decide to include poached eggs with mayo on toast one time a week.  Then, maybe, two weeks after that, dark chocolate once a week.

I am anticipating that during and after six to eight weeks of Qigong and eating for healing, that other strands will begin falling in line/coming together.  That I will be sleeping better, that I will be taking walks, that my mind, body and soul will be more connected.  Pathways more open, Qi better flowing.

I do want to push myself, and have it make organic sense, to continue healing myself for the balance of a year, after the six to eight weeks.  I do not want to become a slave to the process.  But, I do want to be with the process for enough time that my overall goal of improving my health and decluttering my internal body can take deep root.

If it's in the cards, I want to live and live and live.  I want to spread all the love and joy and peace that I can.  Currently, I am bogged down by my physical self to the point that it is interfering with my metaphysical being.  There is imbalance.

It feels counter-intuitive and challenging to step off the dreamy clouds I normally nimbly navigate in order to be concrete and daily ground grounded and mundane.  I must let go of my ego.  Time for some humility.  I have to admit to myself that I am not above what I am saying I need and want to do, in order to move forward.

I need to participate enough in my own physical realm to make it work for and with me.