Journey To Whole Foods

I am not a stranger to healthy eating. Most people think I am a very healthy eater. Maybe compared to most people, I am. I love salads. I don't pig out on sweets. I don't eat meat every day. My nutritional history goes: Meat & Potatoes to Vegan to Anything I Can Get and Back Again.

Compassionately Energized

I became a vegetarian when I moved out of my parents' house at 18. I spent five years exploring ethical eating, alternative nutrition and herbalism, and became an excellent vegetarian cook. I spent a year as a vegan. Then my life changed alot.

Mmm, Meat

I started eating meat again when I was in Korea, teaching English for a year. I just don't like the way Koreans do vegetables, all fermented and shriveled and smelly (though the tofu there is EXCELLENT). And I was very busy and eating out most of the time. So I was eating very poorly and hungry alot until I decided to try some of my co-worker's takeout japanese pork cutlet. It was delicious. From there fried chicken and sausages (Korean pub fare, go figure--also drank alot of beer that year) and Korean barbecue became standard. 

Will Sing For Food. . . Any Food

When I came back to Canada I moved in with my brother and some friends to start a band, and had trouble finding work. It was pretty hungry times and I ate whatever anyone offered me ever, with gratitude. The next five years, my life stayed hectic and my eating habits were up and down. 

Fish Sticks and Pizza Pops? Really?

After I had a baby, full of adorable notions of providing my family with pure & optimal nutrition, I discovered what convenience foods are for. Parents. Ugh. I found myself filling my freezer with things I formerly would not have considered food, because I didn't have time to cook and needed things that were easy to stick in my mouth. 

Organic Homemade Babyfood to A&W Drive-Thru

Things improved a bit when my son started eating food, of course I wanted to give him only organic homemade everything. But he's kind of picky, and life is actually even more hectic than when I was trying to make a living as a musician, living off beer, rice cakes and peanut butter. I'm embarrassed to admit we've eaten fast food at least three times in the last month. Okay, that might be better than the average North American, but I don't want my son to grow up thinking a burger and fries from Wendy's will meet his nutritional requirements. 

Reliving My Childhood

Actually, since starting a family, I have largely reverted to my early programming, and started cooking like my parents did when I was a kid. Pot roasts, chicken and roasted vegetables, baked fish, pasta & meat sauce, meat & cheese sandwiches, breakfast cereal, cookies. I am extremely grateful that my parents are both good cooks and taught me to eat balanced meals with lots of vegetables. But my upbringing was also meat-heavy, processed-carb-heavy, dairy-heavy, processed-food moderate, non-organic, and sugar-permissive.

I Know Better

I can do better than that. My health needs it. My son deserves it. And my husband thinks he's healthy enough, but I know better. ;-)

On To Whole Foods

I spent some time mystified over how to change our eating habits. I can't imagine just trying to cook like I did in university. I don't have the time, or the budget. And the needs of a nursing mom, working dad and growing toddler are not the same as a studying twenty-year-old, and all need to be met. My raw/superfood chef brother recommended some books, several of which called for radical changes I can't imagine organizing. And one of them was Healing with Whole Foods, which contained the solution I was looking for. Eat real food. This simple goal is a perfect starting point for my family's nutritional development. 

Where are you at in your journey?

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Self-Discovery By Photograph: A Weekly Self-Portrait Challenge

Sometimes I almost forget what I look like. 

I worry that I don't actually look like myself. Like, I don't spend enough time being aware of my physical appearance to be sure that it is representing ME accurately. I suspect it is being sloppy. 

I have trouble finding profile pictures for online things. My facebook profile is a photo my two-year-old took of me, in which his finger cuts out half my face. Charming, yes, but not the way I want to represent myself long-term. I don't have a photographer in my life capturing me in a good light. My husband has an inexplicable knack for taking terrible pictures of me. 

So. I am going to practice taking pictures of myself. 

Could use some work. . . 

It is a project of self-redefinition. Of exploring who I am, and expressing it visually. Of building up an image of myself that matches the extraordinary being I know I am inside.

Here is my approach. 

I am going to list all the aspects of myself I consider important. Roles I play, my passions, talents, major interests, the things I value most, the things I want to be. I'll compile a list of up to 52 aspects to use as weekly themes. 52 is the number of weeks in a year, so that is my arbitrary maximum. Maybe it will be 30 or 20. 

Each week I'll choose a theme to work on, and come up with a self-portrait to express it. Then I'll post it to this facebook page, because I'd love it if you'd join me in this challenge. We can share ideas and techniques, and get a greater perspective on the possibilities of the process.

You may have completely different reasons for embarking on such a project, or maybe some of the same ones. 

Whatever your reasons, come up with a list of aspects of yourself you'd like to represent visually, and start snapping photos. Or maybe you'd like to take a totally different approach, capturing where you are each week, or trying different photographic techniques. Design your own challenge however you like!

Every Monday (or whenever you get to it), upload your photo for the week.

My hope is that we will be inspired by sharing in one another's journeys of creative self-expression, and through trying different ideas, learn to see ourselves from a new angle or two.

Will you join in? (On Facebook, or on your own?) What are your reasons?

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Update (Slow Down)

"Sleep? Not without my mom."

The Mindful Parenting Collaboration's next topic is Sleep, and lately my family is not getting much of it. 


Just after Christmas I started a part-time job working evenings. Often only once a week, but I get home at 11:30, Koan won't go to sleep without me, and when I get home he wants to play and hang out with me. Now he's staying up till 1:30am half the time, we sleep half the day trying to catch up, he won't nap half the time, and everything feels a little nutty. 


This is not my Sleep post. I'm working on that one. It's going to be good (I think). 


But I've decided that blog deadlines are not a reasonable priority right now, so I suggested to Alicia (McCrenshaw's Newest Thoughts) that we continue the Mindful Parenting Collaboration at whatever pace we can. She also has a lot going on and agreed. So, it will come.


Today I read this poem at Peaceful Parenting (an amazing resource for gentle parenting information and inspiration), and started to cry, so I thought I'd take its advice: Slow Down Mummy.
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Getting Your Needs Met. . . Is Nobody's Responsibility But Yours (Mindful Parenting Collaboration #5)

This post was written for the Mindful Parenting Collaboration, Topic #5: Taking Care of YOU. Link up your own post on this topic at the end!


An important lesson for everybody, but especially mothers, who have a tendency to give and give and give. . . .

Initiation Into Motherhood

In my early days as a mom very few of my needs were getting met. I was constantly hungry, thirsty, sleep-deprived (those words don't come close to describing it). I couldn't think. Between feeding and changing and holding my baby, I was a mess of confusion, loneliness, anger, resentment, helplessness, hopelessness. 

My husband was working insane overtime at a crazy job and came home tired and overwhelmed. We had recently moved. I had a thousand acquaintances and few friends. My few friends came for brief visits, which was nice, but didn't touch the gaping hole of needs that was me. Our family were a great support, but from an emotional distance that didn't come near what I was going through. 

Why was I so needy? Why did I need so much? Whatever inner strength I had was shaken from its foundation by the massive changes in my life. I was in a sea of pure vulnerability. What strength I had all went to caring for my son, whose endless needs trumped my own. There was nothing left to care for myself and nobody to do it for me.

Life Lesson

It took a long time, but I eventually learned the hard lesson that I am responsible for getting my own needs met. 

It was difficult to accept this. It didn't seem fair. I had too much to handle. Why didn't somebody help me? But of course alot of people DID help me. But they couldn't figure out for me what was most important, and decide what I needed. No matter how many people you have to depend on, nobody can do that for you. No matter where you are in your life, you can't rely on somebody else to supply the conditions for your happiness. You have to do it for yourself. 

I spent alot of time resenting pretty much everyone in the world for letting me down. I needed something every minute of the day, and most of those minutes, nobody provided anything. 

Learning from our Mothers

My mom and my mother-in-law were actually extremely helpful. I can't imagine how I would have survived without them. Grandmas are truly magical beings.

I even developed a closer relationship with my mom. I gained compassion and understanding for the struggles that are central to her identity, and realized how much of that actually comes from the motherly instinct to give selflessly. Things I blamed her for in the past became desperate acts of heroic selflessness, and deep, overwhelming and overwhelmed love. 

And I realized that I never learned to take responsibility for getting my needs met, because my mother never taught me. Because she didn't know how either. (I'm oversimplifying of course, it's not as black and white as that. ie: Let's not be presumptuous about what my mother does and doesn't know). 

The Power and the Danger of Motherhood (Too Much Love!)

I have experienced the amazing power that is motherhood, and the amazing danger--both coming from that deep love that fuels the need to GIVE and GIVE and GIVE.

Most mothers don't go through what I did. Not on that level. But many also don't learn the lesson I did, and spend their lives taking care of others' needs and neglecting their own. *Note: If you are going through what I did, you may have Post-Partum Depression. See your doctor or public health worker. There is help available.

If you look you can probably see it in every mother you know. The "great" ones, and the "bad" ones, and all the average and strange and unique ones too. Motherhood is all about meeting the needs of others. But if you don't take care of your own needs, you have nothing to give. And, what you do give will be distorted by compensating for your own unmet needs. And, you will not actually know what NEEDS to be given if you aren't doing the inner work to identify your own needs and find ways to accommodate them. You have to know what nourishes you. Or you cannot get nourished. . . and what you do give will not nourish. 

It is a common type of mother who lives for her children, providing them with "everything they could possibly need." But it is also common for this type of mother to give things her children don't need, and to not actually be aware of her children's particular individual needs. 

Of course we can't always know our children's needs--we do the best we can! And even identifying our own needs is easier said than done. But doing that work--inner questioning, inner listening, ongoing self-care--gives you the practice and the inner strength to both listen and to give without projecting your own needs onto others. And I think that is the difference between FEELING love for someone and actually GIVING love to them. 

How to Identify Your Own Needs

ASK YOURSELF. Get out a journal and try writing an answer. You might find you already know. Or you might need to dig deeper. 

Ask yourself: 

• What makes you feel good?
• What do you love?
• What is good for you? Really GOOD for YOU.
• What are your highest responsibilities?
• What is most important to you?

People have a few basic needs to stay alive. Quite a few more to function in society. And a lot to actually thrive. You deserve to thrive!

There are many types of needs: physical well-being, connection, meaning, play, autonomy, peace. Here is a list. Write down your own needs. Go through your list and consider how each one is met in your life. 

Make a new list of the ones that are not getting sufficiently met. Next to each one list one or several possible ways this need could get met. 

Now, pick the need that has been the most neglected, or that is the most pressing for you, and take at least one step towards meeting that need. Stop reading and do it now!

Do you take responsibility for getting your needs met? If not, how could you get started? If so, how did you learn this lesson?

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Finding Christmas Spirit

As my son's second Christmas season unfolds, I'm taking more pleasure than ever in holiday traditions. Always more of a non-traditionalist, I once wrote a fairly abrasive song about cutting through the Christmas crap to get to what really matters. And now I'm examining once again, what does really matter, as I'm figuring out how to explain Christmas to Koan, and choosing which traditions have real meaning we can celebrate. 

We Wish You A Mindful Celebration Festival!

Celebration Festival is the name my husband and I came up with for all-purpose, multi-faith holiday celebration. We wish you well in yours!

How To Appreciate A Blog

As I see it, bloggers want three things: feedback, traffic, and money. Some don't want money. And no blog with integrity will put money (or traffic) ahead of content. If you like a blog (or a blogger), here are some ways you can offer something back: