Bounty. Of feelings and food.

Yesterday was my favorite day of the week, since I have no class all day and we get Boston Organics vegetable delivery :) The thing I love about this is that, unlike a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), this allows you to get food from lots of farms in the "local" region, and you can pick and choose the things you like. Check it out!

Red leaf lettuce, Delicata squash, tomato, avocado, kale, broccoli,
sweet potatoes, kohlrabi, bell peppers, and basil. 

What bounty. What amazing bounty of color and undefined, unlimited perfection. I spent about an hour chopping and washing everything, and roasting that amazing Delicata squash in the oven with olive oil.

Meanwhile, I was listening to this amazing podcast my sister recommended to me, talking about celebrating and embracing the wholeness of life - the tripolar self - body, mind, spirit. Each is so dependent on the other. When our body hurts, our spirit gets discouraged. When our mind is swamped, our bodies ache with exhaustion. We are taught to take care of our physical bodies and even our minds, as we "de-stress" with movies, tv, shopping, and eating. But who takes care of our spirit? Our soul? How do we know when we are in alignment? For me, this means my emotions being in line with my creator God who has told me to live by His Spirit. I know that not everyone accepts this, but for me it has become the true source of all my inspiration for whole-being wellness, so I cannot turn away. As I was basking in the bounty of my organic vegetables, I was listening to this podcast talk about how emotional God is - the creator of tears, laughing, grief, joy, hope, and yes - anger. He made us to feel. If you've grown up in a Christian community, you probably know that you are told not to feel - that the flesh is a bad thing that you must fight as hard as you can. How exhausting. How exhausting that life was. How refreshing and inspiring it is to embrace those emotions and work through them. This doesn't necessarily mean acting on them, but allowing yourself to have them and being thankful for them - even the bad ones.

This morning on my run I felt exhausted from my workout yesterday [150 box jumps, 20 pushups, 300 mountain climbers - 36 dead lifts, stability work, 30 weighted sit-ups - 50 incline pull-ups, 30 thrusters]. My body was tired, my spirit was weak. My husband made a [probably very small] critical comment and I broke down crying. This would normally have been the point when I just walked home. Instead, I just cried a little, sitting on the green in the middle of the track, looking like a fool, and we talked it out in under 5 minutes (WIN!). I chose love over anger. I didn't just do it for him. I did it for me. I did it for my spirit and my mind. I chose love over fear of inadequacy, love over self-deprecation. I chose to love me so that he could also love me and my spirit bounced back. As my spirit rose, so did my body. I ran 3.1 miles in 27:32. In case you were wondering, that's under a 9 minute mile. What's up suckers. That is such a great accomplishment for me, achieved through the power of the Spirit aligning my body and mind. Now the rest of my day is looking fan-FREAKING-tastic! So, today's mantra: "Body + Mind + Spirit = Bounty."