A couple of AWESOME links

I was reading Already Pretty (which is in itself a pretty darn good blog, even if you aren't all that into fashion), and must pass along some of the awesome links in today's post.

The power of saying "no" to all the voices that tell you to conform, especially with regards to body acceptance.

"It’s not simply a matter of fat people having a rough time of it, even though they do, and even though it is wrong that fat people are often harassed, humiliated, and ostracized, and that this ill treatment is socially encouraged. Our cultural expectations of normative bodies, and our stringent beauty standards, and our compulsory and universalizing ideas about health—these forces hurt everyone, no matter their size, no matter if they are slender, or average, or very very fat." (emphasis mine). from Two Whole Cakes

Another blogger (who happens to also be a librarian) writes about how she has come to love her thighs, even though they don't fit the "norm." Yes! As someone with rugby player thighs (she calls hers peasant thighs) who is learning to love them for all they allow me to do, I love hearing someone else say the things I have been thinking.

As I said earlier this week, the journey never ends, and it is so good to read other people going through the same things I am.

Weather Update

Just a quick update for all my non-Arkansas friends. Yes, we have had a lot of bad weather in the last month. There was a tornado that touched down about 5 miles from our house, and eventually did destroy most of a town northeast of us. There was record rainfall and flooding - even in Maumelle. But we are on a hill, so although our backyard was rather soggy, and the garden got thrashed, we are fine. The flooding in Eastern Arkansas is a long ways from us. We appear to be moving into hot and muggy weather, which is par for the course around here in May and June (and July and August and September). The ticks are evident, as are mosquitoes, snakes, and spiders.

So on we go, towards summer. The garden is growing, whenever it isn't getting beaten down by rain, or blown around by wind gusts. Miikka continues to search for new tunnels to China in our backyard.

If you feel motivated to donate money for disaster relief, check out the Red Cross, or Habitat for Humanity, or Heifer International (their teaching farm here in Arkansas was heavily damaged during one of April's storms).

Mental Relapse

So, I have talked recently about how I am changing my view of myself, trying not to think about weight, instead focusing on health and fitness, and how I am going to run a 5K. But it isn't a permanent shift to a better attitude. It probably never will be. Lately, I have been, for various reasons, feeling fat, feeling dumpy, feeling like I need to eat sugar and goodies (which really doesn't help the fat thing either). It is a constant struggle to remind myself to love my tree, to remember that my self worth does not depend on my jeans size, that a diet won't make me happy, that I am not in competition with anyone else - that what I can do is between me and my yoga mat (as my new yoga teacher is fond of saying in class), or between me and my treadmill. But it is a struggle worth having, because the alternative is to be unhappy forever, to hate myself, to hide away behind some false facade that is not me.

So, I begin again. As one of the meditation teachers I have been reading says, (and I am paraphrasing) Begin again, even if you have to do it over and over again. That is the practice. Breathe in, breathe out, begin again.