Sacred Sundays: Embodiment

"In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.
Where you invest your love, there you invest your life..." 

I could probably write an entire novel on embodiment, and in fact thousands of scholars already have. But as we were driving back home after a wonderful weekend with Tim's parents, the song "Awake My Soul" by Mumford and Sons came on, and I found myself reflecting on these two lines throughout the rest of the ride. This is the only body I will ever have. Yes, I know that our bodies are constantly changing (both in shape and size and cellular composition) but this space, this structure of skin and muscle and bone, is the only structure in which I will live and move and breathe throughout my entire life. It is my only constant companion, every moment of every day, and will exist even after my soul has left it, to fade back into the earth.

When I think about my body with that perspective... It helps me to realize how imperative it is for me to treat this body of mine with great care and love. As I saw on one of those motivational posters at the gym this weekend: "If you don't take care of your body, where will you live?" This body is my home.

Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue says it best:

The body is a sacrament. The old, traditional definition of sacrament captures this beautifully. A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace. In that definition there is a fine acknowledgment of how the unseen world comes to expression in the visible world. This desire for expression lies deep at the heart of the invisible world. All our inner life and intimacy of soul longs to find an outer mirror. It longs for a form in which it can be seen, felt, and touched. The body is the mirror where the secret world of the soul comes to expression. The body is the sacred threshold; and it deserves to be respected, minded, and understood in its spiritual nature.

The body is your only home in the universe. It is your house of belonging here in the world. It is a very sacred temple. To spend time in silence before the mystery of your body brings you toward wisdom and holiness.

The soul is not simply within the body, hidden somewhere within its recesses. The truth is rather the converse. Your body is in the soul, and the soul suffuses you completely. Therefore, all around you there is a secret and beautiful soul-light. This recognition suggests a new art of prayer: Close your eyes and relax into your body. Imagine a light all around you, the light of your soul. Then with your breath, draw that light into your body and bring it with your breath through every area of your body. This is a lovely way to pray, because you are bringing the soul-light, the shadowed shelter that surrounds you, right into the physical earth and clay of your presence.

I have tended to treat my body very unkindly. I have pushed it too hard, scrutinized it, berated it, and wounded it in my efforts to shape it into something it's just not. I have forced myself to pull all-nighters, have pushed through times of terrible stress without rest, have at times fed it too much of the wrong things and too little of the right and at times not fed it much at all. I have taken for granted these hands and feet, this extraordinary brain, these near-sighted but every wandering eyes, these lungs that fuel my body with precious air, this heart that never rests... And I imagine that most of you understand. It is so easy to forget about our bodies, the backgrounds of our lives, until those times when they grow weak or fail us.

I'm not bringing this up to make any of us feel bad, but more to draw attention to the exquisite, resilient bodies that have led us to this breath. They have fought off our infections and healed our wounds, and they are deserving of compassion and care.

So here's my blessing for you, on this first of our Sacred Sundays series: An Irish "Blessing for the Senses" to guide you through this St. Patrick's Day week ahead.

May your body be blessed.
May you realize that your body is a faithful and beautiful
     friend of your soul.
And may you be peaceful and joyful and recognize that your
     senses are sacred thresholds.
May you realize that holiness is mindful, gazing, feeling,
     hearing, and touching.
May your senses gather you and bring you home.
May your senses always enable you to celebrate the universe
    and the mystery and possibilities in your presence here.
May the Eros of the Earth bless you.

--John O'Donohue, Anam Cara (p.77)

TGIF: Pi Day Edition

TGIF - seriously, I'm thankful for the weekend. What a week...

But TGIF also stands for Trust, Gratitude, Inspiration, and Faith. The fabulous Brene Brown uses this as a format for a weekly reflection, and I was so drawn to the practice when I first read about it that I decided to borrow it. (Can you tell that Brene is one of my heroes?)

This week, I am trusting... that God is with us in our sorrows. So many people are hurting this week... and my heart is heavy. I've sat with a mother mourning the loss of her 20-week-old pre-term baby, ministered to two young men my age struggling with psychosis, and comforted a man over a century old as he said goodbye to his wife of 80 years. My co-workers and I have faced the unexpected loss of a fellow employee whose smile has brightened every day these past six months. Even after all of the theology courses and all of my readings on theodicy, I still feel anger well up within me over the loss of a baby who never got a chance to smile, and the loss of a vibrant, healthy 45-year-old man who will never be able to preach again. It just doesn't make sense, and I doubt that it ever will. But through it all, what gives me strength and hope is my trust that even when we're sad and angry and feeling like God can't possible hear us, we can find and feel God's presence in our tears. And when our hearts can't find the words to release our sorrows, our tears become our prayers.

I am grateful for... the little moments... My little niece pointing at a scab on my finger and saying, "Owwie" then giving it a kiss... Babette snoring loudly and snuggling up next to me on the couch... the brilliance of a sunset, the joy of seeing tiny little shoots peeking out of the long-frozen earth, the clink of silverware after a delicious meal with family.

I am inspired by... the courage and resilience of the people I encounter at work, particularly one woman who is struggling to get herself out of an abusive relationship right now.

I am nurturing my faith by... giving myself compassion in place of judgment when I overreact, lash out, or fail to do the most loving thing. This Lent I thought long and hard about what to commit myself to, because when you have a perfectionistic streak, you can tend to view Lent as another opportunity to strive for perfection and berate yourself for falling short of it. This is, predicatbly, an unhealthy cycle to go through each year, and it certainly doesn't strengthen my faith or help me to grow closer to God. I didn't want to do that to myself this year, but I wanted to commit myself to a Lenten discipline, so I decided to do one of the most (surprisingly) difficult things of all: to give up negative self-talk. Instead, I'm trying to replace my often harsh words -- and isn't it strange how we can say things to ourselves that we would never say to another? -- with the compassion others show me, the compassion I believe God has for each of us. In turn, I'm trying to focus on being a voice of compassion to those around me, particularly my husband, who sees me at my worst and bears the brunt of my daily angst/anxiety after a long, hard week like this one. 

May you all be blessed with peace and compassion tonight, my friends.

Thoughtful Thursday: On Futures Without Violence, & Why I'm Running

Thoughtful Thursday is the day when I'll share an in-depth post on a topic that's close to my heart. For this first week, I thought it would be important for me to share a bit more about why I'm writing this blog, why I'm raising money for Futures Without Violence, and where I see the link between the work of that organization and the work of this "Fitness Without Violence" blog.

I'm sharing this blog because I believe that body acceptance (and really, self-acceptance) is a subject that most women have struggled with to varying degrees, and it is important for us to come together to share our stories and to lift one another up. Insecurity and shame only grow stronger in our silence and in our isolation, so I'm writing this blog in an effort to draw us together on a topic I think most of us can relate to: how to keep our bodies healthy while preserving self-love and acceptance along the way.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit in on a group session on our Adult Psychiatric unit. Of the seven women who came, five of them shared a history of abuse. Five of seven. Over two thirds. According to the CDC, an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year in the United States, and an average of one in four American women will experience abuse at some time in their lives (35% of women globally). An estimated ONE BILLION women will be victims of violence in their lifetimes. On average, more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States (1,181 in 2005). And these numbers may not even be an accurate representation of reality: the U.S. Department of Justice believes that domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes.

These statistics appall and anger me, because they are so much more than mere statistics: these numbers are all attached to a face, to eyes that fill with tears when they reflect back on their partner's anger and hostility, to wrists bruised by aggressive hands, to precious spirits broken by fear. Many of these women have children who watched from a distance, bravely tried to intervene, or suffered physical violence themselves. And for all the physical violence that so many women and children have suffered, millions more have also suffered pyschological and emotional abuse, which leaves just as deep of scars. If anything, the scars of this psychological abuse are even deeper and more insidious, for they cannot be as readily observed and leave wounds on the soul.

I don't claim to be an expert on domestic violence, and I have never personally suffered abuse of the kind I've just described. But I recognize that I am in the privileged position of having worked with those who have suffered in my ministry, and I have walked alongside countless women who have suffered violence I can't even imagine. I can never un-hear the stories I've heard, or un-see the scars I've seen, and while I don't presume to speak for all women who have experienced this violence firsthand, I do know that I cannot remain silent.

Somewhere along their journey, and through no fault of their own, most of these women have slowly come to believe that they are not worthy of love and respect. For many, their initial cracks of insecurity were repeatedly battered down over time by partners who took advantage and took control in violent and aggressive ways, until many of these women began to believe that they were deserving of the violence inflicted upon them, that it was their own fault. Others may have entered the abusive relationship with healthy self-esteem, but over time the humiliation and degradation of their partners started to erode their confidence, isolate them from their families and communities, disempower them economically, and bury them into a lifestyle of fear, shame, and emotional impairment. The many tales of domestic violence are varied and complex, and every woman's story is different, but at the core of all these stories we see women forced to question, fight for, or even surrender their basic human dignity.

Somewhere along our own journey, each one of us has struggled to resist those voices that repeatedly tell us that we are not worthy of love and respect, not until we look a certain way or present a certain image to the outside world. We all have cracks of insecurity in us, and all of us have struggled at points to remain rooted in self-love when the the strongest voices of the world seem determined to beat us down. We have all struggled to accept the love others share with us that we are sometimes reluctant or unable to give ourselves, and have grappled with feelings of shame and unworthiness. While I pray that none of you have experienced physical or emotional abuse, I do believe that at the core of our shared journey, all of us have had times in our lives when we've been forced to question our worth and fight to protect our own human dignity.

This is what draws us together on this journey, and this is why I feel that it's so vital for us to continue to address the broader issues of violence against women as we address body image and health: because violence against women feeds off of the belief that women do not possess equal and inherent human dignity, and we are bombarded on all sides by this destructive belief, masked in so many varied forms. Where women in abusive relationships have this violent message thrown at them from the person closest to them, they and we also experience these messages in the media, in popular culture, in the news, and in our daily lives and relationships. We absorb all of the misogynistic advertisements and degrading "entertainment" beyond saturation, and from the moment we're born we're bombarded by messages of what we need to do in order to be appropriately adapt to our prescribed gender norms. As women, we are told to wear pink, to play with dolls, to be seen and not heard, to cover up our every flaw, to be chaste and modest enough to prevent drawing too much attention but sexy enough to be pleasing to the male gaze, to be thin but not too thin, curvy but not too fat, intelligent but not nerdy, assertive enough to seem confident but passive enough to avoid causing discomfort, a tomboy who's "one of the guys" and yet feminine, to be able to bounce right back to our pre-baby weight, to be working independent women and nurturing mothers all at once, to smooth out our wrinkles, to defy the aging process, and on and on and on.

All of you already know this. You know that these things are demanded of women today, and I don't need to say much more about them (and the many more messages thrown at us) now.

But try as we do to resist these message and to embrace our uniqueness and our imperfections, we often find ourselves getting swept up in these expectations, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood. And sometimes we internalize these messages so deeply that we start to repeat these violent messages back to ourselves: that we are not enough, that we are weak or lazy or ugly or bad, that our efforts to take care of ourselves and nurture our own spirits are selfish, that we need to be all things to all people and must always strive to be more than who we are.

We are constantly taught by our society to believe that we have to fight for our own worth. We are taught that women need to earn the right to be human. It's exhausting. It's dehumanizing. It does a violence to us all. And it needs to stop.

This is why I'm running.

I'm running in this race because when I looked at the pictures on the Mudderella website I felt empowered and proud to be a woman. I'm running because, in the words of my wise mother, "Life is TOO SHORT for wasted, self-loathing energy" and I see this as an opportunity to celebrate the strength of my body and practice self-love. I'm running because I hope that my efforts to "own my strong" can inspire other women to do the same. Above all, I'm running on behalf of all those women who can't "own their strong" or even see the strength and resilience they have inside that I have seen time and time again in my ministry... for those bogged down by eating and mental health disorders, those trapped in abusive relationships, and especially all those whose battles against these trials have cost them their own lives.

Here is the Futures Without Violence mission statement:

Futures Without Violence (FUTURES) is a leading national nonprofit and social change organization working to end and prevent dating and domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault by providing resources and support for victims and survivors, and raising awareness through educational programs all throughout the country.

I strongly believe in the work of this organization, and hope that I can raise a little money to help them advance their mission, if only in a small way. But more importantly, I hope that I can help generate a conversation and spread awareness about the issues for which they're working. So many people out there are suffering, thousands (likely millions) of them silently, and it takes the devotion of groups like this and the courage of each one of us to speak out about these issues and to support those in need.

So speak out, friends. Speak out on behalf of those whose voices have fallen silent. Speak love in the face of hatred, whisper warmth and acceptance into the frigidity of judgment, and breathe healing into inner wounds. This journey of learning how to love others, the greatest lesson of our lives, starts with learning to love yourself. So claim that inner worth: you don't have to fight for it.

You are already enough.

If you take anything away from any of the words I ever post, may it be this. You are "worthy now" and you are already enough.

Workout Wednesday: 5 Bodyweight Exercises

I can't, in good conscience, write this post without first sharing yet another confession. I have completely fallen out of my workout routine during the past couple of weeks! It feels very hypocritical of me to be blogging about journeying to fitness when I've slipped out of my healthy routine... but you know, it happens to all of us. I've been busy at work, have had a lot of papers and big presentations, have been trying to support my sister (who has been sick with pneumonia during her pregnancy) and spend time with my niece, and I've been devoting my spare time to reading and to this blog. On many of the days that I planned to work out, it came down to questions like, "What will be best for my health today: going home so I can work out, or reading this book to my niece and then playing with her during bathtime?" As much as I value my physical health and fitness, I know that time with family will often fall as a higher priority for me, and that's okay! We all go through difficult stretches and slip out of healthful routines, but the important thing is that once we recognize that we've fallen out of balance, we try again.

And so it was with great trepidation but even greater determination that I returned to the gym this evening. And let me tell you, I could feel every single one of those Girl Scout cookies I've been sneaking in the workroom between patient visits when I got on that elliptical. It wasn't a pretty workout, but anything is better than nothing. Huzzah!

Now then. I've decided that in my effort to present a holistic and well-rounded blog, I need to include some workout resources (one, because exercise and strength training are awesome, and two, because this will actually force me to try out some different workouts so I don't fall into a rut). I've been exploring some different fitness blogs, and will try to link solely to blogs I find empowering and affirming. We see too many unrealistic images of women as it is, so you'll never see me sending you to sites like Cosmo -- I've found that it just does too much damage to my psyche, however subconsciously, and I don't wish to risk inflicting that on anyone else.

I noticed myself instantly falling into that perfectionism trap when I started perusing fitness blogs... eg. "Hmm... I wonder what I'd have to do to make it onto the 'Best Fitness Blogs of 2014' list?"... But I called myself out on that pretty quickly. I'm not a fitness expert, and I'm not going to pretend that I am! You can rest assured that if these workouts are totally foreign to you or just plain beastly hard for you, you're not alone. I'm right there struggling with you! :)

Now then. For today's workout, I wanted to post some exercises that you can do without any special equipment. (I'll try to keep them all simple like this, if possible, because all I have hanging around the house are some free weights, a yoga mat, and a random band thing that I don't know how to use very well yet!) Most of these exercises are familiar to you, and they come from the blog Girls Gone Strong. 

You can access the original article here but I'll also list them below (with some additional comments!).

Pullups

Okay, so when I was in high school gym and we had fitness testing done, my friend Laura was like this amazing pull-up MACHINE! ...and I was never able to do one. Not a single one. But apparently, there's still hope for me! The gals at Girls Gone Strong have posted an article about how to work up to an unassisted pull-up, and I am bound and determined to make it happen. You just wait and see, blog world. 

Single leg squats/pistol squats

From the article:
"Squats are often hailed as the king of exercises for what they do for your glutes and their total body effect. Single leg and pistol squats will help you with your bilateral squats, but also increase stability and sculpt your booty. The great thing about squatting one leg is that you don’t really need any equipment, since just using your bodyweight is an incredible challenge. Start by squatting to a box at a height that you can control, and consider raising your arms out in front, or even a light weight, to create a counter balance and increase stability."

Handstands

I literally laughed out loud when I saw this one and tried to picture myself doing it. After I was able to get visions of tumbling bookshelves from misplaced kicks and noise complaints from the downstairs neighbors out of my head, I decided there was probably some wisdom in what they had to say. Handstands are awesome for your core, and they recommend starting by trying to do one against a wall or with some assistance. There are probably all sorts of videos and things out there on this... so I'll just let you find them for now, as it's going to be a while before I'll be able to do a free-standing handstand!


Split squats/reverse lunges

You don't have to do these with weights like she does in this video, but here's a Girls Gone Strong video showing this simple move:

Pushups

Oh, the dreaded push-up. Another bane of my high school fitness testing existence, but again, amazing for core and upper body strength. Here's some more Girls Gone Strong advice on this:

"Instead of starting on your knees, try placing your hands on an incline so that you can do a full pushup with assistance. You’ll want to keep your abs braced, glutes and quads tight, and your body in a straight line from ear to ankle. When you go down, squeeze your shoulder blades together, and when you come up push them apart to engage your shoulder stabilizing muscles.

Eventually you can move down to the floor, and once you can do 10 on the floor, try adding load by putting a weight on your back or wearing a weighted vest."

Stay tuned for next week's Workout Wednesday: Core Strength!

Tuesdays With Brene: Worthy Now

Alright, team. Two nights of posting in a row - woo hoo! This calls for some celebration via a spoonful of Nutella. :)

Now then... I'm sure you've heard of the book Tuesdays with Morrie (but if not it's definitely worth a read!). The book is about the relationship that the author, Mitch Albom, formed with a former college professor as his professor neared death. The book is a tale of the unique relationship and mentorship between the two of them.

I'll confess that the plot of that book has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to my relationship with Brene Brown... but because it's Tuesday, and I needed a Tuesday theme, I figured I would steal the title.

That said, though she has absolutely no idea who I am, Brene has come to mean a lot to me recently. Over the past three months I have been reading Brene's book The Gifts of Imperfection, as well as watching several of her talks on vulnerability and shame resilience as part of my CPE curriculum. I've been deeply moved by her work and have taken it to heart. This book is really what gave me the courage to start up this blog, and as difficult and painful as some of this internal work has been, I have ultimately found it to be cathartic and liberating.

This book has meant so much to me that I've decided to share some of my favorite excerpts of it with all of you! I'll also regularly post links to Brene's TED talks, because that format may work better for many of you.

Here's an excerpt from the section "Exploring the Power of Love, Belonging, and Being Enough":

Love and belonging are essential to the human experience. As I conducted my interviews, I realized that the only one thing separated the men and women who felt a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it. That one thing is the belief in their worthiness. It's as simple and complicated as this: If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness - the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness -- that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging -- lives inside of our story.

The greatest challenge for most of us is believing that we are worthy now, right this minute. Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites. So many of us have knowingly created/unknowingly allowed/been handed down a long list of worthiness prerequisites:

• I'll be worthy when I lost twenty pounds. 
• I'll be worthy when I can get pregnant. 
• I'll be worthy if I get/stay sober. 
• I'll be worthy if everyone thinks I'm a good person. 
• I'll be worthy if I can hold my marriage together. 
• I'll be worthy when I make partner. I
• I'll be worthy when my parents finally approve. 
• I'll be worthy if he calls back and asks me out. 
• I'll be worthy when I can do it all and look like I'm not even trying.

Here's what is truly at the heart of Wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if. Not when. We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.

Goodnight, and may you rest in worthiness and love, friends.

Meatless Mondays: Monk Bowl

I've decided that I need to create a little more structure to this blog, in part to avoid the writing paralysis I described in my last post (because the longer I go without posting, the more pressure I feel to produce a brilliant post), and in part because I've realized that there's a wide array of things I want to share with all of you! I want this blog to address mind, body, and spirit, so I'm going to break it down into a different theme for each day of the week. I'll try to keep up with it as best I can, but this is a judgment-free zone (and that includes self-judgment!) so if I miss a day or two here or there, so be it.

Today I'd like to introduce a topic that is near and dear to my heart: cruelty-free dining! As most of you know, I've been vegetarian for eight and a half years now (attempted semi-vegan/localtarian for three), and this journey has expanded my culinary horizons as well as opened my heart. When I think about what it means to engage in "fitness without violence," I inevitably find myself thinking about the role that vegetarianism and my efforts to eat humanely play in my overall health. I choose not to eat meat for a wide variety of reasons (most of which I'll probably explore at some point... just not in too much depth today), and I try to support local, sustainable, and humane egg and cheese producers and vegetable farmers. I do this because I believe that with every purchase we make, we make an impact on the world. Vegan baker extraordinaire Colleen Patrick-Goudreau says it best: 

"Individually and collectively, we all say we want to make a difference in the world, find meaning in our lives, and create meaning in the lives of others. We want to make a positive contribution to the world and leave it a better place than we found it. Many people say these things, but they realize that to make a difference, they may have do to something different. They don't realize the power they have to make this happen, and some don't even try. I learned long ago that it's not that we can make a difference in the world, it's that we do make a difference in the world - every day, with every choice we make. Every action we take, every product we buy, every dollar we spend, everything we do has an effect on something or someone else. There are no neutral actions. I think this idea is both frightening and empowering for many. It's frightening because it means we're responsible and have a tremendous amount of power. It's empowering because it means we're responsible and have a tremendous amount of power. We get to choose not whether we want to make a difference but whether we want to make a positive or negative difference."

--The Joy of Vegan Baking

Basically, as much as we would love to pretend that nobody gets harmed by our seemingly innocuous decisions (like grabbing a burger for lunch), every choice we make impacts the world in some way, and the sad truth is that unless you pay close attention, the vast majority of food at our disposal has a highly negative cost. There are terrible human rights issues at stake in food production, both animal and plant, and even though it's exhausting to try to stay informed about your food's sourcing, ultimately we have the opportunity to choose compassion and non-violence with every meal. I'm not perfect on this issue - none of us are - but I try my best to choose compassionately and to invest in food wisely.

I also choose to eat vegetarian because I've discovered that adopting this diet has helped me to become more mindful about what I put into my body. I try to choose foods that will nourish my body and give it strength, and to incorporate as many greens (I am obsessed with kale!) into my diet as possible, because they're what my body craves for energy. Vegetarianism helps me to listen more closely to what my body needs and to pay closer attention to the quality of the food I consume. Ultimately what it comes down to is that this is a lifestyle that nourishes both my body and my soul, and becoming vegetarian was one of the best decisions of my life.

I'm not here to convert you or force you to stop eating meal cold-turkey (hah - get it?). I simply want to draw some awareness to how our food consumption impacts not only our bodies but the broader world, and to invite you into conversation and reflection on your food choices. I also want to share with you some of the delicious recipes I've found that nourish my body and, hopefully, have a positive impact on the world.

Therefore, I hereby introduce...

Meatless Mondays! 

...Okay, so I wanted to think I was the first to come up with this fabulous slogan but apparently there's this whole awesome movement already in place. And here's the little promo video, just to give you a bit more info!

Every Monday I'm going to share a vegan or vegetarian recipe with you. I'd love for you to give Meatless Monday a try for yourself (because every meal makes a difference!) but again, no pressure from me. :)

This week's recipe is from The 30-Minute Vegan, and it's one of Tim's and my favorite recipes. It's quick, easily adaptable based upon what veggies are in season, and crammed full of delicious, healthy goodness. It's called Monk Bowl (for the "Zen simplicity" of the dish - a protein, a grain, and a green).

Monk Bowl 
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

1.5 cups uncooked quinoa (we prefer red)

3 cups water or vegetable stock

1 lb. extra-firm tofu, drained and pressed dry

2 T. soy sauce

1 T. coconut oil or other oil

2 T. water

8 cups assorted mixed vegetables - try broccoli, carrots, zucchini, or other favorites (we always toss in kale!)

Flax oil or oil of choice

Nutritional yeast (optional)

Soy sauce or sea salt (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the quinoa in a small pot with 3 cups of water over high heat. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until all of the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
   
2. While the quinoa is cooking, cube the tofu by slicing the 1 lb. block into thirds or fourths, pausing to press the liquid out of the cutlets before cubing. Place cubed tofu in a small bowl with the soy sauce, oil, and water. Allow to marinate for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Place the tofu and marinade ingredients on a baking tray and roast for 15 minutes.
   
3. While the tofu and quinoa are cooking, take a breath and begin the third part of the symphony. (That's literally what it says in the book, haha!) Add about 1 inch of water to a medium size pot with a steamer basket inside. Turn the heat to medium-high. Cut up your vegetables of choice and steam them until tender, about 8 minutes, depending on the vegetables.
   
4. When the quinoa is done cooking, fluff it up with a fork. Place the quinoa in a bowl, top with the steamed vegetables and tofu, and season with flax oil, nutritional yeast, and soy salt or seal salt to taste.

Substitutions: If you've tried and tried to like tofu but still can't stand the texture, you can replace the tofu with beans. Simply heat a can of your favorite (pinto, cannellini, and black-eyed peas work especially well), or reheat pre-cooled beans. You can also replace the quinoa with pasta (brown rice noodles and soba or udon, perhaps) or rice, and you can also add whatever sauce you would to the recipe.  Basically... there are endless variations and combinations to this! Be creative and enjoy.

Alrighty, that's all for tonight because I am le tired. Hope you enjoy your first Meatless Monday meal, if you try it this week, and that you're all having a wonderful start to the week!

More to come tomorrow - stay tuned for the Tuesday theme reveal. :)

On Writing Paralysis

First off, a big thank you to all those who have offered support and sent me messages since I launched this blog a week and a half ago!  To those who have asked, yes, I am in a much better place right now, and have been doing a great deal of healing with regard to self-image over the past several years. I have been well-supported along this journey! And to those of you still in the midst of your healing -- and aren't we all, really? I think learning to love ourselves and our bodies is a lifelong process! -- just know that you're not alone, and that you have my support and prayers.

Now... you may have noticed that I published that first post with a burst of enthusiasm and then fell off the face of the earth for the week. Again! This is the trend I've seen with myself in recent years. I start up a blog, convinced that I'm going to commit myself to a writing practice with discipline and passion, write for a few months on an important topic, get noticed by Nicholas Kristof for my prolific words on women's issues and became a widely-read author who changes the world. But after the first post I suddenly find myself stuck, tripping on words... paralyzed. 

Which makes sense, right? It's a little bit of pressure to post something (or even get the words out) when you've convinced yourself that you need to write brilliant, beautiful, prose that changes the world. But that's the kind of pressure I put on myself internally! Yesterday as I was talking about my writing troubles with Tim, he said, "It's not like anyone expects you to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist." Before I could even stop myself, I blurted out, "But I do!"

You'd think I'd have recognized that this was an unhealthy way to approach writing earlier in my life, particularly when I was gripped by debilitating anxiety as I fought to complete my masters thesis in time to graduate... but it took me until a month ago to actually notice that I had a problem with perfectionism. I'm in the beginning stages of recovery now, working hard to be what Brene Brown calls a "good enough-ist," but I recently learned that perfectionism has been plaguing me for years. Oh, the bliss of denial... More on this subject to come in the months ahead.

So yes. Writing has been hard for me these past few years, for many of the aforementioned and yet-to-be-explored reasons. But the funny thing is... this time around, it's not that I can't get the words out. I've had my next post ready for a week. It's that I can't seem to click on the "publish" button.

This never used to be an issue with me before Facebook. Back when I had my first blog in high school, I wrote much more freely, perhaps liberated by the illusion of anonymity and by the apparent lack of a "public gaze." The blog was just an extension of my journal: an open canvas, a space of exploration and freedom and poetry and struggle (usually masked in rosy, happy endings).

But everything changed when I got to college, and I slowly slipped into self-consciousness. I'm not even sure how it happened, and I can't blame Facebook entirely... but over time I began to feel that I needed to craft my online image in a particular way. Part of this was practical - you don't want to share too much personal info, particularly if future employers search your name, etc. - but part of it was much more subtle and insidious. You see, as I've grown older, I've honed the art of paying attention to everyone around me, of anticipating and meeting others' needs, of peacekeeping. This is one of the skills that best strengthens my ministry, and this other-focusedness (yay for making up words again! I've missed this.) has become a major part of my identity. (On the Enneagram spectrum, for those of you who are familiar, I'm a 9.) But the cost of this is that in my desire to keep harmony with others, I've silenced my own voice, and in my desire to be all things to all people, I've lost sight of who I really am underneath all my layers of placation. I've slowly and carefully, though largely unconsciously, built up a wall around me by sharing all the "good" stuff on Facebook and leaving out the bad. Even as I've tried to grow more courageous in sharing my opinions and beliefs on relevant current events/issues, I feel that I've shared and risked less and less of myself. Sure, I've shared articles... but I haven't been brave enough to take a stance as strongly as the authors of those articles, to attach my name to a story and toss it out there into the winds of the world. 

So this is kind of scary, y'all. I feel pretty exposed, and I haven't felt this way in a long, long time. And I haven't even written very much yet! But even this post stirs up a strange sort of anxiety in me, an anxiety that comes from wanting to be seen and accepted for who I am but fearing the risks of baring my soul through writing. Ever the self-critic, I find myself already falling short of the exceedingly high expectations I've placed upon myself... and the voice of my inner anxiety is doing everything it can to convince me that the world is watching, and that I will be judged and "found out." In reality, there may not even be much of an audience out there reading these posts, and I know that the vast majority of you reading this now are exceptionally kind and loving, but deep inside I still feel this irrational fear that the world will discover that I'm not to be as smart, as articulate, as good a writer, as [fill in the blank] as people expect me to be.

And the saddest part is... no matter how many kind words I receive, I'll never be able to really internalize and accept them unless I'm able to open my own heart to myself. This is the destruction of the shame that most of us carry deep within us: the fear that propels us to put up walls to protect ourselves also creates a barrier that prevents us from our receiving others' love. So no matter how many nice messages or kind words I receive (and believe me, I am grateful for them), in the end the affirmation and approval that I seek from others isn't what I need. As cliche as it may sound, what I need the most is the affirmation that can only come from inside.

I don't particularly want to hit the "publish" button right now. And I can virtually guarantee you that before I publish this and these next posts, I will pore over them and edit each and every word countless times before working up the courage to click on that little orange box. But my goal for this blog was to work on sharing parts of my story of my relationship with myself (mind, body, spirit) with all of you, and this writing paralysis has been a major part of my story these past few years. And I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to be a factor in my efforts to sustain this blog.

So here goes nothing.

...

I've been trying desperately to figure out a brilliant ending to this post. Just now Tim looked over at me and said, "Are you okay?" because I apparently look pretty angst-ridden. And I replied "Well I'm trying to finish this blog post on writing paralysis. But I have writing paralysis..."

That about sums it up.