AmpleAliveness™

Feeling GOOD is Important

"Nothing is more important than that I feel good."

That is what is on the card I pulled today from my Well-Being Card deck from Esther and Jerry Hicks.

It's the perfect card for today, as I've been working with May Johnstone of Delicious Healing on feeling good, emotionally and physically, myself. It is only when I feel good, that I can help others to feel good, too. And May has quite a gift for helping people feel good -- I highly recommend her! One outcome of today's session -- I'm posting on this blog again -- because I'm feeling good, and I want you to, too!

Negative thinking, and listening to negative voices, can drag us further and further down, away from feeling good, away from having the power to resist the very negativity that is harming us, into a downward spiral that can leave us feeling hopeless, helpless, defeated.

Part of our work here together in AmpleAliveness is to break that negative cycle, and to replace feeling bad/sad/weak/powerless with feeling good/joyful/strong/powerful -- Alive!!

How?

Sometimes, you gotta ask for help. Ask for help from your Source; ask for help from friends, ask for help from the size community, and sometimes, ask for help from professionals -- healers, doctors, ministers, coaches, therapists -- whatever it takes to reverse the downward spiral.

On the back of today's Well-Being card, one of the statements is:

"Reach for the thought that feels better--and watch what happens."

So when a negative thought comes your way, whether from all the anti-fat crap out there in our society, or from an internal gremlin, how do you reach for a better-feeling thought? How do you say NO to negativity, and YES to feeling good?

And how can AmpleAliveness help?

With great joy and gratitude for feeling good and being back in the blogging seat, I welcome your comments.

Love Your Body Day

Today, October 18th, is LOVE YOUR BODY DAY. It is a day for celebration for every conscious human who currently occupies a body -- no matter the size, shape, age, or condition of that body!

I'm wondering -- loving our bodies -- isn't that our natural state? Do babies love their bodies? Surely, they don't hate their big round Buddha bellies or their chubby thighs or their bald (or not) heads; they don't fill themsleves with self-disparaging talk (body and otherwise) the way so many adults do.

I don't think babies are capable of hate -- are they capable of love? Or are both learned as we grow -- and hence, perhaps, unlearneable / relearnable?

I think, on this day, it might behoove us each, to watch a baby's utter fascination and delight in the discovery of her fingers, his toes, the miracle of each body part as it comes into awareness.

Each of our bodies is a collection of millions of every day miracles -- hearts that beat and lungs that breathe and digestion and filtering and growth and repair and communication and a gazillion other processes that science can barely appreciate let alone mimic. All happening without conscious direction or intervention.

EVERY MOMENT WE ARE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE TO LIVE IN OUR BODY IS ANOTHER MIRACLE, ANOTHER BLESSING, ANOTHER GIFT FROM THE DIVINE.

So especially on this day, let us appreciate our bodies -- even, especially, in their unique imperfections. Even as they age, as some parts no longer work quite as well, as we may have aches or illness -- no matter their shape or condition, our bodies are magnficent wonders, and deserve our appreciation, our awe, our reverence, our respect, our care, our love, and our profound gratitude.

I ask -- beg -- challenge -- each person reading this, to make your body, and the body of every person you care for, a negative-talk-free zone. Treasure every cell of your body. Celebrate it, love it. Begin today, now.

May it be so.

How are you celebrating Love Your Body Day?  Click on the word Comments below and let us know -- let us share our celebration!

AmpleHugs & SunflowerSmiles,
Anne

G-d and Fat: Part II -- Divine Purpose?

Why are we fat?  No, not how do bodies become fat -- that's not what I'm asking. Rather, what is the divine purpose in living our lives in fat bodies?

One of my beliefs is that the circumstances of our lives are part of the Universe's way of teaching us what we need to learn, and/or guiding us to find and fulfill our purpose for being here. So, does it not then make sense that, for the millions of us who find ourselves living our lives large, subjected to all the anti-fat bias in our culture, and to all our unique challenges of daily living, that there be some divine purpose in our fat?

What does living fat teach us? What is it teaching me?
I suppose recipients of any social prejudice could learn strength, persistance, compassion, faith, humilty -- probably many other teachings as well -- from surviving, and thriving,in the face of bigotry. There is certainly learning on so many levels when one moves -- individually and as a part of a group -- from victimhood to empowerment. (A terrific book on this subject is David Emerald's The Power of TED: The Empowerment Dynamic.)

But what might be the unique learning and specific guidance one can receive from living fat?

I only have glimpses of answers for myself -- one is something about really occupying my space; another is something about heaviness of spirit.

I yearn to hear from you, dear reader, your thoughts on this question: what might be the divine purpose in your living a fat life? Please, click on Comment and let me know.

With AmpleHugs,
Anne

 

G-d and Fat: Part I -- Outrage!

A hospital chaplain recently told a friend of mine, who is dying, that God would not accept her because she is fat.  He said, "There is no salvation for overweight people."

I cannot in written words sufficiently express my outrage! I need to SCREAM!!

How DARE he! How dare he presume to attribute to G-d his own human smallness, his utter bigotry! And to do so, in an official capacity, to someone on her deathbed! Why doesn't he just take a knife and slice her up -- he could not hurt her more...

Fortunately, my friend, wise and feisty to the end, banned this monster from her hospital room. She knows better, she knows he is wrong, she knows the love of the Divine is size-neutral, she knows G-d is not a fat bigot, and she knows she is going Home.

How many other suffering and dying souls, whom he is charged with comforting, has this fraudulent man of the cloth instead maligned and tortured? How much harm has he perpetrated upon others; how much more will he continue to do so, if he is not stopped?

In fact, her friends all over the U.S. are working to have this person censured, fired, and stripped of his chaplaincy. It's the least we can do to honor her in her last days, and to preserve her memory after she crosses over.

So what can you do? You can follow her lead -- ban fat bigotry from your life. Name it, confront it, and tell its perpetrators where to go. And please don't wait until your dying days.

Do you have a story of confronting fat bigotry? Or of people trying to convince you that G-d is a fat bigot? Please click on Comments and share it with us.

Yours in outrage, and with AmpleHugs for every victim of fat bigotry,
Anne