What’s your definition of abundance? Do you see yourself living in abundance now and in the future? If not, why not?

This was a question I posed in an earlier post. If you didn’t have a chance to read it, you can find it here.

Many of us initially think of abundance as an overflowing of something, such as the abundance of rain we’ve had in the northeast or having so much money we could swim in it. But if we allow our perspective to shift a bit, we can see that having abundance means having what you need when you need it.

A few weeks ago, before I went on a short break (which was lovely), I left you with some reflection questions. To recap, they were:

• Would you like your life to be different than it is now and if so, how?
• Where would you like to see yourself in 5-10 years (or maybe reframe that to one year)
• Do you see an open path to your goal(s) or are there obstacles and if so, list them out so you can see them clearly on the page
• What’s your definition of abundance? Do you see yourself living in abundance now and in the future? If not, why not?

How did reflecting on these questions go for you? If you haven’t spent time with them, it’s never too late.The question I’d like to focus on is “Do you see an open path to your goal(s) or are there obstacles?”

I know for myself, there have been times when I’ve seen my future-self doing something that I feel really passionate about, but it doesn’t seem possible. I only see obstacles such as I’d have to go back to school to learn more, can I afford it, who am I to think so big?

If you can think it, you can do it.

I used to think I wanted to live to be 102, but a few years ago I changed that to 120. By saying that I want to live to be 120, I mean with robust health, of course. :)

Living a robust healthy life at 120 doesn’t start when I’m 100, I’ve had to come to terms with not waiting or putting off what I can start today because what I do today informs my tomorrow and the next day and the next. Starting with today, can I create habits, or continue habits, that will provide optimum health and well-being over the next five to ten years and then the next bunch of years?

I received the results of my fasting glucose and A1C tests the other day. Prior to receiving the results, I had been listening to Dr. Mark Hyman’s podcast the Doctor’s Farmacy where he was interviewing Jessie Inchauspé, a French biochemist and author of Glucose Revolution and The Glucose Goddess Method.

One of the things that Jessie and Mark talked about was how even though the medical standard for our fasting glucose levels might be 65-99mg/dL, 99 is way too high to be a norm. They both agreed that 85 or lower was a better marker and Mark Hyman was more comfortable with the numbers at around 50(ish)!

I love ice cream. In a cone. Not in a dish, not as an ice cream soda or a shake. These all leave out the best part of enjoying ice cream. The lick - tasting the cold creaminess on the tip of my tongue and having to lick fast to avoid the same cold creaminess from running down my arm. And then there’s the contrast of biting into the crispness of the cone itself, a strategic bite to ensure just the right amount of cone is broken off along with just the right amount of ice cream. Eating an ice cream cone properly takes practice.

I do limit the number of cones I eat so I don't overdo the sugar thing which allows me to make getting an ice cream cone into an outing. Once in a while we’ll go to the ice cream stand that unfortunately opened up about a mile from my house. It’s a cute little farm stand with an ice cream window that, much to my dismay, is open year-round.

It saddens me to see so many drugs on the market to assist with weight loss. Some of these drugs are FDA approved, but does that mean we should take them?

Weight loss drugs have a storied past for sure. In the 50’s and 60’s the weight loss drug of choice was amphetamines. According to an article written by Jacques Peretti in the Guardian, they were banned in the 70’s due to being highly addictive and causing heart attacks and strokes.

The door had been opened however and the pharmaceutical companies could not resist the opportunity to sell to women (and men) who were desperate to lose weight.

Diet culture. It exists and instead of being angry at it, I have a different approach.

Accepting it.

Sometimes, accepting something for what it is and softening around it can create an opportunity to see it in a different way.

Diet culture, as we know it, has been with us for decades. It has informed how we eat, think, and dress for several generations. In our desire to lose weight, we have prescribed to a system that has led us into restrictive behaviors creating a victim approach to life, one that is contracting in nature.

I’m a clothes person. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been attracted to clothes. In the summer when I was eight or nine, I taught myself to hand sew little tops using lacy handkerchiefs, which I proudly wore. Making my own clothes became a necessity when my arms and legs were too long for conventional clothes. I was forever perusing fashion magazines, keeping myself up-to-date on all the latest fashion trends. I took fashion seriously and working to stay thin was paramount. Any weight gain would ruin everything.

Restrictive dieting, meaning constantly being hungry and denying myself the pleasure of food, was a pattern I established. It never occurred to me that dieting for over 40 years was unnatural, it’s just what I did.

I had no idea what my natural body rhythms were or what my body really wanted me to eat.

Do you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, doing your very best but the wheel never seems to slow down? Why do you think that is?

I can tell you what I think part of the issue is.

We have so much information bombarding us it can be difficult to sort out what’s important to pay attention to and what’s not. When I watch television for instance, which constitutes the Tennis Channel and HGTV, I’m watching a lot of commercials. In a one-hour HGTV show, there are at least 15-25 minutes worth of commercials. This is all fodder for the mind.

You may think you’re not paying attention, but I can assure you, all that stuff is going into your subconscious and hanging out. One night I actually woke up humming the tune for a diabetes medication. Crazy, right?

Gregg Braden said in a recent post that growth can be an exciting and liberating process. I agree with that whole heartedly. And, I will add that it can also be challenging, difficult, gut wrenching and just plan hard.

How can something that can tear us to pieces simultaneously be exciting and liberating?

How can something that is exciting and liberating simultaneously tear us to pieces?

I think we humans can make things harder than they need to be because we're not fond of change. We don’t like rocking the boat. We put up with a life of struggle or we manage, not living the life we hoped for, because it feels easier to stay the same than to get messy.