Swallowing My Pride: I never found pride lurking at the bottom of a bowl of ice cream. I never found self-esteem lying among the crumbs in my bag of potato chips. There were other ingredients in there, though. There was numbness and forgetfulness and guilt. There was remorse and shame and some kind of preservative which made me stop caring about anyone or anything. There was paralysis hidden in a bag of cookies. There was anesthesia disguised as a doughnut and a slice of pie. I will never quite understand how manufacturers of food-like substances manage to so effectively conceal these additives, nor how clever marketers succeeded so well in convincing me that devouring guilt and self-loathing and disease is what I deserved. Illness, apathy, self-reproach, and regret were never listed on the label of ingredients. They should have been. By the time I woke up to the fact that I had been feasting on anguish and celebrating with misery, so much damage had already been done. I was trapped in the all too common Catch-22 of processed food addiction. I needed to eat the food-like substances so that I could experience a brief respite from the despair they were causing me. My days began with a serving of self-reproach and my evenings ended with a generous helping of failure. It went on for a long time. I couldnt find my way out. The cure was food. Real food. Live, honest-to-goodness miracles that grow from rich organic soil and blossom into green and red and orange and yellow rainbows of light and life and natural beauty. In these true foods, these actual authentic products of our world, manufactured by nature and delivered onto our plates by the sun, I found the ingredients I had sorely been missing. Here was where my pride lay. Here was where my health had been waiting for me. Here was where I could gather up my wounded self-esteem and find my confidence and dignity once again. Now, when I awake, I reach for cantaloupe, apples, bananas, watermelon, berries and grapes. They are my self-respect. I grab handfuls of kale, arugula, romaine, collard greens, Swiss chard and spinach. These are the leaves of hope, faith, optimism and renewal. I grab my blender and watch with awe as these ingredients whip themselves up into a thick, rich fusion of peppery sweet life. I bring the glass to my lips and inhale the scent of rejuvenation. I savor that first small sampling of my daily self-respect. And, then, in gratitude and joy, I tip back my head, open wide and, in jubilant generous mouthfuls, I swallow my pride. Love, Lori
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:15:41 +0000
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