Dear Friends,
I love your Comments to these Posts! They challenge me to reflect and consider more deeply.
Nicola asked today what food neutral means. I replied to her in the Comments and then thought, let’s open up the conversation.
I use the words food neutral because they are the language of my 12-step program of Recovery that has helped thousands of food addicts. Like Higher Power or G-d, food neutral may mean something different to each of us.
Being neutral about food for me means enjoyment without intoxication. Gratitude without grasping. Pleasure without addiction.
Nicola writes about the food from her garden, “… the green beans are sweet with the sunshine and the red of the tomatoes jumps enticingly into my kitchen window… ” Beautiful.
Nicola reminds me that today, I am seeing food as one aspect of G-d; but, sometimes, it’s the Ziegfeld Follies and it dances and sings. That’s when I need to go back to the words food neutral.
In Buddhism, the suggestion is to notice interdependent arising. Meditation creates the ground to see in the food its totality… its journey from seed to fruit, with sun and rain and farmer, to harvest, to truck driver, to market, to bowl, to mouth and teeth, to stomach and gut, to toilet and sewer.
For me, food neutral means the full reality of the food is on my plate, including the hard lives of farm workers and the suffering of fish and fowl and animals. When I’m food neutral, I don’t take that lightly. I know I’m feeding a healing body, mind and spirit. I’m grateful.
Love & Light,
Valerie
Valerie,
I love your beautiful words on food neutrality.
It’s easy to say “be food neutral”, and hard for most of us to accomplish. It certainly is for me anyway.
So I know I have to stay away from any substances that can trigger my gears to slip out of “Neutral” to “Go” … or worse yet into “Reverse”. When I think of how easy it is to shift gears, I am reminded I too have to be vigilant. Addiction is nothing to take lightly. It grabs us by its ugly jaws and hangs on until it either consumes us or the “Jaws of Life” device sets us free. We call that device God.
I’d venture to guess it’s easier for a county like Switzerland to maintain political neutrality than it is for a food addict to maintain food neutrality.
Here’s to neutrality … may we all find it.
Blessings,
Francesca
Hi Francesca,
You make me smile. I love the car analogy AND the Switzerland analogy. There’s something to each of them.
Cheers!
Love & Light,
Valerie
thank you for clarifying, Valerie. Sort of an objectivity, I suppose. Is worship contained in it?
Francesca comment makes me smile , too. Addiction is a monster. I once had a drug with “friends” without knowing its true nature . A week later I felt something almost grabbing me to return to the same place and….
Thank God I had enough “neutrality” (?) did i get it right? to stay away.
Hm, if you knew the truth about Switzerland and its middleman services, Francesca, you might alter your mind slightly about its neutrality.
The car analogy i will keep in mind. go into neutral when you are thinking of things you might regret later. Than you dear, that thought makes me take a deep breath.
so , hallelujah fo neutrality.
peace, with a modern twist.
love you both
nicola
Big kiss to you, Nicola! Peace and love.
so much is on my plate to give me satisfaction – thank you, v. mom
Me, too, Mom. Love & Light, V