Welcome
This is the kitchen where we talk about food, life, and recovery—a spiritual path to healing and peace.

Invitation
You are invited to keep coming back to A Cup of Kindness to share your experience, strength and hope; fears, doubts and insecurities; and to pick up information, inspiration … and have a little fun!

My story
In January 2007, at the age of 51, I joined a 12-step program and began my recovery from food addiction, losing 75 pounds in the process. Read more…

In January 2011, at the age of 55, I began my recovery from a multi-trauma accident, 36 fractures, damaged lungs, and post traumatic stress. Read more…

I am deeply grateful for all the kindnesses, large and small, offered to me in recovery. Here I am... alive… still making progress … still not perfect … finding a new way forward in a growing community of women and men who share a lot in common around food and life.

I hope you'll join me in this kitchen and let me know what's cooking with you.

Subscribe
A Cup of Kindness

Meditate
Open Heart Project

Play
Pinterest

January 16, 2015

Recognizing my foot

 

This week my meditation teacher, Susan Piver, said that we can’t cultivate wisdom because we already possess it fully. “It would be like heading out in the morning on a hike to search for your feet–they’re already right there and in fact your ability to hike at all would be non-existent without them… The kind of wisdom we are talking about here is not related to knowledge or even insight, particularly, but to the ground that gives rise to both.”

This resonated for me on all three levels —  physical, mental and spiritual.

One. I have two feet. However, due to a spinal cord injury, one leg — hip to toes — doesn’t know where it is in space and its foot can’t feel the ground. The other leg — mostly hip — is weak. But both legs are there, the feet are there, and the ground is there. In order to keep my balance and to walk evenly without falling, I must recognize the awareness I have of my differently abled hips, legs and feet and the ground. So, I practice yoga, swimming, walking and gyrotonic exercise. I am making my best effort… and there is room for improvement.

Two. I have the capacity for Recovery  — the Promises of my 12-step program for food addiction. I don’t need to wait for the “click” or for inspiration to go on a diet. I am constitutionally able to be honest with myself. I have the capacity to calmly abide in awareness and recognize that I am a food addict who needs to be abstinent in order to be happy, joyous and free. I abide in that recognition by the daily, rhythmic practice of tools — meetings, phone calls, reading, writing, sponsorship, service, and especially weighing and measuring my food and abstaining completely from all flour and sugar. I am making my best effort… and there is room for improvement.

Three. I have wisdom — the recognition of awareness. Awareness exists. It neither increases nor decreases. It is there in everyone. However, my foggy thinking mind clouds recognition and I forget that I am aware. When I recognize that I am aware, insight arises and knowledge grows. For me, recognition of awareness develops with a daily practice of prayer and meditation. I am making my best effort… and there is room for improvement.

I am not perfect by any means. I’m not half-way through. Still, I’m amazed and grateful at the progress we are all making together!

Thanks to Craig Hankin for this marvelous sketch by Jenny Saville.

Love & Light,

Valerie

Categories: 12-Steps, Abstinence, Food Addiction, Gratitude, Meditation, Prayer, Recovery  |  7 Comments
December 26, 2014

Cavewoman

Gobekli Female Figure

 

For a long time I’ve thought that the same thing that makes me a food addict would have made me a successful cavewoman. When I am not in Recovery, and food is in the vicinity… or even the thought of food, especially food that would add protective layers, my rational mind goes to sleep, and my instinctual mind homes in on eating that food. It feels like I have to eat that food or I might die.

Here’s my theory about what’s happening in my brain when food calls to the cavewoman in me.

I’m with my tribe. I’m using my prefrontal cortex to tend the fire and to be in community. The prefrontal cortex is where I make decisions. It’s what makes me human. It gives me focus and concentration. It’s where I learn to grow and develop.

I catch a whiff of something to eat. That signal goes to the reptilian part of my brain. The reptilian brain does not discern. It is vigilant for survival opportunities. It tells me to run from a lion and it tells me to find and eat that food. It gives me no choice. It shuts down the part of my brain that is focusing on tending the fire or paying attention to a mate. It is irresistible. It is powerful. It is fight, flight, freeze, or eat. There is a deep groove in my brain for survival that finds food magnetic.

I certainly understand the value of the reptilian brain. When I was a child, my instincts for food as comfort kept fear at bay and calmed me down. When I was severely injured in an accident, my reptilian brain kept me alert, telling everyone what to do until I knew there was enough help on the scene.

But I no longer need extra food to help me survive emotionally. I only need enough of the right food to keep me physically healthy. My happiness, peace, and serenity come with being clean with my food — what we call “abstinent.” It’s eating addictively that makes me miserable.

In Recovery, I am training the reptilian brain and using its affinity for ritual, ceremony, conformity and obedience to observe the situation differently, thereby choosing different actions, and achieving the results I want and need physically, mentally and spiritually.

My 12-step program for food addiction gives me the tools and all the support I need to help the reptilian brain to recognize what is survival for me now. I do my 1% and the rest is done for me. I am grateful beyond words.

Love & Light,

Valerie

Categories: 12-Steps, Abstinence, Food, Food Addiction, Gratitude, Recovery  |  4 Comments
December 22, 2014

‘Tis the season

gilded walnut by Justine Hand

 

‘Tis the season when many feast. Time to remind myself that the way I eat in Recovery makes me happy, joyous and free.

In Recovery, when I weigh and measure my food and employ the tools my 12-step program for food addiction offers, I feel alright with the world.

Even in times of stress, even when I’m angry, lonely or tired, even when I’m sad or scared… there is a foundation of equanimity. I know to ask for help. I turn to prayer. I feel love for other people, for Nature, and for a Deeper Wisdom. I’m grateful for ordinary miracles.

May we all be well, happy and peaceful… one day at a time.

Love & Light,

Valerie

Photo: Gilded Walnut by Justine Hand of http://designskool.net

Categories: 12-Steps, Food Addiction, Gratitude, Nature, Peace, Prayer, Recovery  |  4 Comments
September 10, 2014

Reaching up and rooting down

Pitcher Pond 2014

Pitcher Pond, Northport, Maine 2014

 

One of the wonderful things about fellowship is the insight that can arise from sharing questions with each other.

I sent out a question this morning and my friend, Sandi R, responded with something so beautiful… it stopped me in my tracks.

My question was about remembering my essential goodness and how that reconciles with working the 12 Steps.

This all began a few days ago, when my friend, Sally C, told me of a query her women’s group had pondered. “What would my life be like if I never lost touch with my essential goodness?”

The idea is that I have an essential goodness….but that, at any time, my human conditioning (e.g., automatic negative thoughts, self-criticism, feelings of defectiveness, deficiency, not being enough, etc…) can kick in and I forget my essential goodness.

What situations arise in life that hijack my sense of goodness and sense of being enough? How does that make me feel in my heart and body? How does it change my behavior and interactions with others? What can I trust about myself? What can I trust about myself in all circumstances?

Great questions. Powerful questions.

Then this morning, I began re-reading One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. Author/teacher Kevin Griffin says, “While many people tend to think of spirituality as looking up, toward the heights of perfection or saintliness, the Steps remind us that we must first look down, into the darkness of our souls, and see and accept our shadow before we attain an honest and authentic spiritual life. Until we explore the difficult side of our nature, our spiritual work will always lack depth and integrity. Our hearts and minds are complex and mysterious; they can only be known through the heroic work that begins with surrender.”

Perhaps this is like yoga. Reaching up and rooting down at the same time.

Sandi synthesized this for me perfectly. She said, “It is only by accepting our dark shadows that we can move on to allow our spiritual growth as well as allowing our essential goodness to emerge as our dominating self. When we are battling our dark shadow, we are blocking our essential goodness. Acceptance and surrender are our only solutions!”

Wow!!

Thank you, friends.

Love & Light,

Valerie

Categories: 12-Steps, Yoga  |  4 Comments
« Older Entries Newer Entries »