I know what it’s like to feel confident, happy, and free. It has even been my experience to dwell in that positive state while in the midst of some of the bad things that life can dish out. I get to be a cheerful sort of person… who also carries around a bum leg and muscles that are painfully knitting themselves again onto my backbone; as well as a mind that revisits trauma, worries about the future, and grieves about the past.

There’s firm ground here. The road may be rocky, but faithfulness makes every step careful and true. As my meditation teacher, Susan Piver, suggests: I can notice grief and pain and want it to end, but maybe it will not. I can know that some experiences are bigger than any theories or antidotes. And, at the same time, I can rouse my sense that I am in the right place, at the exact right moment, doing the most right thing imaginable. I can relax here.

I also know what it’s like to feel depression, anxiety, and insecurity. It has even been my experience to dwell in that negative state while in the midst of some of the sweetness of life. I have been frozen, without a connection to the love and Light in the world, on the most beautiful spring day, surrounded by loving friends and family. The gifts I’ve been given to survive, rise up and inflate themselves beyond what’s needed to live a valuable life. They say, I want that food. The tell the lie that food will make it all better.

This ground is a salt-marsh on a winter’s day. The tide comes in and goes out. I stumble and sink. Pulling my self along, only focused on me and not on the common good, I’m lost, cold, wet and injured. My energy is wasted as wrong effort leads me in the wrong direction, out to sea.

Thanks to my 12-step program for food addiction, I know the full-measures I must take to dwell on firm ground, in a sense of right place, right moment, doing the most right thing imaginable and the resulting peace that passes all understanding. (I wish it wasn’t so. I never liked to practice. I used to get by on half-measures. They just don’t work any more.)

For the sake of progress, my 12-step program says, do these tools daily. Practicing daily becomes a beautiful groove. It swings. Practice leads me along straight paths towards my best self and the common good. Practice connects me to myself, family, friends and fellowship. Practice helps me to see the beautiful spark of the Divine that’s in me and all of us. The progress is undeniable.

Shortly before my grandmother died, she roused herself from years of dementia, made clear and unequivocal eye contact and asked me, “Are you preparing?”

Yes, m’am. I am preparing as best I can.

Love & Light,

Valerie