HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE 2016!
First and foremost on my mind is GRATITUDE! There is so much to be grateful for this year I do not know where to begin.
One of the biggest gifts of 2016 is this lovely website! I am so Happy & Grateful to share with you www.WildWoodMagic.com! This is the result of much hard work and co-creative endeavors by my dear friend, John Pritchard. This human being is a walking living angel. Seriously. Not only is he gifted in creating enchanting websites, but also in spreading pure love, hope and joy all over the earth.
Check out his current project at www.onehearttribe.com. Thank you John!
Another GRATITUDE I have for 2016 is a very special anniversary for me. This New Year’s Day, I will have been free from alcohol & hard drugs for 20 years. I cannot imagine where I would be if I had not taken that leap of faith to make huge & scary changes in my life. I was depressed & unhappy, sick & unhealthy, and pretty much barely surviving. I felt alone and hopeless. I weighed 238 pounds, and I was addicted to sugar and junk food. Instead of throwing in the towel, I decided to do something. I summoned all the strength I had and I walked away from serious addictions and ordered a Richard Simmons exercise video off TV late one night.
So what happened? Well… I began to dance. That’s right…Dancing saved my life. Ok, so maybe the silly “Dancing to the Oldies” video, in retrospect, was the goofiest thing I had ever seen…but that crazy little guy with the afro and the headband got me off the couch, out of the bottle, and on my feet…EVERY DAY…moving in ways that would be the beginning of a new way life I could never have imagined before. It wasn’t a complete success story, as my weight fluctuated by 50 – 100 pounds several times…as I tried every single new & improved miracle fad diet under the sun. No carbs, all carbs, [scary] pills, Jenny Craig, Nutri-system, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the Atkins diet and the cabbage soup diet….oh sure they would work for a while… until they didn’t. Or the thought of one more bowl of cabbage soup would send me into an uncontrollable gag reflex….
I was so “successful” with the Jenny Craig diet they hired me as a senior salesperson on the spot after losing 90lbs on their packaged meal diet. Sitting in a tiny cubicle with only a computer, fluorescent lights and no window …talking about how depressing it is to feel fat with clients all day, every day nearly killed me. I walked out at lunchtime one day, went to a fast food drive thru, and never went back.
I finally lost the weight….again…. the healthy way. Eliminating processed foods, becoming mostly vegetarian, eliminating sugar {arhghhh! this one is a continual process…to this day!} and eliminating dairy and all grains but brown rice and quinoa… I feel great and my body naturally fell to the right weight for my body type. It feels like a life-long affair but I knew all this deep inside all along.
As my body, mind, and spirit slowly began to recover I learned that my addiction issues were not about booze, ding-dongs, or french fries, but about my [limiting] beliefs, feelings and emotions. Over the course of the last two decades, I have learned many other ways to manage stress. I am far from perfect, however, I believe it was Divine Guidance & Spiritual Disciplines (such as yoga, meditation, dance, chanting,creativity…etc) that shined a big bright light down a new path. I have never looked back.
So here we are, on the darkest day of 2016, wondering will happen next. WE are the light of the world. Go out, shine your light, follow your bliss, your heart. Make that leap of faith. The beauty is in the Mystery.
A Magnificent Journey Awaits You. Godspeed.
