We are in for a cold snap again next week. Time to stack more wood in the living room for our wood burning stove. It’s not a task I particular like, but I love the reward of a glowing, cozy, warm fire on a chilly winters night.

Usually I stack the wood with bare hands. But today I remembered  a gift I got this Christmas. A gift that touched me because of the thought behind it. These leather gloves from my best friend, Sistah V. When I unwrapped them a few weeks ago, she said, “I thought you could use these when you help with the donkeys this spring.”

It meant so much to me because Sistah V knows how much this new volunteer role means to me and my love of donkeys. Something so simple that said so much.

And I realized today they’d come in handy for stacking wood. As I did so, I came across a log with a leaf still hanging on from the fall.

A reminder that there is a promise in everything. A promise that fall, my favorite season, will come again. And a promise that this year it will be even more enriching spending time with miniature donkeys at LaValley Equine Sanctuary.

Sometimes I just shake my head at something so simple like stacking wood today, whirled me into this world of promise. How life happens that way and how it makes me smile all the way to my toes.

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It’s that time of year again. Ads popping up left and right about losing weight and getting in shape. 

Then this morning on Facebook I saw someone posted a weight chart which states what you should weigh. I know the person meant well, but I felt compelled to comment. I said, “I stopped weighing myself years ago and basing my life on a number. These days I tune into my body and pay attention to how I feel. It works much better for me.”

I wrote about my battle with being “skinny enough” in my first memoir sharing how it all began when a guy told me that if I just lost a few pounds I’d be prettier. I took his word. Stupid. I know that now.

But that started a cycle of working out seven days a week, sometimes twice if I felt I’d indulged too much. And of course, back then there was the whole fat free trend (what were we thinking?!). My whole day and my attitude hinged on if I worked out or not and if I ate something I wasn’t supposed to. If I didn’t work out and ate something that was considered a no-no it’s all I thought about all day. All the mean things that went round and round like a loop in my head. It. was. insane.

While I know the person posting the weight chart meant well, it set off a spark in me. A part of me was just going to let it go and not say anything. But then I thought about so many still caught up in the insanity of this. I felt I had to chime in.  

Now don’t get me wrong. Obesity is sadly a real thing in our world. But I feel we have to come to a place of being healthy based on mind, body and spirit – not based on if we fit the magazine idea of “skinny” or how we should look, or for that matter a number on a weight chart.

I work out 5-6 times a week and eat for the most part, what I consider pretty healthy. My weight didn’t fall in the “correct” category on the chart.  I only knew this because I went to the doctor a few weeks ago and was weighed, because as I said, I don’t weigh myself anymore.

For a brief time after that doctor visit I went down the path of basing myself on that number on the scale. Luckily, I didn’t stay there for too long. I know better now. I’m also a work in progress and have my moments. And I guess it’s why I felt called to add my two cents to the post about the chart about weight and write this post.  Too often it stops, especially women, I feel, from living to their fullest potential because they spend so much time and energy comparing themselves to others and to a number on a chart. I know, because I did this constantly.

As I head to my mid-50s things are moving and shifting. I’ll never be the body I was when I was in my 20s, 30s and even 40s. Is this hard at times?  Yes, it is. But that’s why I continue to work on addressing all the many layers of myself and giving thought to why this pops up as an issue for me sometimes.

I’m grateful I don’t stay in that negative space for too long. And honestly, I love so much more how my mind is much kinder to myself these days. How I’ve blossomed more into accepting myself as I am. How there are so much more important things to be spending my energy and thoughts on, which have led me to this much more sane place within myself.

Peace with ourselves begins within. And it’s my wish and hope for each of us to be as close to that peace within as possible before we leave this planet. It really is true that it is a journey…each step we take, if we take it in more conscious awareness can lead us to that still, quiet, peaceful place within.

Artwork above by Kaya Singer. I chose it for this blog post because she titled it: Crone Woman of Peace. 

My core focus is about BEINGness which means being who you are authentically, in your real circle, in a balanced and actualized way, with your strong voice, willing to face the unhealed parts of yourself that hold you back.

From a place of standing in a mindful place and connecting with your own wisdom and wildness, the clouds part and the light of your own inner knowing shows up, along with the support of your real mentors, people who will walk that path with you and keep you from getting lost in the woods and forgetting your way.

Your first true mentor is your own soul partner, your Wise Woman who lives in the center of your circle. She is all-knowing and is always there waiting in the shadows of your Doingness.  ~Kaya Singer author of Wiser and Wilder

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