peace

international day peace

it is a happy coincidence that today, while i woke up resolved to shift my gaze inward and focus on my own

internal sense of

peace, calm and fulfilment 

it happens to  the international day of peace.

i am exhausted, worn down and just about pulled to my breaking point. 

i have lived in this state of arrest for about a year.  a year ago, in the midst of the international financial crisis, the hedge fund i worked for was shutting down.  the loss of my job was made more difficult by the fact that i love the people i worked with and the job worked for me as much as i worked for my employers.  it wasn’t an easy job, but there was some measure of flexibility that helps make working motherhood actually pleasurable.  losing all of that was tramatic in ways that my body is still processing.  being out on the street with tens of thousands of others looking for those few jobs that were left put weight on me that was both figurative and literal and the new job i took on, while i am deeply thankful for it, is challenging in ways no other job i have had before has been.

like any object of great size there needs to be a dismantling of it before it can be thrown off. 

last week when i realized that i know longer fit into a single pair of jeans [some of you i know are thinking - oh my gosh - she has only one size of jeans in her closet - no, i have several sizes of every kind of clothing there is - so yes, those jeans, the jeans in the largest size i have - i no longer fit in those] i thought that once again i would need to pull out one of the half dozen diet books that i own and i would need to get serious.  i have never been a fad dieter.  i have never taken off more than a couple of pounds a week, but the thought of going through the whole process of stepping on the scale everyday to see where i am and then having my day be a “good” one or a “bad” one base on what that scale said was making me even more exhausted.  Yesterday, however, as i sat in church listening to our choir sing a truly beautiful uplifting hymn i came to a moment of true love and kindness and understanding and yes, peace.  however, this time all this good feeling was directed towards myself.  i needed to rethink my plan.  perhaps it was those few days alone a couple of weeks ago that did it.  perhaps it was the choir.  perhaps evelyn’s reminding me it was international peace day.  no matter.  i was there, at the beginning of something, a road never taken.

there is no doubt that i need to make changes.  yesterday’s moment of peace did not restore my equilibrium it mearly gave me some insight into how to do it.  now it is for me to follow through.

today i am concentrating on looking for food that will revive my spirit and my soul.  these are things we all know; real fruit, whole grains, very select dairy and my favorite beans of every color and stripe.  i will get rest.  really.  not just work till i cannot sit up straight, but rest.  when i wake up i will give thanks. 

most importantly i will not step on the scale – no matter how tempting.  still, if one is going to change a habit, or habits there needs to be a measure (or so i believe at this moment) and so how to measure.  i’ve decided i will measure by my own inner feelings of peace and well being.  i do not think that eating a nectarine from the farmers market as i did this morning is going to be an instant portal to nirvana.  i expect highs and lows like everything else.  however, i believe if i’m on the right track then that ellusive sense of peace will be around more and more as i find my way towards a healthy relationship with myself.

i’ve read a bit on peace education.  for a while i thought i might start a preschool with a peace education curriculum.  i’ve read  that when teaching children about peace you should start with a conversation about inner peace, the peace we all should try to cultivate within ourselves.  from there you talk about peace within the family, then the school, then the town, the country and finally the world.  it made sense to me then and makes sense to me now.  how can we ever bring peace to the world if we have precious little of it within ourselves?

i wish everyone, today, tomorrow and always, peace. within.