The truth is, I've got so much to do this week in preparation for my trip that I really should be working on all the packing/list tackling I need to do! One week from today I'll be heading to Italy. I can't believe it's already here! Well, almost :]
I reintroduced sugar yesterday completely on a whim. I was out for brunch with family that I haven't seen in years. I ordered some gluten free buckwheat pancakes, which was perfectly fine since I'm not sensitive to buckwheat. Of course, all pancakes come with maple syrup on the side, so I saw my opportunity to scratch sugar off of my to-do list. What I did not anticipate however, was the dusting of confectioners sugar that covered my pancakes and plate. I scraped off as much as I could and ate the pancakes underneath what had been dusted. I must admit, I did have a bite of pancake that I had so *desperately* tried to save from the genetically modified snowstorm of sugar. It was so unbelievably sweet. My sweet tooth rose from the dead, I swear to you. I resisted having more than just that one bite, though. The pancakes were delicious but absorbed the maple syrup like sponges. By the way, the maple syrup was 100% pure. Regardless, I kept telling myself, "LOAD OF BURDEN, GIRL, LOAD OF BURDEN."
Deb, my nutritionist, always has such GREAT analogies and ways of wording things that are tremendously helpful. Today we talked a lot about thoughts and how powerful the mind-body connection truly is. She explained that when a single negative thought pops up into the mind, we open a negative folder filled with tons of other negative folders that pop open and send us into negative overload. It's so difficult to delete all these negative folders one at a time after we've set them all off triggering a downward spiral of self-sabotage. More often than not, our most damaging thoughts are not present thoughts. They're thoughts of things and experiences that have not happened yet. They're things we have no control over in the present moment. So, Deb proposes this: We have two buckets- a "moment" bucket for thoughts that are in the present, and a "memory" bucket for thoughts that are in the past. In moments where your thoughts seem to be getting the best of you by taking you to a place other than the here-and-now, press pause [insert stress management strategy here- tapping, counting back, meditation, etc.] and then decide where that thought belongs. If it belongs in neither the moment nor memory bucket, say, "fuck it" and move on. I take credit for that last sentence. Deb wouldn't use the fuck word. But by this I simply mean, put it out of sight and out of mind. It's not doing you any good.
Send out high, positive vibrations and they'll link up with similar vibrations out there in the universe. The opposite is true too, of course. Send out those low vibrations and they'll link up with other low vibrations. We're all vibrating beings and walking magnets for the great stuff or bad stuff depending on our frequencies. It is the law of attraction, people. We've all heard of it. It's real. Your thoughts and attitude determine the outcome of each day. Use your buckets or say fuck it!
Tonight I'll leave you with this:
"All feelings derive and become alive, whether negative or positive, from the power of thought."