Winning Victory for Yourself

I am preparing to embark on the last phase of this great adventure liking the idea that was suggested by someone of having gone full circle or as she put it in few words a full moon.

Even when I commented about this is the end of the first phase was pointed out is a term used about the moon. Now that I am about the close to the edge of ending phase1, what will be is still not all the way clear, I'll get it figure it out. I think I am merely thinking out loud. It will get done

Perhaps I should be more in a panic what I will do or where I will lay my head at Phase 2, but I simply know for a certainty that everything will be all right as Bob Marley sings in his "No Woman, No Cry" song which I've been paying a lot of attention to in the few previous months before I took the leap of faith.

Still I compare it to all of us as we are works in progress in developing our health & well being that things can take all sorts of turns perhaps slightly different then what we laid out but that we can trust the process and trust ourselves enough that we will get to the results that we want and more so what we need. in exactly the right amount and the right time.

We always (and probably ourselves) hear or say the word faith an awful lot when it comes to something we want to do but perhaps sometimes unconsciously thinking that is doing the work and not us. We all know that faith without the works is dead. It is what will carry us through when we cannot see the final results right away or know what the final results are.

I am rapidly approaching my one year anniversary of when I started out to make a concerted effort to improve my health. That first phase existed of doing some pretty vigourous honesty and acknowledging of things internally.

It has taken me all this time to position myself to do the real work and to be at my business well. The business of nurture and tending to my "garden", my health , well being and life. I am thankful for the time though I did a lot of fall down seven, get up eight.

As I was writing this today I thought of several people I've shared in learning how to do this the weigh we do the thins that need to be done and we all are within a few pounds of one another on this adjusting.

None of us are in competition against each other, I just simply thought that it was interesting that we all are at this moment at a definitive point in the weight release. There is no competition, we all have a different methodology that works for us to get there.

I saw this posts at www.sparkspeople.com:

The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves.

- Anonymous

As long as the outdoing oneself means becoming a better human being, to be decent & honorable that I will say have at it!

Winning victory against yourself...

I am not a competitive person and will avoid it at all cost. I don't even like competing against me.

Perhaps my aversion to it is I am just idealistic enough to think that we can let things flow and do things at a pace that is good righteous and healthy and at the end the reward is good. I've not seen in this a lot of it in a highly competitive world where it is extolled for someone always have to be top dog, the alpha dog and everything is looked up as winning at all cost. I am just not sure that the cost is worth stepping or stomping on other people to do it & that includes myself. That is how the culture wants us to believe & it is not worth it. I do not want to stand on the mountaintop alone, to look down at the masses as in "I'm Queen of the World"!!!!

That's no fun for me. So I will continue onto a new phase and will continue to look for lightness in every way figuratively & literally and do indeed see what the beneficial end results will bring to me & others I share my life with both known and the ones I have not yet met.

And how cool is that?

Moon

Jusr One Time

Photograph-Brian Lawdermilk AP

I know some will wonder what Hurricane Gustav has to do with weight loss. This was no cry wolf.

People complained when ones did not leave when "nothing" was done.

People complained when ones left and "something" was done

No one would know if the levees would hold. Thank goodness they did. But had they not held, so many lives were saved because of this major evacuation.

If the people did not evacuate and the levees did not hold, then heads would have been rolling about the failure of the officials, failure of the people who did not leave, you name 'em, somebody would have had something to say.

Anyone with half a brain knows that if you will live in the Gulf Coast or for that fact anywhere that may be disaster prone, you better have an evacuation plan something to get out of harm's way.

Sounds like good common sense. Even if you have had 100 + false starts, all it takes is ONE which is what Katrina showed.

I remember people used to tease me though somewhat gently when I would get out at a Cat 2 and those same people stopped teasing with Katrina. Though NO:a had not had prior to Katrina something that major since '64 Hurricane Betsy, the stage had been prepared for a Katrina.

The bottom line is the area is still struggling to regroup from Katrina with out without a Gustav or for that matter since we are only halfway through the hurricane season all the others that are queue out in the ocean.

There is a huge opportunity right now to go back and correct what was not done in Katrina and the fact that this evacuation seemingly went so well is evidence when people work together and put there heads together show we have a capabilities to do what needs to be done.

Though not perfect this was a good test run. We may not have another opportunity for a trial run.

I think we could say that about the challenges in weight release in a similar way. We could fall down and get up many times. Will one stop and throw in the towel because they didn't get the major dramatic loss they thought they would get with still another new diet and overlook the obvious that perhaps it was a trial run?

That perhaps they were working out the "bugs" so to speak.

Or they claim "Aha! Oh they just cried wolf so lets not bother until a Katrina like health issue threatens to destroy it all?" Or that it will just simply water under the bridge (pun intended)

All it takes is one time...

Just one time.
Moon

While I am processing all of this...

You can complain because roses have thorns. Or you can rejoice that thorns have roses.

- Ziggy

In fact bear with me as I speak here as I am still in the middle of processing things. And I guess some will be puzzled as to what all this has to do with weight,, but bear with it (no pun intended).

Since we knew Hurricane Gustav was heading to the U.S. I've been able to reach perhaps 75% of the people I know in the Gulf Coast happily being able to say did indeed evacuated. What a relief though of course I know of some who just rebuilt there homes

I want to implore people who are watching not to make presumptions about the people who stayed behind as it may not what you think. Some have stayed because they have sick family members who could not be moved to the Children's Hospital who had babies, yes babies who have had heart surgery or born prematurely and who evacuating them would be certain death to the man who felt he could not leave because he felt he would be abandoning his wife. They tried to leave during Katrina and the roads were so impacted that they decided to go back home. His wife drowned....Perhaps for grief? Loyalty? Remorse?

Can we not understand that? Most of the ones who have stayed which is roughly about 10,00 are in the higher areas of N.O which did not sustain devastating damage in Katrina.

But in my thinking as I am watching this irony occur and hoping along with everyone else that the partially redone levees hold when lo and behold they showed my childhood area of the Lower Ninth Wards and the levees with the water over topping.

Looking at this impacted to me why it is important that these levees hold. This will tell the tale. Plus in a ironic way the Westbank which was the area that turned on other New Orleaninans with guns and blocked a foot evacuation threatening to shoot to kill as they did not want "those people" there now in a twist of fate now are being tried and tested. The levees on the Westbank did not break in Katrina & thusly no one knows if they will hold or even post Katrina if they have had defects due to aging or defects.

No one would know until a storm came and Gustav is now providing the test. But using the reasoning of Gustav this is an opportunity to do what a African proverb states "It is no shame to go back and correct what was not done" or as the Bible states godly sadness that befits repentance one being righting the wrong.

Perhaps things that were out of order during Katrina will be put into order this go around. Kinda like Gustav stating (if winds could talk) "I sent my little sister Katrina and you did not heed, so now big brother Gustav has to come along for emphasis". Gustav meaning is "royal staff" or "Staff of the Goths".There were apparently a number of European royalty with the name Gustav. Katrina also German translated means "pure".

Of course I am saying this somewhat tongue in cheek but sometimes the test may not be for the person or thing that is experiencing the difficulty but for the observers as to what they are going to do (or not do).

Ironically just a couple of weeks ago some of us were talking about how the Gulf Coast appeared to be forgotten as people went about their lives and things, challenges and other events crowded in. The economy, gasoline, job loss, dispossed homes, bankruptcies etc. Katrina was not any longer a worthy news bite as people decided "those people" should have been better by now to the "oh they are just whining wanting handouts" to "I got my own problems" forgetting that these are real people and that a Katrina like event can happen to each and everyone of us in some way, Even if we manage something life changing once, it could again and again and again and again..

Someone told me and I do not know the author that "one can be irritated to greatness" meaning being pushed and prodded and molded and tried into being a better person then we once were. One thing about going through iron hitting against iron it makes it a stronger more useful material. Some of us will develop a greater capacity for fellow feeling and action.

Will that be you? Will it be me or someone else?

However there are people that will dig there heels in and fight with all their might to the death figuratively or literally to resist what may need to be altered or done. (Or undone) But yet others will rise up and make extraordinary changes (for themselves) That extraordinary change may be just a blip to other people but may be exactly what it needs to be for the one who is making said change.

So now where will you (or I) be when it is our time which is now?

That may be for ones who are doing things like needing to make major changes in their life or even minor one i.e losing 5, 25 or 105 pounds for health or walking away from a dangerous home life, changing careers or like in my position doing this Moon's Great Adventure. At the end of the first phase of this, I do not know where I will indeed lay my head, but I do know that I have no regrets doing this as if I had stayed where I was wringing my hands all I would have now 7 weeks later I would have been still sitting there wringing my hands.

I can tell you that since I took that first step toward putting things in order, my pain level has decreased about 50% and up until a few days ago the heart palpitations had totally ceased. I am feeling more and more like my old self, but in actuality better then even my old self. Though not all of the experiences have been uplifting, of the types that movies are made of, they though have been powerful.

I am still processing them and may for sometime to come. But I will have to say that 95& of the adventure thus far have been powerful and good.

Ironically if it had not been for a totally unexpected & unplanned for glitch about 3 weeks ago I would have been in New Orleans last week & this. That was part of my scheduled plan and would have been on one of those bus, gus getting out of there! This is the second time (for emphasis) that I was delayed or a circumstance change where I was suppose to be, the other time being Katrina, that prevented me from being in harm's way and put me in a position to where I could be of better service.

So initially as I reflect back on 3 weeks ago what seemed to be a major glitch now is a blessing in disguise and I didn't even know it. What was different was I handled the glitch, changing lanes and kept on pressing. One thing about trials one will indeed learned resiliency unless they fight tooth and nail to resist being molded that comes or when things need to be put in order.

So now where we will be?

I know for me I will continue as the Chinese proverb states "Fall down seven... Get up eight".

Even under these sad circumstances and people are anxious, worried not knowing what will await them, there is still a guarded optimism that perhaps what was not there the first time is now in place and in the end it will gonna be alright.

And how cool is that?