focus – in thriver words

Food Choices

Every day brings numerous food choices. Some are so automatic we don’t think about them. Others we agonize over, apologize for, or allow others to make for us. Choice is one of our greatest powers.

Why would we shy away from making a healthy choice? Obviously, there are many reasons. But often it’s because we don’t think we have the mental or emotional strength to navigate the social implications of refusing perfectly good food because it damages our bodies.

And why do those of us who can eat something push others to join us? Is it really that important that another person make exactly the same choices we make?

Underneath excuses, hesitations, justifications, and bargaining with ourselves, we often make decisions based on fear. The weird thing is that we can be more afraid of public appearance than we are of bad health.

There’s no way to explain this logically. There’s nothing more frustrating than observing someone we care for do things that hurt them. And yet, when it comes to ourselves, it seems relatively easy to acquiesce to the slightest pressure to conform.

In this moment when factions publicly push agendas all day long every day, it may take even more resolve to pursue a healthy path. But here’s the thing, what someone else chooses (other than your children) is none of your business. It’s their choice and within their power to control.

Why is it important to butt out? Because focusing on another’s choices is a distraction from being responsible for our own. Plus, the less concerned we are about what others do, the less we’ll be affected by owning our own decisions when they prove to be unpopular.

I don’t know why we’re so worried about appearance in some areas. Is it because we’re so judgmental that we can’t accept others who don’t conform to our ideas? If so, can changing our attitude toward others help us make better choices for ourselves?

If you need people to conform to your ideals in order to feel safe, leaning into the power of choice can help you develop more internal security. When you’re internally secure, you’ll be less worried about what other people think.

Perhaps this fact is worth repeating: you cannot control other people. That is an illusion. You can manipulate them or the circumstances around them, but the control you achieve is momentary. This puts you in the position of required escalation to continue to feel in charge.

This week, when you’re tempted to consume something that will hurt your health, shift the focus to you. Does your choice value your health? Does it make you feel better or worse physically? Do you have the courage to take care of yourself? Can you stop apologizing for proactive decisions?

You don’t have to do anything different right this minute. Simply changing your focus can lead to better food choices down the road.

Gratitude Workout

It’s Thanksgiving week, let’s breathe our way through a gratitude workout. A study of the effects of the pandemic showed that 90% of us have been emotionally affected by it. That’s really not surprising. But for 25% of us, this has resulted in depression. While a temporary state of depression is a natural response to change, it’s possible some will experience long-term or clinical depression as time goes on.

Many Americans are facing trauma and hardship they’ve never seen before – job loss, hunger, severe illness, loss of family, lack of physical contact, unsafe working conditions, and more. This takes a toll even on the strongest and healthiest of us. Yet some will rise to the occasion, feel the effects, find a way to cope, and thrive in the future. Others will become stuck. Genetics, personality, support, and choices all play a role in how we fare.

Even when outside support is lacking, we can become our own support system by building the emotional resilience that will facilitate processing through difficulty and coming out the other side better than before. This can be accomplished through deliberate practices. One tool to build an emotional toolkit is a gratitude practice. I’ve written about this before because it’s always a wonderfully useful tool, but it seems especially important right now.

So much of our cultural conversation is focused on what we don’t have, can’t do, can’t buy, can’t see, can’t experience that we’re at risk of losing sight of the good that surrounds us. A gratitude workout may be just the shift in focus that revitalizes us when we’re dining alone this week.

I’ve used many techniques for practicing gratitude. I started with a series of journals. In those books, I made a list every day of 10 things for which I was grateful. On days when most everything had gone wrong, I had to sit for a very long time to think of that first item. But I’m sure you’ll find as I did that once you think of one thing, you’ll think of more because your focus has finally shifted.

One year, I used a series of neon colored post-its that I collected in a brightly colored plastic box with a pull-out drawer. At the end of each month, I’d go back and read all of the notes. It was a great way to gain perspective on the events of the month. If I gleaned an insight that seemed particularly significant, I’d record it somewhere to ponder later.

The specifics of how you record your lists are not as important as the discipline of doing it. In fact, it’s the discipline that will pave the way for the greatest insight. Those moments when you really don’t feel grateful for anything will get you to dig deeper. But you won’t dig deeper unless disciplined commitment to the process requires that you record something. It’s a lot easier to eat ice cream and pout.

This week of Thanksgiving, you may not be with family. That brings the temptation to only see what’s missing. That’s why I’m planning to combine two practices and breathe my way through a gratitude workout.

How? Before I prepare my Cornish hen, I’m spending some time on my yoga mat. I’m going to sit in easy pose (Sukhasana) or stand in mountain pose (Tadasana) and slow my breath bringing my focus to my sit bones or the four corners of my feet, my thighs, my shoulders, my neck, my face. Once I’ve found the balance between effort and ease, I’ll begin to breathe my gratitude. A long breath in through the nose and a slow breath out for each item on my list. I may add a twist in between and a series of warrior poses before I rest in corpse pose (Savasana).

I’ll express gratitude for grocery delivery, Zoom & FaceTime, the warm weather that made fresh tomatoes and spinach from the garden possible for Thanksgiving, the flavor of those tomatoes, my grandchildren’s laughter, the internet, the heart of healthcare workers, brilliant maple leaves, and strong oak trees with rough bark.

None of those are equal to sitting around the table with my family, but grocery delivery means I have groceries without virus exposure. Zoom and the internet mean I’ll can see my family in a way that wouldn’t have been possible a few decades ago. Fresh vegetables from my garden mean both healthy and tasty food. And cooking for one rather than a large group means I have time to sit still. Things don’t have to be perfect to enrich my life or make things better than they would be otherwise. I can be grateful for things that are just okay.

In fact, I am grateful for things that are just okay as well as things that are magnificent. But it’s easy to miss the magnificent if I only focus on what is wrong. In this year when it feels like so much has gone awry, a gratitude workout is just what the doctor ordered.

Never Surrender!

Dessert First! Day Two.

Initially it was more difficult than I anticipated to stick with my intent to do dessert first. The morning presented the challenge of nonworking phones, an unexpected customer visit, and an irate phone call from another customer at a university who believed she had been shorted on an order. While the visiting customer tried to look at his website on our screen, the printer jammed upon printing his ads causing the computer to freeze. The thought of anything pleasant seemed beyond my grasp. It was going to take some resolve to follow my plan.

Perhaps I should mention that all of this followed an hour of pulling up carpet and moving furniture in my bedroom so that the 2nd full bathroom in my 1910 house can be demolished due to the same water damage tha caused us to demolish the bathroom below two weeks ago. And did I mention that this is the only other full bathroom in the house? In addition, on the way to the office I had fielded a call from an unemployed friend who is feeling angry and desperate.

When I finally managed to turn my mind back to my intention to savor the small pleasant moments of each day, I felt angry, unsettled, and a bit overwhelmed. Nonetheless, I accepted my visiting customer’s invitation to an early lunch. I told him how I felt. I savored a hamburger steak with crispy edges topped with grilled onions. I lingered and enjoyed catching up with his family stories even though I had not yet researched the order shortage for my other customer. I began to feel a tiny bit more relaxed.

Back at the office, I researched the problem and could document that we had delivered the full order and that it had been signed for by the university. Even with that, I recognized that they believed there was a problem so I had to deal with them as if there were a problem. Was there some morsel of pleasure I could savor first?

I turned my attention to some invoicing that needed to go out. This felt good to me because it means cash flow sooner rather than later and is a way of taking care of my finances. Then I made the phone call. Once that was done, I went to the dry cleaners and the bank. Along the route, I noticed a huge weeping willow tree blowing in the breeze. I took a moment to watch the scintillating leaves.

By the time I returned, I was feeling peaceful and calm. Then I got the phone call that someone at the university had misplaced a box of my customer’s order. Ahhhh, more relaxation that problem is gone. Perhaps even the brief moments of pleasure I managed to lean into were having an effect?

Late afternoon presented a minor bump in the road, but by evening I was feeling energized by positive energy and happy as I began a book I’ve been looking forward to at bedtime. In the moment it’s hard to analyze anything, but this morning (the morning of Day 3), I awoke feeling joyous with an excitement toward embracing whatever the day may bring.

Could it be that the small shift in focus that I managed yesterday was a powerful catalyst for how I’m feeling today? Perhaps. Check in tomorrow to find out.