Behind the Shield

Four years ago someone said to me “women and children should be behind the shield.” The impact of that statement was like a kick in the gut. I was shocked by the way the words made me feel; a tidal wave of fury, grief and despair. It was so overwhelming I didn’t poke at it right away, but ever since then I’ve been playing around with the idea of shields, my version of circling around a potentially dangerous object with twitching tail and ears pricked, curious but wary.

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A shield is a piece of personal armor used to actively intercept specific attacks. Traditionally, shields varied in size, shape and thickness and were made of wood, animal hide, woven reeds or wicker. Shields have probably been around as long as we have.

A shield implies protection.

I think my initial reaction to the phrase “behind the shield” was painful because of my fierce, primitive longing for the kind of protection and safety that image implies to me. I’ve always been hypervigilant and concerned with identifying safe places. I know where the exits are, physical and emotional. I maintain bolt holes, if-the-sky-falls plans and a high degree of independence and self-sufficiency.

Because my own anxiety and fear have been such sources of private and mostly hidden anguish, I’m extremely sensitive to others who suffer in the same ways, either specifically or generally. In the days when I was doing volunteer fire and rescue work, I frequently took the role of lying on the highway in the glass, spilled gas and ruins of a vehicle calming and reassuring a trapped victim, monitoring a pulse if I could get to a pulse point, explaining what was happening as we tried to extricate, establishing responsiveness and orientation and taking a history while the fire department deconstructed the car around us and the EMTs and paramedics passed me pressure bandages, a blanket or anything else that was needed and we had room to use.

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In short, I give others, animals and human, the kind of calm reassurance and protection I’ve always craved myself.

It might be this longing is buried within all of us, a kind of deep and primitive desire to return to the ultimate safety of the womb or a longing for the in-arms experience every baby needs and has a right to receive. Except that the womb is not always safe, and many of us do not get sufficient in-arms experience as babies. It might be that I’m uniquely broken in this, but I doubt it. I suspect much of our irrational and destructive behavior has to do with trying to feel safe, sheltered and loved, including sexual and behavioral acting out and addiction.

In any event, my desperation to be shielded motivated me to become a willing shield for others. This adaptation was greatly assisted by being female and then further strengthened when I became a mother.

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I never thought of myself as a shield. It never occurred to me such a role was a choice. I defined myself as a protector, a nurterer, a figure of maternal and female strength, a life-giver and a peace maker. I thought of myself as a good woman. I automatically placed myself between the harsh edges of the world and those I loved. I protected my husbands and partners from the necessity to deal with anyone else’s needs (including my own) and threats to their egos (including me). I protected my sons from the immaturity and selfishness of my husbands and partners. I tried to protect people from their mental and physical pain, from the consequences of their choices, from their own feelings and from any other irritation, hurt or harm.

Shields were originally made to protect from specific kinds of attack, but I tried to shield others from all kinds of danger: blade, arrow, blunt weapon, words, pain, consequences, inconvenience, feelings and worry. I was determined to be a perfect shield for all my loved ones.

Predictably, I failed, and nobody likes a shield that fails. I regularly heard about my inadequacy.

No one ever suggested to me that I protect myself, and no one invited me behind their shield, even for a rest. I approached every relationship with a craving to be taken care of, to be held, to be loved. I believed in romance and part of romance certainly included being taken behind the shield of some kind, competent man. If you’re thinking this was needy and dangerous behavior, you’re right. Somehow, I always ended up with one more person in my life I needed to shield, instead of the other way around.

The inability to trust and the craving to be protected and cared for can tear a woman apart. I’m certain there have been people in my life over the years who wanted to give me safety and security, but I refused to let anyone get that close. I don’t want to rely on anyone. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid asking for help. At the same time, I’ve spent much of my life working happily with children, animals, in hospice and as a first responder.

For a long time I thought if I could get a good enough job and earn or save enough money I’d be safe, but I was wrong about that. We live well below the poverty line, but I feel safer now than during any other time in my life. I’m also less concerned about money than I’ve ever been before. Money is not safety. I also thought if I could just find the right home I’d be safe. I found the right home and discovered that wasn’t the solution, either. Wrong again.

Since I came to Maine, everything has changed. Now I live in a situation that does not require constant emotional labor. I live with an adult who does not need or expect me to protect him. I have found reciprocal relationships.

This morning, as I went about my daily breakfast routine, it occurred to me that I’m no longer looking for a shield to crawl behind. The need for safety doesn’t drive me now. I’m not even sure I know what I mean by safety. What is the threat I’m trying to protect myself from? Aging? Poverty? Being unloved? Abuse? Getting my feelings hurt? A blow to my pride? Abandonment? Betrayal? Internet trolls? Loneliness? Crazy people with guns? Illness? Death?

Yes. All these and more. And most of these have already happened, some more than once, or are happening right now.

In spite of that, I’m okay. I’m better than okay. I’m great. I’m resilient. I believe in my ability to survive and thrive. I don’t mind aging and I’m not afraid of death. I’m emotionally intelligent and I understand power dynamics. I’m as safe as anyone, and a lot safer than millions.

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I have my own shield now. I made it (without knowing what I was doing) out of dragonfly wings, cobwebs, stardust and the sound of bats flitting around my head in the dusky barn on their way out to hunt. I made it out of integrity, passion, dance, laughter, creativity, ritual and spirit. There’s room behind my shield for others to rest, breathe and make shields for themselves, but I’m not spending my days searching for those in need of such a shelter. I can’t make a shield for you or even my most beloved to carry. I can’t keep everyone or anyone safe. I can’t shelter the world.

The only person in charge of my safety is me. The only person I have a responsibility to keep safe is me.

I am not a shield. I don’t have to take the blows or go to war. I don’t have to buffer, neutralize or ameliorate the experience of life for others. I don’t have to prostitute and beg in order to be dragged behind someone else’s shield. I made exactly what I need for myself, and no one can take it away from me.

Knowing I have what I need, I’m no longer approaching interactions with others from such desperation to be cared for. I still don’t like to ask for help, but I’m practicing doing it anyway. I’m much better at taking care of myself and no longer put the needs of others before my own. I’ve developed useful coping mechanisms that help me feel safe.

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We all construct shields emotionally, intellectually, behaviorally and with our choices. None of them really protect us from our fears or the experience of life. There is no way to shield against generalized fear and anxiety. It’s counterintuitive, but the best path I’ve found to feeling safer and more secure is to drop my armor and open my arms to my fears. I don’t know why that works, but it does. Monsters are ten times larger when I’m running away from them. When I run toward them they shrink before my eyes, and sometimes they even run away from me. That’s why I build my shield from things like iridescent hummingbird feathers and milkweed fluff. It won’t stop a harsh word or a bullet, but I carry with me joy, wonder, awe, mystery and beauty. My shield is a story of love and a story about what makes life worth living. It reminds me to stand tall and unafraid, looking life in the eye, confident in my ability to endure, heal, laugh and learn.

From behind the shield: My daily crime.

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All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted

Depression and Other Unwelcome Visitors

Slowly, I’m finding online communities of writers. As I’ve shaped Our Daily Crime, I’ve connected with other bloggers. These connections mean I spend at least an hour a day reading the work of others. I’m inspired, touched, tickled and provoked, and I feel at home in these digital communities because we all share the need to write and be read. We also share self-doubt, confusion, vulnerability, loneliness, the need for connection and the problem of earning a living.

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Over and over again, I read about personal struggles with depression, fear and anxiety. Many a writer sits down to their daily writing practice with goals and intentions and finds him or herself unable to do anything but express the here and now of their experience of ambivalence, avoidance, distraction or block. To be a writer is to occasionally live with shame and guilt about what we meant to write, what we should have written and the quality and subject of what we actually did come up with. We all doubt our ability, our value, and whether anyone will care enough to read our words. Creative expression is a daily leap of faith.

I’ve struggled all my life with depression. In more recent years, I’ve come to understand anxiety and fear are also large parts of the feeling I recognize as depression. Over the years I’ve tried to manage depression in many ways. Some worked, at least temporarily, and some didn’t.

It hasn’t been until the last decade that I’ve finally found a way to effectively manage and even largely banish depression. It doesn’t play with me anymore. Fear and anxiety still show up regularly, but the same method works to manage them, and I no longer worry one day I’ll just give up, step over some unseen edge, and disappear into crazy, a fugue state, or death.

One day, for no reason in particular except I felt exhausted, despairing, and bored with both, I said to Depression, “You win. I give up. Why not come out of the shadows and show yourself?”

Fat and happy, secure in its power, it did just that.

The first thing that I realized was Depression is an experience, not an integral piece of me. It’s something draped around me. It can be separated from me.

The second thing I noticed was my depression is male. He walked with an arrogant male strut and swagger and he spoke in a male voice.

I didn’t name him because he wasn’t a pet, he wasn’t a friend, and he most definitely wasn’t invited to be a roommate. He was merely someone who showed up at more or less regular intervals and made a nuisance of himself. He didn’t have the manners to knock on the door, wait to be invited or give any notice of his arrival. He just appeared.

I wondered what it would take to discourage him from visiting. What made me so attractive?

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Clinical depression is like a grey cave filled with fog. It numbs the senses and fills head and heart with cold, sticky, lumpy oatmeal. One is entirely alone with no hope. The simplest action, like opening one’s eyes, takes enormous effort. Depression envelopes and consumes every spark of power.

The only reason I’m in the world today is because I’m an unbelievably stubborn butthead. I’m also very nice. One does not cancel out the other, but nearly everyone persists in missing that second important point, with the result that I’m constantly being underestimated. This is a wonderful advantage in life.

Depression was no exception to the rule. When invited, he disentangled himself from me, parked his butt in a chair I pulled out for him, and began to tell me how things were going to be from now on.

On that particular day, I hadn’t showered (or the day before that, or the day before that). Annoyed by his high-handedness, I interrupted to say I was going to shower. He told me not to. Who would care? What was the point? I wouldn’t see anyone. No one would see me.

That was all I needed. I went and took a long shower. Washed my hair. Shaved my legs. Put on clean clothes and some jewelry. Depression sat in the bathroom and muttered at me. I ignored him.

I felt better then, and my irrepressible creativity began to stir, along with a childlike streak of playfulness I usually keep well-hidden. One small act of rebellion had helped me regain a tiny sense of power.

One of the things that used to happen when depression struck was that I stopped eating. I’d go all day with nothing but a salad and a piece of toast. I hadn’t eaten a solid meal for several days on this occasion. I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry (this is common), but I knew I needed to eat.

Depression didn’t like it. He threatened and complained and trotted out all the usual points. I was too fat. I hadn’t been doing anything useful and didn’t need to eat. I didn’t make enough money to deserve to eat.

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I put a chair at the table for Depression (I lived alone at the time), invited him to sit, set the table for two with complete place settings, right down to two glasses of water, made myself a meal, and ate. I offered him some food, but he refused. I read while I ate and ignored Depression, who sat and sulked.

Well, you have the idea. The more he protested when I wanted to take a walk, sit in the sun or work in the garden, the more stubborn I became. I politely invited him to join me in my activities, but he refused, which meant the more I got out in the world and did things the less time I spent with him. He hated my movies and my audio books. He thought walking to Main Street for an ice cream cone was a criminal waste of money, along with feeding the birds. The only activity he approved of was my work, which involved sitting for hours in front of my computer with headphones on doing medical transcription as fast and accurately as possible for only slightly more than minimum wage.

He absolutely hated my music. I quickly developed the habit of turning on Pandora first thing every morning and listening to it most of the day.

We also conflicted over sleep. Depression said there was no point in getting up in the morning because no one would notice. No one would care. In fact, the only things really worth doing in life were working and sleeping. This attitude ensured I set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. and walked every day at dawn.

I didn’t ask him to leave. I didn’t fight or struggle. I made sure he had plenty of space and a good pillow in my bed. I gave him a spot at the table and a seat in front of the TV. I took out a clean towel for him and invited him to browse in my personal library.

Every single time he told me not to do something I did it, no matter how much I didn’t want to. I was pleasant, noncompliant, resistant and stubborn as a mule.

You know what?

He went away.

One day, he was just gone.

I knew I’d found the key.

Externalized, Depression suddenly became more pathetic than terrifying. He was so predictable, and so limited. All he had to say were the same things he’d been saying all my life. He was boring. He was like a batty old uncle who must be invited to every family gathering and tells the same interminable stories year in and year out.

He came back, of course, but for shorter and shorter visits at wider and wider intervals.

“Back again, I see,” I’d say. I’d set a place at the table, take out a clean towel, make space in the bed and on the couch. I’d realize I was sliding again and concentrate on eating more regularly, exercising, playing music, putting flowers on the table or maybe scheduling a massage.

I tried to have conversations with him, but Depression had no conversation, just the same tired monologue, mumbling and whining. He was really quite sad. He stopped spending the night and then gradually stopped visiting altogether.

I guess he was no longer getting what he needed from me.

Fear and anxiety are still regular visitors. Things are different here in Maine. I don’t live alone, for one thing. I still play imaginary games, but only in my head. Still, when either fear or anxiety show up, I recognize them. (Anxiety bites her fingernails; I always recognize her hands.) I don’t try to keep them away and I don’t try to hide from them.

I focus on giving them no power. I don’t buy into their catastrophizing. I appreciate they’re trying to keep me safe, poor things. All they can do is make up terrible stories about what might happen and then sit, paralyzed by their imaginings. I know they’re wretched. I wish I could help. I try to be kind — at a distance. They usually don’t stay long.

This experience is the sort of thing I used to hide, but I realize now my struggles are not unique. I’m inspired by the creativity, honesty and vulnerability of other writers. Coping with depression, anxiety and fear is like figuring out how to eat. Every body is different. Everybody needs to find their own path to healing, health and sanity. At times, it’s difficult to break through social expectations and shoulds and make a complete left turn into something creative, intuitive or outside the current norms.

Still, nothing succeeds like success. Turning Depression into an externalized character helped me see I didn’t have to define myself by it. I could choose to set aside that label and all it implies. Once I truly believed I had the power to choose, everything changed.

Sometimes, running away from sudden or passing danger is appropriate. However, running from these chronic spectres dogging my heels has not worked. I can’t get away from them. I can’t avoid or evade. Being chased by anything is fearful. The moment when I stop running, turn around and deliberately go toward whatever threatens me is the moment in which I begin to regain power. Monsters suddenly become mice. My own fear and abdication of power are what made them monstrous. I don’t need to hide. I don’t need to defend. I only need to consistently and patiently demonstrate I will give them nothing they want so they choose to leave me.

It helps when they tell me what to do.

Don’t tell me what to do!

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All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted

The Politics of Food: Update

I posted three times about diet and food in 2017. You can find them here, here and here. They are among my most-read posts, and I’ve had enough comments and reads to encourage me to update my experience a year later. I still read everything I see regarding food, nutrition and diet, and I’m still learning what choices give me optimal health and following new science and data.

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For the record, I’m 54 years old, officially in menopause now, 5 feet 8 inches tall and a steady 140 lbs. I do a minimum of two hours of sweat-producing Tai Chi a week, swim laps for 45-60 minutes without stopping weekly, and walk energetically up and down a steep hill with my partner (about 50 minutes) five days a week. This walk is also sweat-producing. I dance occasionally and take shorter walks and snowshoe excursions several times a week. I go up and down steep flights of stairs all day long, shovel snow and help hump hardwood (heavy!) firewood into the barn. My blood pressure and pulse are both low, and my BMI is exactly where it’s supposed to be. I see a dentist and eye doctor regularly and a medical doctor rarely. I take no prescription medications and I don’t drink or smoke. I sleep 8-9 hours a night.

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In the summer of 2016, as I was slowly eating fewer and fewer plants and more and more meat and animal fats, I had trouble with hair loss. It occurred about six months into my transition to a very low-carb, high-fat diet. As you can imagine, it gave me pause. My hair is one of my few vanities (it misbehaves so gloriously!) and the women in my family have thick, healthy hair. I freaked out.

My first thought was thyroid. I was previously diagnosed as hypothyroid, but I had quit taking my medication when I moved to Maine in 2015 and had no further symptoms. I went to a doctor and had blood drawn. My thyroid levels were normal. Good news, but it didn’t explain my hair loss. At that particular time I was under a great deal of family stress, and the doctor assured me my hair loss was a stress reaction combined with menopause. I wasn’t much comforted, but I couldn’t find another explanation and he was undisturbed, so I decided to give it some time and see what happened.

The stress in my personal life resolved and after three or four weeks so did the hair loss. I didn’t think any more about it until recently, when my partner, who also eats low-carb, high-fat, told me he’d come across a blog post about temporary hair loss being a side effect of transitioning to a ketogenic diet, and it generally occurs around six months into the diet. Hair loss explained. It’s worth noting that since then, my hair is thicker, wilder and curlier than ever, and it grows fast. I need a cut at least every five weeks.

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In my old life, when I was eating a mostly plant-based diet, I really struggled with constipation. I took fiber supplements and ate loads of fiber-rich foods every day, but it seemed like the more fiber I took, the more trouble I had. I also had a lot of bloating and water retention, which was discouraging. I felt fat, and at the same time I felt depleted.

One of my biggest concerns about trying a low-carb diet was the issue of fiber. Everything I’d ever read told me unequivocally that it’s necessary to eat fiber to maintain a healthy GI tract, and cutting out plant-based food seemed to be going in the opposite direction.

What I discovered was that I still struggled with constipation, but it didn’t get worse. I was surprised, but I still wanted to fix the problem. I did a lot of reading on blogs about eating low or zero carb, and found constipation was a concern for many people. Everything I read pointed to focusing on micronutrients, especially when transitioning to low-carb, high-fat eating. I read a lot about electrolytes: salt, magnesium, calcium and potassium. My plant-based diet was low-salt (I was careful about salt and rarely added it when cooking and baking) and high in magnesium and potassium. My understanding was that salt is very bad for us, and causes high blood pressure, water retention and a myriad of other problems. Further reading informed me salt is a necessary nutrient, and I realized I was getting well below the recommended levels of salt, potassium and magnesium in my diet of meat and fat.

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I began to supplement magnesium and potassium, and I stopped restricting salt (which I’ve always loved). I also began making sure I drink at least 3 liters of water a day, more when it’s hot and humid. The other thing I read about consistently, and this was the hardest for me, was that one needs to eat at least a pound of meat a day, and many people aim for two. That’s a lot of meat!

When I implemented all this, my constipation went away. My blood pressure and water retention did not increase with increased salt. I never have bloating. If I have trouble now, it’s because I’ve been too sedentary, not drinking or eating enough, or I forgot my usual supplements.

When I began eating low-carb, high-fat, I also started having severe leg and foot cramps, which I’d never had before. They weren’t like my chronic pain and spasm, but in the middle of the night, without warning, my calf or foot would cramp, waking me in a hurry and making me writhe for a few seconds before it relaxed. I was concerned this was a sign that eating this way was as insane and unhealthy as most people say it is and I was starving my body of what it needed, but this, too, turned out to be a function of imbalanced electrolytes and under hydration. I haven’t had any kind of cramp since last year.

In retrospect, I wonder if both my chronic pain and spasm and my constipation had a lot to do with imbalanced electrolytes all along. It may be I’ve been chronically sodium deficient. I also believe I’ve been chronically under hydrated for most of my life. I have to really pay attention in order to get three plus liters of water a day, and I lived in Colorado, which is terribly dry, before I came to Maine. Obviously, staying well hydrated is essential to healthy bowel habits.

Another problem I had was debilitating migraine headaches that lasted for at least 24 hours and made it impossible to function. Photophobia, phonophobia, neuralgia and pounding pain had me in a dark room with an ice pack. For two or three years I had them once a month, right at the full moon. As I started eating meat and fat and reducing carbs, they gradually diminished in intensity, frequency and length. I’ve had one so far this year, and I was able to function all the way through it, albeit with discomfort.

So what, exactly, does my current diet look like?

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I eat three thick slices of bacon and two sausage links with four to five buttered eggs every morning. It’s always delicious and I’m not even close to bored eating it daily. I also drink my first liter of water in unsweetened green tea and just plain water with breakfast. Every other day I put a spoonful of fresh farm cream cheese with garlic and herbs on the eggs. We usually eat before 8:00 a.m.

I don’t think about food again until around 3:00 p.m. I write for three or four hours, exercise, do housework, run errands, etc. I usually drink a couple more cups of herbal tea and I drink at least another liter of water. Sometime mid afternoon I’ll feel hungry. My partner makes a beef stew to die for, but we don’t always have that. We always have ground beef, however, and last fall we saved money and bought half a locally-raised cow, butchered and packaged to our specifications. The meat is grass-fed and very lean. I’m sure this is what most people want, but we find it too lean. Because of that, I make a burger patty or crumble and cook the beef in the frying pan from breakfast in order to take advantage of the bacon and sausage fat. The lean ground beef soaks up the fat pretty well, especially if I just crumble and cook it, which takes about 2 minutes. I aim to cook at least 3/4 of a pound of burger.

I find this extremely filling and satisfying. I drink a lot of water with it. Now and then I spoon garlic and herb farm cheese on top. If I’m really starving or feel extra depleted, I bake a half a sweet potato or white potato, anoint it with lots of butter and fresh farm sour cream. I don’t eat any kind of carb without eating fat and meat first.

I also buy unsweetened, full-fat farm yoghurt, and sometimes after my afternoon meal I’ll eat a couple big spoonfuls of that. When there is beef stew, I occasionally like to have a half a thin slice of locally baked wheat bread, liberally buttered, with the gravy. I love ice cream, and about once a week I eat a small bowl of hard ice cream, but only after a good meal of meat and fat. If we buy ice cream in town, I get a child’s serving in a bowl. Cones are just empty carbs, and they make me hurt. My partner likes banana bread, and he occasionally bakes a very low-sugar version. Sometimes I’ll eat a half a thin slice, thickly buttered, as a treat after my afternoon meal.

I have a tendency to react badly to nuts, but I love peanut butter, and we buy nothing-added-but-salt peanut butter from East Wind in bulk. Once a week I eat a spoonful of that on a small square of buttered bread.

Oddly, I’ve discovered eating one spoonful of ice cream a day causes far more problems than having a small serving once a week. For me, there seems to be a cumulative effect in terms of carbs. Now and then I splurge on a carb, just for fun, and if I’ve eaten meat and fat first I can get away with it without too many consequences. If I squirt a little catsup on my burger three days in a row, though, I’m going to start to have pain that limits my activity level and sleep. Commercial catsup, for some stupid reason, is sweetened.

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Since I last wrote about food, I’ve done a lot of reading on permaculture, holistic food production, and land management. Please see my Resource page for links. What I’ve learned is that monocropping is biocide. Large-scale animal production can be equally catastrophic for the land and environment. What we know now is that a healthy complex system (i.e., Planet Earth, left undisturbed) contains an essential mix of plants, fungi, microorganisms, insects and animals. Earth is evolved for such communities, and we will destroy the planet if we don’t figure out how to emulate, nurture, protect and participate in such systems. All life will starve to death.

The most extraordinary thing about eating this way, and the hardest part to communicate to someone who doesn’t, is the level of hunger satisfaction. Previously, I was always snacking. A piece of fruit, a couple of pieces of toast, a salad, a smoothie. I was always hungry, and I was always ashamed of it. My shame caused me to withhold food from myself, which only made my cravings worse. My weight, mood and energy fluctuated wildly. My sleep was bad. I had constant pain. I was always thinking about food, one way or another.

It’s hard to express how different it is to eat a big breakfast and walk away feeling really satisfied and full until six or seven hours later. No craving. No shame. No snacking. No sense of deprivation. No counting calories or weighing portions. Then, another big meal, the evening routine and bedtime, satisfied and satiated. When I’m hungry, I eat. I don’t care what time it is or what else is going on. When I’m full, I stop eating. That’s it.

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The same level of satisfaction applies to drinking water. We drink filtered water from our old hand-dug well, and I never thought just plain water could give me so much pleasure. You couldn’t pay me to drink soda or sweet tea or any of the things I used to drink. When I’m thirsty, I want water, lovely, fresh, cool, clean water. I’m never bored with it. I never want anything else. It satisfies me in a way that’s so deep it’s almost sensual.

I never feel deprived.

It’s worth noting that the absolutely most satisfying meat is beef. I eat some chicken and, occasionally, turkey, but I have to eat two or three times as much in order to get the same level of satiation, and those meats are less fatty than beef. Pork is good because it’s high-fat, and we hope to be able to buy a half a pig in the future from local farmers.

Sometimes, if I’ve been working unusually hard physically or am unusually emotionally upset, I’ll need a fast snack. In this case, hard-boiled eggs are portable, quick and healthy. Every couple of months I buy a plain ham, unsweetened, smoked, or otherwise manipulated, as fatty as I can find. I thin slice it and pack it into small baggies, which I throw in the freezer until wanted. This provides a quick, high-fat, high-salt, tasty snack I can eat on the run or in a hurry. If I’m going to visit a friend and have a cup of tea or a chat, I eat a little ham so I can have a cracker or cookie with my friend without paying for it in pain.

We have the great good fortune to be able to buy food from a farm. I no longer buy commercial milk, cheese, yoghurt, sour cream or eggs. Nothing compares to food that hasn’t left the farm until you take it home. It puts money back into the local community, fosters small-scale farmers who are working holistically with animals and plants (and they work day and night, let me assure you), and it allows me to know exactly where my food is coming from and how it’s being handled. It’s also fresh and far more delicious than anything available in the grocery store.

I’ve seen blogs and posts from people who claim to have tried a low or zero-carb, high-fat diet and say it “doesn’t work.” I’m not sure what “doesn’t work” means, exactly, but I always long to ask a lot of nosey questions. First, what was the goal? Why did they try it? Secondly, how long did they stick to it? Thirdly, did they really commit to it? Did they suspend their soda habit, stop sweetening their coffee and ditch the “healthy” granola bars? Did they eat meat and animal fat and drink water and nothing else? Lastly, do they smoke tobacco or drink? All alcohol is carbs. Do they take any prescription drugs or use recreational drugs?

Another thing I’ve heard is that eating this way is unmanageable socially. I don’t buy that. If you’re trying to change the way you eat in order to feel better and improve your health and your buddies at the bar give you a bad time for refusing nachos and cheese fries, grow a pair and tell them to back off! Better yet, get them to join you! Do a two-week challenge and bet on who will lose the most weight. True friends will support friends in maintaining health. If you can pack a sandwich for lunch, you can pack fatty ham, hard boiled eggs, and a container of full-fat unsweetened yoghurt. If your only option is fast food, buy a couple of burgers and ditch the buns and condiments. If you want to eat this way, you can. Nobody cares. Nobody’s really paying attention. They’re too busy with their own food preoccupations! Pot luck? Take a tray of cold cuts or deviled eggs. We go out to eat a couple of times a week and enjoy eggs and sausage, meatloaf, pot roast and chopped sirloin. Hold the bread, hold the side salad!

Eating in this way has transformed my life and my health. Shopping is easy, infrequent and fast. Every ten days or so I visit my friend’s farm, buy eight dozen eggs, cheese, sour cream and/or yoghurt (according to need), chat and exchange a hug. I spend a half hour in the kitchen making breakfast, doing dishes, giving the cat fresh water, looking out the windows, watching the birds and thinking about the day ahead. My afternoon meal is either already made (stew) or takes two or three minutes to cook in the breakfast frying pain. I don’t meal plan. We know exactly what we need to budget to eat well. I don’t need a lot of gear and gadgets or cupboard space. The refrigerator is not overflowing with who-knows-what leftovers and outdated food. Our collection of plastic Tupperware containers is virtually unused (which is good, because there are mice in that particular cupboard!). We don’t produce much trash, because we don’t buy cans, bags and boxes. We recycle all our egg cartons, plastic and aluminum. We compost egg shells, tea bags, coffee grounds, and any small amount of vegetable matter. Meat and bacon grease is also perfectly suitable for compost, managed properly. We know farmers who have buried a whole dead goat in the center of their compost pile with no smell and no problem.

I don’t diet. I eat food — joyously, effortlessly, with great satisfaction and pleasure. I drink water with a deep sense of gratitude that I have clean water to drink. I feel healthy, happy, energetic and filled with vitality. My body is my friend and ally, and I think it’s miraculously lovely.

Diet is a personal choice. I suspect different bodies have different requirements. Some people can’t eat eggs or dairy. Some are particularly sensitive to the herbicides in our grains. I also suspect that a lot of the current mainstream information and advice about food is skewed and misleading. I encourage everyone to research for themselves. A sampling of the links I’ve provided in these posts and on my Resource page may provide you with new information and data. Ultimately, the choice is yours, and yours alone. If you’re happy with your physical and mental health, your relationship to food and your body, and you have no need to take over-the-counter or prescription medication, you obviously have figured out what works for you. If not, it’s important to understand you’re not alone and not everyone (not even all doctors) is in agreement about diet.

As for me, I will never go back to a plant-based diet, chronic pain and spasm, constipation, migraines, hypothyroidism, anxiety and depression, insomnia and weight problems. I’m a carnivore, and I eat meat and animal fat with great relish.

Photo by Lukas Budimaier on Unsplash

All content on this site ©2018
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted

Being Good

Relationship is the finest crucible I know for personal growth and transformation. Unfortunately, it’s also the best crucible for abuse and destruction, but I no longer focus on that aspect of connection with others. My relationships now are based on growth, not destruction. I have promised myself this.

As my partner and I slowly move toward shaping a life of self-sufficiency and holistic collaboration with our land and community, we are experiencing (naturally) many unwelcome pauses and fallow periods as we wait on favorable weather, the scheduling needs of others or the availability of funds.

I’ve noticed during these frustrating pauses my partner serenely deals with the work of the day and then is perfectly happy to sit on our sagging couch, a book in one hand, the TV remote in the other and the cat velcroed to him, occasionally getting up to feed the wood stove.

Photo by Lilly Rum on Unsplash

It drives me nuts. How does he do that?

We had a conversation about it over breakfast recently.

He’s hanging out and waiting for the stars to align so we can begin to move forward again. That might come in the form of some income, a phone call, a stretch of really warm days, or who knows what other miracles. He figures it will all work out, one way or another, in time, and meanwhile he might as well relax and enjoy life.

I, on the other hand, from my earliest memory, make Deals with the Universe. My Deal is that I’ll Be Good in order to get what I need to survive. Being Good is specifically defined.

  • I will not complain, whine, want or need anything I don’t have.
  • I will hoard what I do have and be grateful, because I have so much more than many others.
  • I will work as hard as I can at all the tasks that can be done right here, right now, even if it’s only scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees or cleaning out closets.
  • I will not wait, hope, dream. I will act. Now!
  • I will not make excuses, procrastinate or (God help us) relax.
  • I will never admit to feeling afraid or anxious or impoverished in any way. Being truthful about our experience is “airing dirty laundry,” which is shameful and vulgar.

Somewhere inside me is a hysteric who knows my partner is wrong. Sitting on the couch means he’ll never see his dreams come true. He won’t deserve to see dreams come true, because he’s not doing anything to help himself, to prove himself worthy of good things. He’s not hoarding what we have. He’s got a light on for reading and the TV on and he’s putting wood in the stove as though those six cords out in the barn will last all winter! (They will.) He’s not doing all the tasks that could be done. He’s failing the test, failing his side of the deal, and we are screwed.

All this panic and fear impel me to work harder and harder at everything. At anything. I must demonstrate to the Universe that I’m not a slacker, a sponge, an ingrate. I must also make up for his blasphemy of sitting on the couch, because we hold dreams in common, and we can’t manifest the lives we want without each other. Clearly, I must Be Good for both of us.

The infuriating but inescapable truth is that I can’t honestly say my Deals with the Universe work better than my partner’s approach. I’ve always had what I’ve needed to survive, but so has he!

It’s not fair.

Then, this last week I read the best essay I’ve come across on rape culture and its effect on women. The writer perfectly expresses much of my longing and the difficulty of allowing oneself to be fully and powerfully female. I feel more and more tension around this in our climate of hysterical political correctness, labeling, jargon and sloppy thinking. The increasing visibility of symptoms of rape culture give me hope that in some quarters there is a will to change, but will it be enough? Will we ever really see an equal playing ground for all people? Not necessarily the same playing ground, but equal in contribution and value, equal in respect, resource and power?

I don’t know.

Anyway, I went for my morning walk with the essay on rape culture and my Being Good rules rattling around in my head. There were snowflakes in the air under a mostly cloudy cold sky with occasional gleams of sun. The river flowed quietly along and I sat for a while under the trees to watch the snow fall in the water.

Photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash

What if, I wondered, instead of my exhausting and not-notably-effective list of what Being Good entails, I changed my Being Good Deal with the Universe to living the truest and fullest expression of myself possible? What if that included the entirety of my wants, needs, feelings, thoughts, creativity, passion, power and sexuality? What if that included all the great and small activities and experiences that give me pleasure? What if I gave my obnoxious, persistent and compulsive judgement a sabbatical, with an option for permanent retirement?

I was so intrigued by this that I’ve been playing with it for the last few days. In that time my laptop developed technical problems and is in the shop, so I’ve been without my usual habits, tools and routines. This post was not published first thing Thursday morning. I notice that life manages to continue in spite of it. I’ve read, walked, laid on my back on the ground in the sun, meditated, gone swimming and luxuriated in a hot therapy pool, done Tai Chi and ordered my favorite body oil. I’ve listened to Christmas music. I’ve eaten a bowl of ice cream. I’ve had an honest conversation with two women I like and admire. I’ve taken walks with my partner. This looks much like my usual life, it’s just that currently I’m allowing myself to enjoy my experience without shame, expectation or judgement.

Life is a lot easier and much more fun under my new (and simplified) Be Good Deal with the Universe. Will the Universe frown or smile upon this new Deal?

Who knows? Maybe it’s none of my business. Maybe the Universe isn’t looking over my shoulder, recording every action and thought, maintaining a cosmic scorecard. Maybe the Universe is sitting on the couch, alternately reading science fiction and watching reruns of Star Trek on Syfy and paying absolutely no attention to me whatsoever, and all my frenzied flapping around is just a waste of energy.

Sometimes I make myself tired.

I think I’ll go sit on the couch.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted

Abundance or Scarcity?

Last week, I explored the meaning and experience of anxiety. In doing so, I realized that all my anxiety has a common root in scarcity, which gave me the subject for this week’s post. Scarcity and abundance. What could be more perfect for Thanksgiving week?

Scarcity, according to a quick Internet search, is “the state of being in short supply; especially want of provisions for the support of life; unlimited wants in a world of limited resources.”

In spite of the fact that I come from a middle-class background, I’ve always lived with the bony specter of scarcity. As a child, I constantly feared there wasn’t enough, even though there was enough. We always had a home, and food, and clothing. The house was full of books and music. We had pets. We had cars. We even took vacations, a thing I was certainly never able to do with my own children. Still, I was always afraid we’d run out of money. The worst thing I could imagine was not being able to afford to feed and care for the animals! I was continually waiting for it all to disappear.

My insecurity around physical resource was not the biggest anxiety producer. What really ensnared me was emotional scarcity. It never seemed to me there was enough love, or patience, or joy. There wasn’t enough time, enough energy, enough hope. My feeling of emotional hunger led me to conclude that the problem was me. I was greedy and selfish. I wanted too much.

Most painful of all was my belief that I wasn’t enough. Not smart enough, not strong enough, not quick enough, not wise enough, not loving enough, not adult enough. I could see no cure for my inadequacies, no hope that I could ever be fixed, and, employing the heartbreaking logic of children, my conclusion was I didn’t deserve anything but scarcity.

Unsurprisingly, my experience since I formed that belief has been of scarcity on every level.

It’s important to note that in some significant ways this frame of scarcity has been useful. I don’t have “unlimited wants,” for example. In fact, I’ll rarely admit to wanting anything at all, which is a problem on the other end of the spectrum. I’ve never enjoyed shopping. I’m a reluctant consumer. I don’t long for gems or cruises, fine wines, luxury cars or elegant homes.

Living with restricted financial resource has taught me a lot about the limited power of money. What I value and want most, as well as what I most want to contribute, can’t be bought or sold. I’ve also learned unfulfilled wanting and longing can be lived with.

On the other hand, living from a position of scarcity has not only kept my anxiety fat and happy, it’s impoverished my courage, my ability to love, and my self-confidence. My belief in scarcity has sucked away a lot of my power.

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

What about abundance? Abundance is “a very large quantity of something; plentifulness of the good things of life; prosperity.”

When I started thinking about anxiety in the last couple of weeks, I began to notice its presence or absence during activities of my daily life. For example, when I deal with household needs and wants, bills, the grocery list, and think about jobs, I feel anxious. When I’m out walking, gathering cones, cutting greens for holiday wreaths, collecting the beautiful little Sensitive fern pods for crafting, I feel no anxiety and have no experience of scarcity. The fields, the woods, the river, the trees, the fall bracken and naked branches and twigs all speak to me of plenty, and plenty, and plenty again. Abundance is everywhere. There is enough. I am enough.

I wrote last week about my suspicion that my anxiety is a bad habit as much as anything. I wasn’t consciously choosing to haul around such a dreadful burden, but dredging it up from my subconscious into the daylight, specifically defining it and shining a light on it, allowed me to realize I don’t have to allow anxiety to run me. I can choose to disengage with it.

What if the frames of abundance and scarcity are also choices? What if I decide scarcity is no longer a useful label for my experience or self-definition, and I choose instead to believe in enough, or even in more than enough? Imagine it. Enough resources. Enough water and silence and time. An abundance of arms strong enough to hold me through the deepest hours of the night. A river of tenderness. A roomful of dancers. A strong, resourceful, wise, creative self.

Photo by Roderico Y. Díaz on Unsplash

Abundance is everywhere I look this morning, in the glowing wood stove, in the cartons of eggs stacked in the refrigerator, in boxes of wreaths I’m loading into the car to take to my friend’s farm store. Abundance is in writing these words, and when I glance from them I see, out the window, the infinite beauty of the November landscape.

It’s also true that we’re nearly out of bacon, and I know there are other items on the current grocery list. We’re heading into winter and haven’t been able to fix the leaky roof, but I suppose one could say there’s more roof than hole, so that’s a good thing!

Isn’t it really all just a cosmic balance? We can’t possibly take in everything at once in life, so we narrow our focus, and invariably find what we’re looking for. Changing our focus changes what we see. Perhaps abundance has always been hand-in-hand with scarcity and I’ve just never looked beyond what I knew and expected. How can these two concepts be separated? They make each other possible.

My anxiety is currently sulking and on a starvation diet. Scarcity is what it thrives on, but I’m kind of bored with that tired old goblin. I’m enjoying my new focus and filter of abundance. I like the way it makes me feel. It doesn’t make all the challenges go away, but it certainly balances them with a peaceful, satisfied feeling of enough, and I’m grateful.

It’s Thanksgiving Day as I post this. I wish everyone the abundance of the season in food, loved ones and joy.

All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted