Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

At my diabetes class last night, the facilitator was encouraging people in the group to ask questions and speak up.  And there were people really comfortable doing so, but not me.  I am shy, and I must have not felt safe in the group (after all, they are strangers), and my mind went blank.  All I could think of was that I'd rather have a one on one conversation with a facilitator, and I promised myself I would make an appointment, which I will do today. 

What comes to mind is all the times I was the new kid in the school, class or group, because my family moved a few times in my childhood.  I don't immediately trust people, because I had some mean girl cliche stuff go on when I was a kid.  And also because I am leery of being someone's new instant best friend.  That scenario has not worked well in the past for me.  The other person is projecting something onto me, without knowing at all who I am.  I'm very uncomfortable with stranger effusiveness.

This center does have support groups, and I will ask about one of those when I do the one on one, but last night I was feeling exposed, and retreated at the break to looking at my IPhone.  I admit it.  I disengaged purposefully, and that is generally what I do when I don't feel safe.  I can't entirely overcome my history, but at least I recognize when it plays a part in the present moment.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night the dogs and I watched a movie and ate popcorn while my husband was at his chorus rehearsal.  I get to pick whatever I want and somehow I chose an older movie with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt called "Spy Game".  It's about choices and regrets, and how Redford's character gets to make up for something he did to his protege Pitt.  He's ready to risk it all on the eve of retirement to put things right and save his friend's life.  But what impressed me again, as with the recent films "Truth" and "A Walk in the Woods" is how honestly Redford is aging.  Every crease and wrinkle and sag is there for all to see.  He may dye his hair for some rolls, but he has not resorted to surgery.  Thus, he shows the weathering of a life lived outdoors, and the turbulence of marriages, children, friends and work.  It's as if he's saying this is what almost eighty looks like, but I'm still intelligent, have a sense of humor, and am so damn interesting I know you'd love to have dinner with me and chat.

My friend and I almost managed the later a few years ago, when we were eating out at a small hotel restaurant next to a river in a wine country town.  Our table was at the street window and my friend saw Redford first, getting out of an SUV with his wife.  They were wisked away to a back table, but my friend "went to the restroom" to get a better look, and sure enough, it was him.  We were discreet, as was everyone else in the place, but it made him seem more real, like someone you might know and like. 

He was such a gorgeous man, beautiful really, that I appreciate the statement he makes letting his face tell his story.  He's still doing some terrific acting, because he has his mobility of features and the wear and tear of life proudly worn.  As I age, I'm grateful to those who do so along with me, gracefully and without falsity.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My weight loss buddy is not going today.  She can't get herself to write down what she eats and weigh in.  Hopefully, she will be back on track next week.  Seeing how hard it is for her validates that this is a difficult journey for all of us.  It scares me a little as well, because what if I end up on my own trying to lose the weight.

Now, I just got interrupted by a phone call and my buddy is picking me up after all to go weigh in.  What does this tell me?  That our talking a few minutes honestly with each other paid off in terms of her allowing herself to feel discouraged and weigh in even if the news won't be the best.  Right speech?  I think she and I did it!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night I had a pleasant evening with an older friend who, in my experience, can be difficult and pushy.  But she was great this time, and no nosey questions or prying.  I have a pattern with her:  when she gets rude and pushy, I don't return her calls for a few months.  When next we connect, she is the self I enjoy, and we can be amiable old friends.  This time, I wonder if a recent trauma on her part occasioned this relaxation.  She has a lifelong friend, with whom she went to many concerts, plays and events, who suddenly became sick and within a week was dead, without being able to say goodbye to family or friends.  It was quite a shock, and perhaps she's taken stock of her behavior and is also looking for new companions for her adventures.

I don't say this cynically.  This is how we humans operate.  We take people and things for granted, then a surprising event occurs, and we "wake up".  I don't feel superior in any way to her.  I see her clearly, and handle our relationship in a way that makes me feel my boundaries are being upheld and the pleasure in her company outweighs her sometimes foraging into private territory of mine.  It's a dance.  We both know the rules, and if my feet get stepped on too many times, I sit out for a while.  But I'm usually willing to pop back up and try another tune.  Everything changes.  You don't write someone off unless they are genuinely harmful.  And this person means well.  Somewhere along the line boundaries were not part of her learning curve.  That's okay.  I can make sure mine are in place.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went with my daughter shopping for plants.  She wants to cheer up their backyard before she has a baby shower for her friend.  I realized after what a treat it was to look at all the plants and select some.  The day is sunny and it felt so springlike.  At the nursery there was a little boy and his father who were hunting for Easter eggs.  The child had quite a few in his basket already.  Then when we returned home, a tiny girl and her mother were drawing in chalk on our driveway.  Lots of little new things are out and about.  Between talking about the friend's coming baby and baby names she's considering, the little boy with the basket and the little girl with the chalk, the whole world seems fresh and new right now.  Talking about growing things and people is nurturing.  I feel uplifted.

Right speech is most grounded in the ordinary, little events in our lives.  Our joy is usually found there and our connection to others.  Talking about primroses and begonias and hydrangeas is recognizing the beauty found easily in the world, simple and true.  And praising a boy's eggs and a girl's drawings is the best right speech I can imagine.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Ah, my friend who usually gets mad at me is back in contact.  She wonders about a walk.  I've got excuses to not plan anything until week after next.  That gives me time to figure out if there is a way to stay on friendly terms, but keep my distance.  I'm going to bump into her in my neighborhood and I don't want to avoid her.  But I've decided the time for honest talking and transparency is over.  Why?  Because she projects some idea of me and renders the real me invisible. 

My problem is I felt enough of this kind of impulsive anger within my own family as a child.  It seemed to come out of left field, and nothing I ever did mitigated it.  Volatility is too familiar.  Maybe too comfortable.  But being amused and above it all is really lying to myself.  This is toxic behavior and there is no wholesome reason to be around it.  My friend and I are not a good match.  I have the deepest empathy for her suffering, but do not want to be dragged in as a witness.

She asks my advice, but what she wants is some kind of approval for her anger.  I feel I understand where her anger is coming from but cannot name it for her.  It would not be appropriate.  So that leaves us at an impass.  So I'm slowing mourning the unviability of a relationship.  But I'm alone with this knowledge.  Not a comfortable place to be, but the truth. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My foster granddaughter and I had a good afternoon together yesterday.  We went to the usual suspects:  pet store, toy store, candy store, ice cream place. comic book store.  Everywhere we went I noticed she was poised and articulate asking questions; fearless compared to me.  She was focused and relentless with the comic book guy.  She knew what she wanted, and when that wasn't available, she had him show her a bunch of other possibilities.  I loved seeing her so assertive.

She used to be so shy, and the transformation is delightful.  She has a polite manner and easy way about her, and people respond really well to her.  Ten years of seeing her change, grow in intellect and personality, has been a gift.  My grandchildren I don't see as regularly as her, and so I miss the subtlety of the separation and independence, but with my foster granddaughter I'm a witness every step of the way.  I'm lucky!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my Buddhist buddies, and I felt appreciative for our friendship, which allows us to speak of heartaches in our lives while knowing we are not overwhelmed by them.  We don't offer suggestions or advice, because we know these bumps in the road are a part of being human, and we also understand things change, so that which we may be worried about today could be gone tomorrow.  We also are old enough and wise enough to know that we "don't know", our Buddha mind being more easily accessible through long practice. 

My friend said she had been noticing she laughs more now, and asked me what I thought.  I mused a minute and said, you have always been a laugher, and reminded her of how much laughing we'd done when we first met, in a dreadful writing group that we both quickly exited.  She feels she has more access to her laughter because of her practice, and our teacher.  Perhaps that is true for me as well.  There is more ease.  More ease with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be, more ease with our own mistakes and humanness, more ease with aging and letting go, as we all must do.  I felt gratitude arise from this history of laughter we share, and how precious it is to me with those I love.

My husband and I are watching the fourth season of the series "Castle" and as we watch the attraction between the two main characters, what makes the viewer know they are right for each other is how much his humor and laughter eases her rigidity and trauma.  As she banters with him more, and they talk about both of their lives, we see the bonding before they are aware of it.  He's perfect for her, and brings her into the present and the ability to live in the moment more often.  Her passion gives him gravitas and loyalty.  But his lightheartedness is the foundation for the entire relationship.  Laughter transforms.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Good grief!  I innocently went to the post office to mail a birthday package to my friend, and encountered sturm and drang.  First an angry old man came up to a woman I was talking to and me, and said he was a Republican and "this" was why.  He went on to rant about socialism and needing to make the post office a private business.  He later took twenty minutes berating the clerk, then apologized for his earlier rudeness to her.  He should have apologized to the rest of us waiting.  Then another angry old man came inside with his bike and rang the bell for picking up mail and began shouting when no one opened the window within the first couple of minutes, so he yelled at the clerk demanding the supervisor and why wasn't someone from the back helping him instantly.  She said they were all postmen picking up their mail in the back and that she couldn't demand her supervisor do anything.  The rest of us were stunned and a bit frightened by all this rage. 

If Trump has empowered people like this to behave in an uncivil manner and berate employees who don't call the shots in an organization, then he is already affecting us all.  These men clearly had issues which had nothing to do with the post office.  They demanded attention and deference.  In the best of all possible worlds someone with authority would have asked them to leave.  But they were petty tyrants:  they knew they wouldn't be held accountable for their bad manners.  But they left a bad taste in our mouths and a disturbance in the field.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I had dinner with another couple for their birthdays last night.  We had what I call a good political discussion, because instead of villifying the opposition, we talked about why people thought differently and what circumstances made people xenophobic and fearing change.  Our friend said high school kids ought to have to do field trips to different parts of our country so they could understand differing viewpoints.  City kids go to the country and vice versa, an exchange program right here in our enormous country.  It's too easy to think everybody thinks like we do, when circumstances, local culture, race, ethnicity and other factors play a huge part.

I like that we were trying to problem solve how to dialogue with those different from ourselves.  And not for what we could "teach" them, but for what we could learn from them.  We need to create spaces for listening.  Through listening, we validate the other and ourselves.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I saw a shining example of right speech last night at a concert we attended.  The hall was barely a quarter full, and we were feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable.  When the violinist, who is quite famous, came out he played the first piece then spoke to us in a humorous, warm way about the "intimacy" of the venue and put us all at ease.  He was poised and confident, and proceeded to reward us with a full concert of virtuousity and dynamism, with an encore of Brahms at the end.  We expressed our pleasure with standing ovations and complete attention and engagement.

His graciousness was contagious and I'll long remember this event with gratitude.  We often have expectations that are not met, but being fluid and willing to adjust are gifts that make the actual moment special on its own, stripped of hopes and scenarios spun in our heads.  I was surprised, too, by the near empty hall, but what an evening it turned out to be!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm keeping track of what I eat as I try to lose weight.  Last night I was guesstimating about the points and amount I ate because we ate out for lunch and I hadn't measured how many shrimp I put in the salad for dinner.  I could see myself wanting to minimize points and underestimate the amounts and ingredients.  I was going to lie so I could feel better about myself and the chart would look good.  The temptation was palpable.  Now, no one is going to see this journal except me.  But I couldn't or wouldn't be honest with myself about what I put in my mouth.  Talk about wrong speech!

What this tells me is how fraught the weight thing is at this moment.  I feel pressured by my health and doctors and good sense to lose the weight and feel better.  I feel equally sorry for myself about missing out on sandwiches and mashed potatoes.  And I feel most upset because I'm sabotaging myself and what I know is best for me.  I'm taking a long hard look at my behavior.  It's not a pretty picture.  It's not mature or self nurturing.  It is, however, a lifelong pattern.  Feeling sorry for myself is familiar and comfortable.  Somewhere deep inside my aging body I am the new kid in school with no friends. 

I'm going to attempt to be brutally honest about what I eat and at the same time keep active with non food comforts like walking and seeing friends and writing.  Eating hasn't yet solved loneliness and sadness.  I'm going to take a wild guess here and say it never will.  And what's so bad about occasional feelings like those?  Everyone has them.  Am I trying to revolt against being human?  I'm actually grateful for my life and yet not acting like it.  I'm going to grow up before I die.  I'm determined.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our younger son is contemplating some changes in his life, and he talked with my husband and me this week over the phone about it.  I had to get past the pangs at the thought of him moving, and reassured him whatever changes he made would be okay.  He wants to shift maybe his work, place he lives, maybe buy a house.  These are big steps, but he's a careful and cautious man, and even mistakes are fixable.  Sometimes you just have to try something out instead of debating about it.  I understand that.  What I'm grateful for is how sensible he is, and that he has a girlfriend by his side who will be sharing these life changes.  He's not alone.

But his talking about this reminds me that despite practicing Buddhism, I can be resistant to change, and my heart struggle against what my head knows:  he's a grown man who may benefit from moving elsewhere, and he now has pulls via his girlfriend to different areas where her family and friends live.  This is the way life is.  It's healthy and wholesome.  Having him nearby is wonderful, but we can visit and adjust.  He lived a decade on the east coast and we missed him but managed. 

So I hope my advice to him is helpful and not biased and loving.  Even if I'm struggling a bit with the idea of his going.  Love is free, not bound.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I did a simple thing:  I asked for help.  I was trying to do my blood sugar test and couldn't get the meter to register, and I picked up the phone and talked to someone at the diabetes center.  She suggested I come in for a minute and I did, and felt a whole lot better.  I have trouble asking for help, but this time I could handle looking like an idiot, I just wanted to figure the darned gadget out.  The nurse was great, and patient, and I am a step further in handling the monitoring of my disease.  I took responsibility and stopped wondering about what people would think of me. 

I'm going to try to make it a habit to ask for help daily, when I need it.  No one can read my mind, and I've learned even my husband needs to be told, instead of me steaming because he doesn't notice what is going on with me.  When I ask, he helps.  When I don't, he is in his own world, oblivious to me.  That's okay.  I see that.  So I speak up.  Now I'm going to try it with new and different people.  And be grateful for their help.  Straightforward instead of convoluted.  What a concept!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband is having trouble sleeping this week.  It's not his best skill normally, but for the past few days he's really been restless.  I suggested he become more active, and he's just left for a walk around a reservoir without the dogs, who are too old and slow these days.  I am quite compassionate about his sleeplessness, even though it definitely affects my own sleep.  He gets upset and says he'll sleep in the guest bedroom, but he never does.  He feels guilty and wants me to exonerate him, so the guest bed thing won't happen.  I say the same thing each time:  I'm sorry you're having so much trouble. 

So the war isn't between him and me, but him and him.  He also yearns to have me fix it.  Now I am a proficient sleeper, except for waking up at dawn.  No doubt he envies this ability of mine, inherited from my father.  I'm a good sleeper.  Even at my age, having to get up to pee a couple of times most nights, I can go back to sleep.  But it's the luck of the draw.  My brain is wired differently than his.  I'm also a morning person and an optimist, and I take no credit for either of those. 

What do I say?  I've made all the obvious suggestions, and wondered if daylight savings change messed him up.  I listen but don't take responsibility.  He could see our doctor.  He could make some changes in his eating or routines.  But it's not up to me to problem solve this issue.  Right speech is detachment with a dose of sympathy.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night at my writing group I mentioned feeling sad recently, and the response was so sympathetic.  The friend I rode with thanked me for being so honest and trusting the group.  Her comments reinforced my trust, and I felt glad I'd actually said how I was feeling.  Right speech can be transparent speech, in a safe setting and with supportive friends.

How did I get to this feeling of sad?  I peeled back the layers of the onion.  I noticed I was craving murder mysteries, and instead of berating myself for shallow taste, I curiously inquired why I was wanting a mystery these days.  I realized that the books represent a dark part of my life I don't want to acknowledge or face.  Many dark events are scattered throughout my childhood and adulthood.  Deaths and losses, moving and cruel words, abandonment and feeling helpless.  And my brother's death is clearly having repercussions even though his death happened over a year ago.  I'm haunted.  I have his ashes in a guest bedroom.  I'm still wrestling with the IRS about his taxes.  His life is the underbelly of my life, and my family was filled with the drama of novels and mysteries. 

So I'm going to give myself a break and accept that my life has not been all sunshine and roses.  I write in a gratitude journal every night, but maybe the mysteries balance the facts of my life.  There is dark and light and sadness and joy.  A heavy heart can be loving and tears mix well with laughter.  I'm learning to accept my history.  Still.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Right speech is quite the topic in this election process, as hate speech, surpressed speech and speech condoning violent acts are swirling around on the campaign trail and in the media.  There appear to be people who like unfettered speech where thinking or pausing is not involved, and impulsiveness is the rule.  I understand they are sick of "canned" speech on the stump, and these people on the right are breaking all the rules of civilized discourse and inciting to boot.  It gives certain people a buzz up.  It's exciting to break the rules if you feel the rules have been squashing you.  And you may feel the rules are created by others without your input or control. 

I'm reminded of when I was a child and as I was the oldest I behaved well and bravely at the doctor's office when it was time to get a shot.  My younger brother, however, screamed and howled and one time ran down the hall trying to escape from the needle.  I envied him his refusal to go along with the plan.  I just didn't have the nerve.  But I was a  kid, and he was a kid, and these are grown people who in the best of circumstances would have learned to temper their speech and look for calmness and caution in others, especially those wishing to govern.  Is it a failure of their education, their upbringing or the desperation of people with little or no hope?  I feel deeply the fear behind all this rhetoric and sympathize.  But stirring the pot fires up the wrong emotions, actions and judgments.  Will they simmer down or is this an impulse to destroy, like the kid with the block tower? 

I hope our better natures surface, and the sense of black and white and demonizing dissolves and something meaningful arises.  This is painful to witness and sad for our country.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, in the car, my foster granddaughter told me her piano teacher and her mom were mad at her.  Her teacher told her mom that she was disrespectful, and my granddaughter didn't think she was, except maybe when she put her feet up.  Now her mom is saying she has to decide if she wants to quit piano or shape up and behave better.  My GG has a sleepover on Friday night, and she wants to quit piano, but she's afraid if she says that to her mother the sleepover will be canceled.  I know my GG well enough to imagine she was punky and probably rude.  I like to keep the communication lines open so I suggested she tell her mom she'd like to take a break for a year and figure out how much piano matters to her.  I also told her if she doesn't continue with music she won't probably be able to audition and compete with other girls with more experience and expertise later on.  "So when you are sixteen and want the part of Maria in West Side Story you probably will lose out to girls with steady practice, lessons and an impressive resume".  I told her I knew it was hard to think that far ahead, but she should decide if she wants to be a singer, then I named a few singers she admires that accompany themselves on piano.  She saw my point about not using the word "quit" and instead "taking a break". 

GG is ten going on 16.  She wants to be a rock star, she wants high waist shorts and a crop top but they don't make them for a child her size and age.  She "can't wait" to get her license and drive her friends around.  She wants to see PG13 movies.  She wants to be older in a huge way.  In a couple of months she'll be 11 and she has signs of puberty.  She likes goth style and boys and songs with bad words in them and the theme of young love.  She's acting out and pushing her parents at every turn.  As I've said to her mother, she's high maintenance. 

I don't tell her mother anything any more, because then GG's trust in me will evaporate.  I can remember when I was her age, and I was a bundle of half baked romantic ideas and a narrow world of what can I get away with wearing.  Like my friends, I rolled up my skirt at school to make it shorter and begged for Tangee lipstick.  I was trivial and short sighted and shallow.  My best friend from that era sent me a note I'd passed her in class at that age and I was mortified.  I clearly was a social, brainless idiot.  So I'm confident my GG will survive this and acquire some depth as she gets older.  But there are going to be a lot of fights and acting out before that happens.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I just hung up after an hour's talk with my best friend.  We "caught up" and discussed politics in a relaxed way.  It doesn't matter much to either of us what we say, it's the emotional connection that sustains us in our lives two states away from each other.  I've come to care for her sisters, her family, her grandchildren, and I know them through the years of hearing about them mostly, though I see them once in a while.  I'd love to see her more often, but we both keep busy with other friends and our families.  Content of our speech is not an issue.  We occasionally give each other advice when asked, but we know each other well enough that we automatically know what each other would say.

It's a dreary day, but that phone conversation has set me on a path to feeling supported and loved.  The rest of the day I'll have that feeling with me as I engage with my husband, with my foster granddaughter, and with others.  I will be a more pleasant, relaxed person.  Everyone will benefit.  That's the magic friendship can achieve.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm losing weight with a friend, which is wonderful and yet complicated.  I have much more weight to lose than she does, and though them are the facts, it carries an emotional charge for me.  So yesterday she lost 5 pounds and I had lost 2 pounds.  I didn't feel successful.  Yes, I told myself you lose more at the beginning and I had been watching my weight for a month.  Didn't help.  I did not feel happy and proud.  I felt discouraged.  Now, all this grief is coming from my own brain:  competitiveness, jealousy, suspicion that she was eating less than she stated.  And this is my dear friend.

I took a time out from thinking any more about this while we were together, and then faced my own charged feelings after I'd returned home.  My own worst enemy is my own thoughts, and my sense of unworthiness has nothing to do with my relationship with my friend and everything to do with old patterns.  Of course, all the destructive messages are going to surface when I must discipline my eating behavior and treat myself kindly.  The old judgments from my parents, which I internalized nicely, rear up their ugly heads and shout at me.  "You will fail", "You always lose the weight but you'll never keep it off", "You don't deserve to be healthy". 

This morning I stepped on the scale and I'd lost another pound.  Luckily, my self judgments don't make me gain weight.  I'm scribbling away in my eating journal and eating healthily and wrestling my mind to the ground.  It's exhausting, but at least it's exercise!

Wandering Along the Path: right Speech

I'm so grateful I've been having the opportunity to be with my son and daughter-in-law to help out with the baby.  Instead of information speech or "catching up", we can have natural, unforced talking about whatever suits us at the moment.  We watch an episode of "Call the Midwife" at night, and that triggers discussion of poverty and sexism and their effects on people, both back at the time of the series, the nineteen fifties, and now.  We may talk about the election, or differences in how babies are raised now versus when I had little ones.  I'm able to learn new science and medicine about what pediatricians think now. 

I'm amazed with all the "rules" now pressuring parents.  I was relatively free from that except from my mother.  And naturally I thought I knew better than her.  So I bopped along with trial and error and as my experience accummulated, I had my own strong opinions about what worked, or was kindest, and listened to my pediatrician with a skeptical ear.   I'm more curious now than back then, probably because I have the time and luxury of reading more and listening more.  By 29, with three kids, I hadn't a minute to spare.  By my later thirties, I had four kids, and I was pretty set in my ideas.  But I want to relate to my grandson in the way his parents prefer, and so I'm taking classes, in the most subtle way.  It's fascinating.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was touched by the song from "The Hunting Ground" that Lady Gaga sang at the Oscars.  With two friends, I saw the documentary many months ago, and we were all upset.  I cried afterward, and the song is a strong, powerful expression of the survivors of sexual assault.  The film focuses on one campus, but implicates many more.  Freshman girls and some boys are naive and not warned by the colleges, and unprepared for situations of assault.  They are often drugged, and though the perpetrators are few percentagewise, they assault again and again with impunity, because the adminstation protects them, especially if they are prized athletes.  Often it is the victim who is blamed and forced out of school, or if not, she is forced to encounter the perpetrator on campus time after time. 

Lady Gaga's passion and the fifty plus survivors who surrounded her on the stage force us to face how we do not protect our still teenage children from trauma.  Many never tell us, as Lady Gaga did not tell her family.  It's time to insist that this silent aquiescence be broken.  I was almost raped twice as a freshman, and my campus is mentioned in the film.  Luckily, I was not a drinker and was able to push away, say no, and leave.  But one beer would have left me vulnerable.  Drinking is a gateway to rape, excuses, and lack of responsibility.  But with drugs, and the resulting amnesia, it becomes a destroyer.  Kids need to be aware, and authorities need to step up to the plate and defend the innocent, not the perpetrators.  They need to cooperate with the police.  Right now they bear a remarkable resemblance to the Catholic Church.  They are protecting the guilty, and not securing the safety of the innocent.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm needing to lose weight, and my friend and I joined WW several days ago.  When I am alert to what I eat and my desires around eating I confront a whole host of issues.  My mother badgered me as a teenager about my weight, even though I was slim.  I didn't have her height or body, and she made it clear she feared I would turn out like her mother:  short and stocky.  I look the most like my grandmother of any of my many cousins.  So body image comes up.  I feel like a failure.  Then there is using food as the highlight of my day instead of other events.  I reward myself with food.  Also there is fear, because I've lost the weight several times since I turned forty and developed Graves disease, and with my medications it comes right back if I eat bread or have too much fruit.  Hopelessness is the result of this fear.

So what right speech do I need to encourage myself with?  Well, working through issues with my therapist is a help.  Reminding myself that my mother was slim mainly because she smoked like a chimney.  She also drank like a fish, to double the cliche usage.  I can get out more and do things with friends, so the pleasure I remember at the end of the day is about a nice walk or talk.  I can try to listen to my doctor who is telling me I only have to lose half pound a week.  That's not so daunting.  And I need to decide I must eat wisely from here on out or I will be contributing majorly to my health problems.

There.  I've argued with myself persuasively.  Now I will endeavor to remain awake throughout the day, and find my joy from people, nature and reading and writing.   Food needs to be more of a footnote and less of a highlight.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I stopped and chatted with a neighbor when I was walking back from a doctor's appointment this morning.  He has a several weeks old grandson and I have a few months old grandson and of course we showed each other photos on our IPhones.  This is a part of technology I really appreciate.  We discussed the wonders of grandparenthood and the joy these little beings give us.  I seldom see him any more, but it's nice when we do have a chance to catch up.  Our daughters were good friends in childhood and so we have a long history, even though now we no longer socialize.  I felt good after this encounter, and was cheerful when I went into a store and bought hair barrettes.   New hair barrettes are a tiny celebration of simple joy.  This morning has been full of it.  My doctor didn't need to do anything earlier than scheduled, and she was reassuring about my current issues.  Nobody loves to see the doctor, but she's a great one if you need to go.  Between her, my GP doctor, my eye doctor and my eye specialist, I am fortunate to be supported by wonderful people. 

Now to the rest of the day, where I intend to be open to small encounters, surprise and blessings made visible.