18022013
 |
| It is actually quite fascinating to google "food". |
I did something unusual today. I was
out in the centre of the town taking care of some errands. I had had
a strange feeling when going to town, because I had been unsure about
whether I will do it now or later – I had not precisely planned my
actions – and when I chose to go when leaving from work I had this
feeling of “freedom” because I was free to go wherever I wanted
because I had nothing planned especially. When I was taking care of
my stuff and walking around the city without hurry, a feeling kept
accumulating within me: I wanted to go shopping. This was a bit
strange for me because I rarely get this “shopping-feeling”, and
so I kind of watched myself and my thoughts and feelings and laughed
at myself for having this silly desire. Finally I “gave in” to
myself and told myself “alright, go shopping then”, to which I
replied with a gleeful “oh yay! I get to go to this place and that
place and...” lol, and this is where I realized there's a whole
bunch of suppressed stuff here, as not shopping has been a part of my
self-image for a long time and I associate a lot of shame and guilt
with the air-headedness of shopping for useless stuff – and not
just that, I feel guilty for buying new useful things as well unless
they're something I desperately need (like new shoes when my old ones
are too broken to function anymore). When I gave myself permission to
participate in my guilty pleasure it was like a dam breaking.
So what I did was that I went to a
couple of clothing stores, but I saw the uselessness pretty soon as I
didn't really need any clothes, I found nothing useful, everything
was too expensive, I knew I couldn't afford anything etc. So the
excitement wore off as fast as it exploded. What I did next was
interesting, and it's what got me writing about this in the first
place: I went to a food store. This is the biggest and fanciest
grocery store in the whole town that has a selection of the highest
quality of food, from bread to cheese, tea, honey, vegetables, pasta,
meat, sweets and a big selection of fresh food and bakery.
To shed light on my background, in my
“previous life” some years ago I defined myself as a
“food-lover”, this meaning that I spent a considerable amount of
money on high-quality food and ate in restaurants regularly. I get a
kick out of good food, where I just go into complete euphoria out of
the experience of taste, smell and texture. Now, this is something
that people are actually taught in some mindfulness-classes, I've
heard, to slow down when eating to actually taste your food. The
slowing down in itself has been really helpful for me because even
when I eat low-quality food I am able to be here in the moment of
eating as I nurture my body and appreciate the fact that I have food
at all. The downside of this is that one easily slips into the
polarity of glorifying the food you eat.
So I was again watching myself as I
went to the food store – it was an intentional experiment for me. I
had thoughts such as “whoa, that bread looks so good”, “oh my
god this cheese smells awesome”, “there are so many different
salads”, “how can there exist such a fruit as this”, “how can
there be so many different kinds of biscuits”, “oh my god look at
these desserts” and so forth – to put it simply, I went into an
experience of “being overwhelmed” by the excessive selection of
high-quality food available to me. I was reveling in the luxury as a
“special” experience, because I have for a long time been living
with my cheap, mundane cookings and not been able to afford the
high-quality food – and I still don't.
Good quality food in itself isn't a
crime, because it is actually a really good thing that we have
mastered the art of food, because that means better nutrition for all
– except that it isn't for all. Even for me as a citizen of one of
the most well-off countries in the world this stuff is too expensive
to afford every day, or every week, or every month. What a difference
it would make in the lives of people if the cheap shit we eat could
be replaced with good-quality ingredients instead! This is a problem
in the world system itself, because at the moment there has to be a
selection of different quality stuff because of preferences (the era
of individualism) and class division: everyone has to afford some
kind of food, and thus as poverty is too much of a challenge to
tackle, cheaper food is then produced so that the poor would survive.
This is not a solution as we are just treating the symptoms of the
actual cause.
So what I realized was that I get an
energetic high out of good food. It occurs when I know the food I'm
eating to be “special” in some way – exclusive, made with
effort and care, rare, expensive, or simply something I don't have a
chance to eat very often. I also get a kick out of the wide selection
of food, as I plunge into the overwhelmingness of “all the choices
I have”, wanting to have everything there is around me, completely
disregarding the fact that it's not possible for me to have all of
the shop's selection. And this point, I guess, is what keeps the
food-lovers' culture of dining elitism blooming – this food-high is
not questioned – and it is seen justified that one has “the
right” to explore all kinds of special foods and ingredients even
though the majority of the rest of the world lives in malnutrition.
People who grow in this environment cannot imagine having to live
without food. “What do you mean, 'do you really need all that'? Of
course I do!”
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to desire good-quality food and feel guilty about
it because I cannot afford it and I know I'll survive just fine with
lower quality food.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to desire the experience of eating good food,
where I anticipate the good food, expecting it to taste good, and
accumulate the positive charge until I finally get the food in my
mouth and explode with enjoyment and euphoria because of the taste,
smell and texture.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that as I do this I actually create
the positive experience in my mind as I glorify the taste, smell and
texture of the food through thoughts, images, expectations and
feelings instead of being HERE with the food without the additional
mind-reality on top of it and enjoying it simply for what it is.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to glorify the taste of food by thinking “this
tastes so good”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to glorify the smell of food by thinking “this
smells so good”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to glorify the texture of food by thinking “this
feels so good”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that as I think in words in my mind
what an experience is like, I am not actually here fully within the
experience but in my mind thinking about what the experience is like
– and that I am thus only experiencing a likeness of the
experience, like eating a 2D picture of a food and imagining what it
tastes like instead of actually tasting the food that is here in the
physical.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to create a special relationship towards good food
where I state that I “love” good food and accept and allow myself
to enjoy food and feel relaxed and comfortable only when eating good
food.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to separate food into “good food” and “bad
food”, not realizing that despite some difference in quality it's
all still food and will keep me alive, more or less, and that in many
cases the difference is completely imaginary and/or irrelevant.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be overwhelmed about the selection of food
around me, not seeing the reality of things (a certain amount and
variety of food around me) but the mind-reality I paint on top of the
actual reality (“oh my god so much food!”).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to revel in the experience of being overwhelmed
because it was a positive experience and I perceived myself to have
access to all the things around me (where I momentarily forgot I
can't actually afford everything I'd want to have).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to look at the food items around me and imagine
their taste, smell and texture, cross-referencing in my mind with all
experiences of similar foods I have eaten, creating an expectation of
what the food will taste like based on my previous experiences and
then create a desire to have that food. (For example, I did this with
bread: I saw a good-looking, freshly baked bread, and I imagined its
texture so vividly that I wanted to have the bread with the crisp
crust and the soft inner parts and the pieces of nuts and all the oh
my god *drool* – luckily I snapped out of this as I didn't really
need the bread, lol.)
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to look at the freshly baked sweets and try to
come up with an excuse to buy them.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to try to come up with excuses to buy the food I
desire so that I could fulfill this desire, not considering my actual
needs and the reality of my situation.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as my experience of being overwhelmed
wore off, to go into the other extreme and resent all the food around
me because of the injustice of the world situation of poverty and
famine.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to look at the large food selection around me and
think it is “too much” and “excessive”, judging the people
who can afford to buy their daily food in shops like this as
“ignorant”.
--
I ended up buying some good food from
the shop, which were mainly things I actually needed, but also a
little bit of extra. I'm now facing an interesting moment where I am
not hungry as I have eaten lunch not too long ago, but because of the
new exciting food in my kitchen I feel impatient to get to eat the
food already – it's like being a kid who has gotten new toys as
christmas presents and wants to play with them all the time – it's
the exact same kind of energy. “Oh wow I have all this new food
that I want to eat!” “Oh wow I have all these new toys I want to
play with!” Lol, this is fascinating.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to create a relationship to food where I perceive
food to be entertainment because of the positive energy kicks I get
out of eating.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to ward off boredom, anxiety and stress with food
as I have done with entertainment.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not see food primarily as nutrition that
supports my body and assists me in my daily living, but instead see
food as entertainment the purpose of which is to make me feel good,
relaxed, joyful and euphoric.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not eat “special” food* without this
experience of an energetic high which I induce in my mind with
images, thoughts, imagined sensations and expectations. (*”special”
here meaning things that I don't usually get to or have a permission
to eat, such as sweets or high-quality food).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not eat “special” food simply as food.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to want to know whether the food I eat is of high
or low quality so that I'll know what to expect from it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my perception of “high quality food”,
not questioning whether it is in fact accurate or not. [A point to
investigate.]
--
Apart from the food issue, I will walk
through the experience that led me to walk into the shop today.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to participate in an experience/feeling of
“freedom” where I felt like I had no burden on me, no stress, no
one expecting me, no schedule to meet, no expectations – just me
free to do as I please – not realizing that this was the polarity
experience of the stress and exhaustion I went through yesterday as I
tried to compensate for it with a “leisure day”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that I still have deadlines to
meet, people to see and tasks to take care of even if I would be able
to cancel them for today, because I would have to face them again
tomorrow, and that the experience of “freedom” is thus an
illusion I treat myself to to “have a break”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that if I postpone my tasks, they
will come back more urgent later on, which will only lessen my
chances to get them done properly.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to suppress my secret desire to go shopping, where
I indulge in the overwhelmingness of all the
pretty/nice/colourful/tasty/fun things that I could buy (if I had
money).
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress who I am right now as someone wanting to go shopping because I am ashamed of my desire to go shopping, not realizing that suppressing is to not face myself and that I will not change myself if I do not face the points I wish to change.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live within/as a self-image that does not approve shopping and opposes it, not realizing that as I oppose something I'm actually seeing it within me but not wanting to deal with it as I am afraid of it and thus rather suppress it under disapproval.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that disapproval is a way to state “I am less than that which I oppose” as one sees oneself as powerless to direct that point within oneself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to indulge in the act of shopping where I get
enjoyment simply out of looking at and touching items that are for
sale as I imagine what they would look/feel/taste like if they were
mine and what kind of an image I would present of myself with a
certain item.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to entertain myself with all the material stuff
that there is available by going to shops to look at and touch them,
not realizing that a lot of this stuff is actually produced just to
serve as entertainment and not as anything practical. (I'm thinking
of a shelf-full of colourful canvas shoes I saw today which have
absolutely no practical purpose during the nordic winter, and which
were also so cheap that I doubt they have been made to last for more
than a few months.)
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that the experience of “going
shopping” is initially a role-play where one imagines oneself with
different items and how one would be with them, swapping new mental
images onto oneself as if one was trying on clothes – trying on new
self-images and wondering which one would “fit” and please one's
ego.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fantasize about “a new me” as new
self-images as I have been indulging in the experience of shopping,
wandering amongst the items that serve as building-blocks in my
character building process.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to feel “free” when going shopping because I
relate going shopping with the memories of the shopping trips I did
as a teenager with my friends, as during these trips I felt
independent, mature, free, relaxed and excited.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to associate freedom with shopping, believing the
possibility to buy “anything” from “any” shop I wanted to be
freedom of expression, not realizing that I couldn't be more far from
freedom as the whole age of individuality through consumerism has
been programmed.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize the selection that shops offer and
the selection of shops that towns offer is purposefully
“overwhelming” as it creates the illusion of diversity which is
essential in the construct of individualistic consumerism.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe that the selection of items that shops
offer is diverse and serves everyone's needs, not realizing that what
we see in shops is dictated by personality formats created by the
advertisement companies.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to choose my own comfortable personality format to
which there were nice and comfortable products offered in the shops,
believing myself to be making free choices and be my own individual
personality, not realizing that I have actually little say in what I
purchase as the selection is dictated from the “above”.
I commit myself to investigate and
question my perception of “good-quality food”.
I commit myself when and as I am eating
to stop to taste the food I am eating and actually be HERE as an
entire body that is taking in food to digest and turn into nutrition
– and to assist myself with this, I commit myself to reserve eating
time for eating alone and not focus on other activities while eating,
such as reading, writing or watching videos.
I commit myself to slow myself down
when eating food by focusing on my breath and my body as a whole so
that it will be easier for me to spot the moments when I fall into my
mind to glorify the food I eat.
I commit myself to consider my actual
needs when buying food, even if this means I have to stop with every
product I desire and spend more time in the grocery store.
When and as I go into the
feeling/experience of “freedom”, I commit myself to ask myself
what I am freeing myself from and to stop, breathe and answer
myself within/as self-honesty. This question will assist me in seeing
the point I am trying to escape.
When and as I get the urge to go
shopping, I stop, I breathe and I realize that the experience I'm
after is an illusion of freedom where I accept and allow myself to
participate in extensive imagination play, ignorance and
self-interest. I realize that the experience of shopping is based on
participating in positive energy, which I channel through my memories
of happy shopping trips, and on allowing myself to be directed by my
desires. I stop and assess whether I actually have a need to buy
something, and I carry on with my day according to my assessment. If
I do not need to buy anything, I will not go wonder around shops but
will instead direct myself to go elsewhere and do something else. If
resistance occurs, I will further investigate the point.
I commit myself to investigate my
memories of shopping and the positive feelings I associate with
buying things in order to resolve the fuck-up we have become as a
consumerist society and carry my responsibility over our creation.
PS. Yay for Day 150!
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti