Painting again today.
It is a spiritual painting. One that tracks my journey on this earth and connects me with eternal. It is a bit out there for me but this year is all about curiosity, consistency, and generosity. I am stretching my comfort level around “woo woo”. This particular painting style is call Intentional Creativity. Its goal is to take that which isn’t working in your life and to transmute it through art.
That is right up the Block and Flow alley. Plus I get to justify my painting as research. Not that I needed to but just saying.
Today in my painting I reached a point where I was supposed to ask a question of the painting and turn the struggle over to the Queen of the Cosmos. Right OK. I think I have one foot in the land of woo woo and one in the land of “normal”. For this I had to pull the normal foot a little to the left and just experiencing the process. The challenge was to release our most frustrating plaguing recurring situation and ask that it be converted into a usable teaching. For me that is eating food greater than what I need to thrive. It is eating because I am bored. Eating because I am thirsty. Eating because I don’t “feel right”. Eating because I am stressed. Eating replaced sucking my thumb as a child in terms of bringing me comfort. It is a dysfunctional behavior that I have approached from so many angles, tried everything to stop. Hypnotism, diets, exercise plans, counselors, dietitians, mindfulness coaches, OA, more self help books than any woman should rightfully be allowed to own…big farking goose egg. Frustrating behavior 1 me 0.
Now I have managed to change the food that I am eating and for the most part this has resulted in much greater energy, weight loss, and general happier body. But I still carry more weight than my body is designed to. I don’t want to diet because I see it as not a body positive thing to do however what I have realized is that I use food to avoid emotions I am not keen on feeling. This results in a body that is not as healthy as it could be. I am curious about this. I want to take away its numbing power and instead turn it into a superpower of awareness.
For those who don’t have a compulsive habit it seems simple…just eat only what you need and no more and choose healthy things. Fuck right off. If it were as simple as that I would have done that the three gazillions times I have made a plan to stop it, began to action it, and had it blow up in my face. My case is mild too. I have in OA meetings heard the stories of others that would absolutely bring you to tears. All you have to do is walk around a mall to see that I am certainly not the only person who is struggling with this challenge.
So who the hell knows. Maybe this painting will eat my habit the same way that I used to eat popcorn and leave nothing but the husks in the bottom. That would be cool .
I’m not exactly wagering on it. But I tell you what I am wagering on, this year long adventure to at least shed some serious light on it if not correct it. For centuries, the chakras have helped people find balance and right now I am studying the base chakra. This centre is food, safety, and security related. For me the eating is all tangled up like a fishing line in a washing machine with all of these things and more. So the unravelling of this one issue will theoretically unravel a fair amount and ultimately can be transmuted into a super power.
So what if I did. Found a way through the pain and successfully out the other side…through my Dad being ill, through raising teens and running a business, through facing it all and feeling it all without stuffing it down with a blueberry tart. What will that look like? 
For now I just have to remain curious. And try and paint it out.