Being a Fool in 2009

Are you familiar with the Fool of the Tarot card deck? The Fool represents new beginnings unfettered by the past. The Fool has no real goal and no preplanned route- in fact, in the Ryder-Waite deck, he's about to unwittingly step off a cliff. OOPS!

In some ways I see myself as the Fool for 2009: I want to step off the cliff, because I want to leave behind my old baggage of judgments, ideas and analyses, falling into a new world that I learn about as I experience it. In this new world I have no pre-formed judgments or analyses to tell me that something is right or wrong; I simply experience, and I determine based on that experience whether something works for me. In this way I forge a new path that is unique to who I am, and which leads me to the kind of life I want to live. Unlike the Fool, though, I have an ultimate goal; I want to live a life of abundant health mentally, physically and spiritually. I want my living, working and playing environments to support abundant health. To achieve this, I need to leave behind the ideas, judgments and behaviors of the "old me" because they have kept me from moving forward. But how to do this?

I love the ideas of Eckhart Tolle and Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor when it comes to forging a new path in life. Simply put, Tolle finds that people tend to maintain an ongoing identity (the Ego) based on their history of thoughts, stories and judgments. The desire to maintain our ego identity is so strong that we lose our connection to the potential of the present moment and hamper our ability to take on new ideas and behaviors. Taylor speaks similarly of our identities, stating that without the incessant chatter of the left brain (where the ego Tolle refers to resides), the right brain is free to experience each moment as new, unfettered by old left-brain baggage.

I've decided that my New Year's theme for 2009 is Transformation. I want to give my left brain a little rest and give my right brain a workout this year. I tend to fiercely hold on to old ideas and old habits in some important areas of my life, especially the area regarding eating. This year I'll learn to balance the capacities of my left and right brains. I've been trying to practice this already by listening to my mental chatter when people speak. When I sense myself becoming judgmental or analytical, I stop by saying to myself: "right brain! right brain!" which is my signal to go back to really hearing, without judgment. Yeah- sounds like a weird new habit, but it's a form of meditation to pay attention in this way, to hear the chatter in my brain and recognize it for what it is- simply the work of my left brain/ego and nothing more. I'm hoping that meditating in this and other ways will help me to lose my habitual ways of thinking and clear my mind to take on new ideas.

To help myself with my transformation, I am attending to my mental and physical environments. Examples include the following:

Mental/Spiritual

* I have been having fun using a gratitude journal for my iPod Touch. I list at least 5 things every day for which I am grateful. This is a nice exercise which helps me to stop running habitually negative ideas through my head and to remember that things could be much worse.
* I listen to Oprah's Spirit Channel podcasts to give myself inspiration, motivation and information about living a positive, fulfilling life. Here you will find interviews with Eckhart Tolle, Jill Bolte Taylor and many others.
* I am chatting with my raw Twitter friends, reading raw food blogs, and going back to my nutrition books to get myself mentally back into the type of daily thinking that supports a whole and raw foods lifestyle.


Physical

* I have stocked the kitchen once again with healthy produce and have gotten rid of the Pepsi!
* I have made a list of all of my ailments- just like the list I created in 2006 when I first started my raw odyssey. As I conquer each malady with my transformative lifestyle, I will note it so that I have an ongoing list of reasons to stick to my path. But if anything unfavorable occurs- like the hair loss that came from eating raw goitrogenic vegetables - I'll investigate and learn how to deal with the problem healthfully.


TIME TO GET STARTED!!