"Mindful" as a buzzword

 This is my carrot soufflé - it turned out delicious!

 

 

I’ve been doing a lot of research on topics like:
 

 ‘no diet diet’ {most hits turn up a diet]
 

Mindful eating [a lot of the hits are good, but many of them are focused on weight loss through mindful eating rather than actual health through mindful eating]
 

Intuitive eating [same as above]
 

Ditch the diet [also same as above – ditch the diet but do something ‘else’ and you will lose weight]
 

So a lot of the research just feels like being sucked into the diet industry cesspool through a different sewer. It’s like bait and switch.
 

I really need to stop researching all together, but that’s a therapy topic for another day. Research is one of my coping mechanisms. If I learn about something I can control it better. So I do a lot of peaking into topics to try to find support for my opinions and beliefs. That in itself is problematic because I need to embrace the idea that I don’t need justification for anything. If this is what I want to do and the way I want t live, I don’t have to see if it’s okay with anybody else, or if research supports it as a good thing or if someone else has had success at it. All I need to know is, this is what I WANT and therefore that makes it okay.
 

I really need to turn my newfound energy to a new project, but I’m torn as usual. There are a lot of things I want to work on, but one of my problems is always feeling like I should be doing something other than what I’m doing. That’s another project in itself – getting to the point where what I’m doing is okay, not because I can justify it by saying it’s the most opportune time to read as opposed to crochet, or I should write now and exercise later because the weather will be better later or I should I exercise now for half an hour and then do laundry for seventeen minutes…
 

It’s an exhausting way to live and I’ve done it for far too long. I’m working on being Zen in that area of my life too. What do I WANT to do? What NEEDS to be done – laundry? Okay, I’ll do that. Then I’ll cook something, then I’ll write if there’s time unless I feel like going for a bike ride, then I’ll do that and to hell with writing. I’ll wash the dishes later because I want to go out in the garden now and I want to write a blog post because if I don’t, I may find myself ruminating on the topic and that will interfere with my calm thoughts.
 

I bet you think I’m going nuts. I may be. But this is all about engineering improvement in whatever way works.
 

As an aside, I finally got myself a bamboo plant and added it to my indoor garden. It’s going to be the start of my mini zen garden.