Living a life of desire means living an artful, heartfelt life. – Alexandra Jamieson

The past week I have been reading Women, Food, and Desire by Alexandra Jamieson. It is a very interesting book and obviously I found it at the right time for me. Alexandra makes several good points about the way we eat, the way we live, is because we are afraid to feel what we feel. She makes an interesting point about taking that step back and just feeling. When you want to eat, stop and ask yourself why you want to eat. Are you actually hungry? Are you trying to avoid dealing with something? Eating should be pleasurable and nourishing for not only our bodies, but our souls. When we rush, when we eat to avoid, when we are mindless in our eating, we are taking time to self-care. We are not aware of what we are feeling and we lose what it is that we desire.

Our deepest feat is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? - Marianne Williamson

This quote ties into another book I was reading about perfectionism. What stops us from starting a project or finishing a project is that it won’t be the best; it won’t be perfect. So, rather than moving forward, we just don’t start or we don’t finish and our light, our brilliance, our creativity, and our passion dims. So many drawings of people who are surrounded by fear and depression and loneliness are so dark in nature. This contrasts with yoga – during savasana this session we have been focusing on the grey behind your eye lids and how it is the perfect comforting grey for you. So each person can have a different grey and that’s okay. So I am trying to meld these thoughts together for me.

Can you be surrounded in darkness and yet have light shine from you? Can you be filled with creativity and brilliance and passion and still be depressed and fearful? Can you be in tune with yourself and accept that you have a depressive side but still hope for the best, you like to be alone but still crave the touch of another person, you can be brilliant and caring and loving and still be lonely?