Thursday, January 24, 2013

What I have learned from the Men and Women in Hawaii

First of all, I would like to tak a little bit more about how I don't feel it is good or healthy for your mind or body to try to lose weight by putting yourself on strict regimens, be it exercise or diet. I am sure a lot of you are thinking. Sherry! I am overweight! I am unhealthy. I need to lose weight! It is not a bad thing. My Doctor even told me too!

I agree that in a lot of cases it would be favourable in one's life to lose weight. However, your weight is not the problem. It is usually just a symptom of a problem, or a variety of problems. My opinion is that most of those problems stem from a misunderstanding of who you are, and your worth as Child of God. There is a lack of self love. Would you shove the food that you put in your mouth into your child, watch her gain weight, put her on the scale everyday and be angry at her all day when it went up a pound? Would you then tell her that she deserves to not eat tomorrow? Would you starve her for a week and then when she finally can't take it, have her eat a whole bad of cookies? Would you then make her throw them up, and tell her she was bad for even eating those in the first place? I think child services would come and take that poor girl away! Not even kidding. What is sad, is how many of us treat ourselves in a similar fashion?

Christopher and I watched Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah last night and the whole interview I was just dying to know what finally changed his heart? Why, after all the lies, did he decide to come forth now with the truth. Finally, fighting back tears he told that it all changed when he saw that his son was defending his Dad at school while all the kids were accusing him of doping.  It broke Lance's heart to think that his son really trusted him, especially because his son had NEVER asked him if he was telling the truth. His 13 year old son, just believed him, because he trusted his Dad. Prior to this, nothing could shake Lance to tell the truth. He even lied under oath and sued his honest friends, people who accused him but were actually telling the truth.  I found it so touching, what the power of Love can do to change people from the inside out.

So, why is it that we would never intentionally do anything to harm our children, yet we are so unkind to ourselves. Like I said, being unhealthy is usually because we are not being very kind to ourselves. We are disrespecting our bodies, and using them for reasons that they never were intended for.

So, how do we learn to love ourselves, well first off like I said yesterday, I think it is important that we accept ourselves. We need to toss the belief that we are not good enough. You need not be perfect to be good enough. Do you have a perfect house? A perfect spouse? A perfect child? Of course not, but do you love them in their weakness, their shortcomings? Are they good enough? When we have a heart of gratitude, I believe that they are. I hope this is what we as women and men can all feel about ourselves. We don't need to be perfect in order to give ourselves some compassion and love.

The Men and Women in Hawaii have been such great examples to me in this area. Men and Women here are for the most part BIG! They are not only really tall, but really really thick. (with the exception of all the little asian people) They are such happy and loving people. They live simple lives, and for the most part you can tell their greatest treasures in life are their God and the people around them. They love their families, but they truly are so welcoming and treat everyone as if they are family.  It has been such a wonderful experience.  Some of them joke about them being so big, and some are like....yaaa I should probably try to lose weight, but there is not the sense of shame that I feel on the mainland. I guess they don't take it as such a personal fault or failure. The men also seem to just love their big women. It doesn't seem like they find fat gross, nor do they need this tiny little petite thing in order to feel like they can protect her. Sooo refreshing. It is just another evidence, that our reality is really not the reality. Skinny or muscular truly does not mean more attractive. It only does, because someone one day decided to convince us that is did. Same thing with fashion! Who decides what is in style and what is not?? Well, pinterest seems to be doing that these days, but regardless we just buy into all these lies as if they are absolute truth when the real truth is that none of that stuff matters.

I may sound like a broken record, but what does matter is LOVE. Love of God, Love of Yourself and Love of your Neighbours. Hawaiians are pretty darn good at that and I am trying to be more like them.

Anyway, I hope yall are having a good day. I am trying to be patient while I await this baby. Doc says I am 4 cm dilated now, so any day now!!! Like my friend Mindy said to me yesterday, she said, when you are in labor look around at everyone and remember that every single person came out of a vagina. Strangely  it really helped to think of it that way. I am nothing special. It is a probably the most common miracle we have in the life. How cool is it that we have all been a part of it! Ok that is enough for today!

I love you Daddy!
Sherry

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