lara simmons

"Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives."  -- Pema Chodron Awakeness, I believe, can be found in abstinence because it stimulates our pain and our pleasure sensors, it causes us confusion and discomfort, it causes us to feel more deeply, to be more aware, to wake up a little bit more. As I wrote on DAY 24 , abstaining from wheat has somehow allowed me to recognize the unwell feelings I have when I eat corn and sugar. I think this comes from the heightened sense of "awakeness" it takes to remain abstinent. And because I am more awake, I am more aware. How have you become more awake over the course of this challenge? What other moments of awakeness have you experienced in your weird, unfathomable life?

"You can strip yourself, you can be stripped, but still you will reach out like an octopus to seek your own comfort, your untroubled time, your ease, your refreshment. It may mean books or music – the gratification of the inner senses – or it may mean food and drink, coffee and cigarettes. The one kind of giving up is not easier than the other."  --Dorothy Day in  The SUN magazine Click here to read an old post about a time I reached out to seek my own comfort and regretted it.

"Addiction exists whenever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are not their true desires."   --May (from “Addiction and Grace”) in the book “ The Journey of Desire ” by John Eldredge Ooh, another juicy definition of addiction to consider....Spend some time today thinking about your true desires. What are they? And what are you giving energy to that is not a true desire?

"Wherever you are, be all there." --Jim Elliott on http://www.thehappymovie.com/ One of the things that came up for me when I started this 40-day meditation challenge was TV, one of the primary ways I go unconscious. After a long day or a busy day or a large group social event I just need to relax my mind and unwind with something totally mindless. Sometimes a book will do the trick, but most often this is when I start to jones for some bad TV. I know it's a problem (and also one of the reasons why I struggle so much with my kids' need for screen time - gotta love those mirrors!) because it is the primary way I escape from what is really going on. From my fears and my hurts, my frustrations and insecurities. I use TV, and to some extent books, to go unconscious, to black out and to escape my reality. So I half-heartedly committed to "no TV" during these same 40 days. I lasted about 36 hours. On Tuesday afternoon, my son asked me to watch something...