One of the perks of growing up LDS, was the concept of the Word of Wisdom and the idea that the body is a temple. The Word of Wisdom gives some guidelines around food. I personally haven’t found all of its suggestions to be completely accurate (such as more grains, less meat), but it instilled a thought process around what I consumed. It’s one of the reasons I was never really interested in drugs or alcohol.
I remember realizing as a teenager that we probably shouldn’t be drinking caffeine (in our house, Pepsi), and I requested that my mom start buying me Sprite. The adult-me finds this incredibly amusing – as if any high sugar content soda was a good option. But, making a choice that was different from what the rest of my family was doing was significant.
In my family, I’ve often been considered a little different. My dad would introduce me as the “weird” one. I suppose I read unusual things and wrote strange stories. My imagination has traditionally been a little “out-there.” One time my mom gave me permission to paint a mural on my bedroom wall and I draft-painted it (never finished it) and it apparently gave my younger sister nightmares. (How to describe it? On the right was the top part of a humanoid figure with long, flowing hair and a head with a dandelion growing out of it. The face was painted to look like bark with no other features. The body flowed down to become a rock facing – like the edge of a cliff. The left side of the mural was a wave forming and heading towards the rock facing. I only got as far as mapping it out in white – with the bark of the face in browns and the dandelion in whites and yellows. So, yeah, nightmares may have been appropriate. Sorry, Spink!)
Anyway, I was pretty accustomed to not being like everyone else around me when I became a raw foodist in my thirties. My whole life changed during that time. I moved to North Carolina. I would drive to the Mt. Vernon Springs in Pittsboro every two weeks and collect enough spring water to last me around two weeks. I got a juicer, a Blendtec, a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator, a food processor. I grew sprouts to eat. I fermented cabbage. I tried a whole bunch of raw recipes – some good and some disgusting.
Admittedly, it was a little extreme.
I ate 100% raw for nine months. It helped reset my body in a way I couldn’t have imagined. Everything normalized (my cholesterol had been rising, weight loss, etc.). Maybe I would have done it longer, but I found myself missing out on some shared experiences with people that centered around sharing food. So, I adapted. It actually did my muscle mass a lot of good.
I tried experimenting with raw food again in 2012 for a few months. I also have a few recipes that I still like to have every now and then (mostly desserts like raw banana ice cream, raw brownies and cookies made of nuts and dates and such).
I don’t really have an interest in going that extreme with my eating habits again, but I do feel pulled to do some things differently.
My husband and I mostly prepare our food ourselves from whole ingredients. We’ve been making our own kombucha for years. I was thinking, though, that maybe it is time to start growing sprouts again. Perhaps I can add fermented cabbage to my weekly food prep.
I have had a sourdough starter going since late last year. My husband likes to eat bread and I think me making it from a fermented source is probably a better option. I eat it, too, but only from Thursday to Sunday. It may sound a bit odd, but it is part of my latest experiment: I fast from dinner on Sunday to dinner on Monday. I then eat a paleo-style diet on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then Thursday to Sunday, I don’t have any rules (but we still eat pretty well, regardless).
I’ve been following that pattern for the past month or so. It’s going pretty well. Still, I might change up as the seasons change. I love trying new ways of doing things to find what might work better.
Why am I being unusually focused on my diet?
Ideally, I would love to reach a place in my development where I could consciously adjust the chemicals in my body for optimal performance and energy with just my will and intent. I do believe that is possible. I do believe there are yogis and monks that can do this already. I’m not there yet.
So, I keep experimenting. It’s fun for me. I thought I would share since it is the dominant thing on my mind this week.
In an ideal scenario, I would be growing more of my own food as well. In time, my friends. In time. 🙂
This past week I have had a mindset of openness. I have been thinking of all my actions as if they are opening doors to whatever the next phase that my life is expanding into.
That said, I have been bouncing around between different things in a way in alignment with the flow I described in last week’s post. It has been interesting to see where I am led and what I have gotten accomplished. I’m feeling pretty good about all that. Even when unplanned things pop up (had to make a last-minute cake-topper for my paren’ts 50th anniversary-which turned out super cute, btw!), I just relax into it and get it done.
I like this way of being. I don’t feel urgency in a stressful way. Instead, I feel excitement about what I get to create.
One cool side effect is that I have been imagining new possibilities to work into my revision of The AI Anomaly. It still has a ways to go before being ready to release, but I’m too excited about it to not get it done.
Other than that, I feel some side quests calling to me from my closet of crafty things. This fuel for my creative spirit is primed and ready for ignition. I see taking the time to learn and play as a door opening, too.
Please hand all our concerns over to God and let’s get back in alignment to the flow…
Best wishes,
Sheila
Now that that’s taken care of…
The Letter I Thought I’d Write
When I first imagined this blog post, I thought I’d write a long, sassy letter to my mind. Maybe you thought that’s where we were headed too?
I pictured teasing it for being kind of a narcissist—always trying to insert itself into everything, making life more complicated than it needs to be.
(Side-heckle to my mind: It ain’t that serious, bro.)
But instead of writing the letter, I ended up processing everything in my morning pages. And through that, some ideas started bubbling up.
Man-Powered vs. God-Powered
Ever since I published Sentenced, I’ve been filtering life through the lens of “ticket games” vs. “talent games.” That distinction has now morphed into a different question: Is this man-powered… or God-powered?
I’ve noticed that when I feel off or uncertain, it’s usually because I’ve started thinking I need to figure everything out. I start believing I must follow someone else’s formula or engineer the perfect path.
But that’s not how I create best.
My best work comes when I’m creating freely and joyfully—when I trust the process rather than pressure it. That doesn’t mean I don’t have plans or goals. But the answers rarely come on my schedule. They come through detours. They show up playfully, unexpectedly.
Pressure ≠ Progress
Looking back at old journals, I noticed a consistent stress that used to precede the completion of every project.
Sure, I got things done. Things I’m proud of. But the cost to my mental health? Not worth repeating.
Now, I know: I don’t have to suffer to make something meaningful. I can create from flow, not force.
A Useful Book
There’s this old gem of a book called The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn (written in 1925!). It’s filled with anecdotal stories that sound so improbable, they’d make a skeptic snort-laugh. But if you’ve ever consciously wanted something and handed it over to a higher power—only to have it arrive in magical, unlikely ways—you start to see the logic in letting go.
One quote that sums it up for me: “Prayer is your communication with God. Intuition is God’s message back to you.”
Nudges, Detours, and the Daily To-Do List
I still stumble (often). But I’ve noticed that I’m most aligned when I act on the nudges—even the ones that take me off my “important” to-do list.
Sometimes the nudge is toward something I don’t want to do. And wouldn’t you know, those are usually the most rewarding.
Don’t Limit Your Life with a Programmed Goal
Last year I met a stranger at an event and we chatted about kriya yoga, meditation, the Silva Method, and other practices for living more consciously.
I mentioned how I’d used self-hypnosis to “program” myself toward goals. She responded with something I’ll never forget:
“What if I don’t know what to program? What if I end up choosing something smaller than I’m capable of?”
I had to agree. We would likely program ourselves according to what we imagine and our imagination is often limited by our experience. I have certainly done that.
Being Before Doing
So now I ask: What would a full-fledged life look like if it were more focused on being instead of doing??
The being is the flow. Doing arises out of that, but then is infused with universal magic.
And so, dear Mind, my short letter still holds true.
Let’s hand over what we need to hand over and let the current take us.
I didn’t mention it on my blog, but last week I finished the first draft of The AI Anomaly.
At first, I thought I’d dive right into revisions, but instead I spent the week letting the story settle in my mind. I might even give it another week before jumping back in—so I can come to it fresh when I begin shaping the next version.
I did mention last week that I have been shifting some aspects of my life to be more inline with my ideal-self (this is arising from going through The Life Quest Playbook with my co-creator and friend, Dave).
All this “creating an awesome life” stuff has really got me buzzing and shifting for optimization. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
Got a new, more powerful PC (and two shiny new monitors!)
Reorganized my room to better support my creative ventures
Sold or listed several things I no longer need—hello, space and clarity
The ideas are flowing and I’m doing my best to discern what action I take based on purpose. I certainly encounter setbacks and challenges on this journey, but I am having so much fun and finding joy in this growth.
Occasionally, I feel guilty about enjoying my life so much. That’s odd and interesting. There’s something in my programming that thinks I can’t enjoy myself if I perceive that others aren’t enjoying their life in the same way – as if I can control anyone other than myself.
Lately, I’ve felt a bit like a Transformer—shifting into whatever form I need to take to navigate the next challenge. Everything I need is already within reach… I just might have to make some adaptations along the way.
Maybe “challenge” isn’t quite the right word. It’s more like traversing the next leg of my life journey. I’m moving, learning, shifting, and then moving some more. It’s fascinating to sit back and reflect on it.
Revisiting the Life Quest Playbook
My friend Dave and I have been going through the journal we created a few years ago: 30 Day Experiment: The Life Quest Playbook. Today we completed Day 25, so we’re almost at the finish line.
Each day, we go through the prompt, make notes or doodles, then post about our experience on a website we are developing. (If you’re curious, check it out here: The Experiment Blog).
Resistance as a Signal
Going through the experiments has been helpful in keeping me present to my goals on a daily basis as well as helping me see where I might be slacking off or being resistant.
I had a realization last week that the things I am resisting are actually things that I need to turn and face fully. They are the things that I need to run towards. It reminds me of my training in the police academy. As future officers, we knew we were the ones that would be running towards potential danger in order to help other people.
In this scenario, though, I would be moving towards things that I perceive as potentially dangerous (to my ego?) in order to help me live on purpose and with joy.
Heavy. And motivating.
Shifting My Focus
I spent the latter part of last week and the weekend shifting some aspects of my life so that I can focus on two things:
Creating (in whatever form that takes)
Connecting (in whatever form that takes)
Right now, I’m still leaning more heavily into the creating than the connecting. But I’ve already cleared out a large chunk of distraction—and I plan to simplify things even more going forward.
