I feel like a bowl of oranges.
Jen Hoffman, my healthy movement instructor, encourages me to define health not by how I look, but by how I feel. Oranges are my favorite fruit, and right now, my body and mind feel as bright and vivacious as their sweet fragrance.
It’s been 1 month since my last post. I’ve been so engaged in living that I have forgotten to write. Writing comes more easily to me when I am feeling reflective. I feel more reflective when I am unwell. But I have been bursting at the seams recently, and so my space to write has shrunk.
I am better. Better than I was before my 5-month bout with depression that began last fall. Better than I can remember being since I was a child.
It’s that time of the month. Ladies, you know what I mean. Yesterday, I cleaned the whole house, cooked dinner for my husband, parents and brother, and went to my first praise team rehearsal in about a year. And I still felt good. Tired, but happy tired.
Where did all that energy come from? Where has it been all of my adult life?
There are a number of factors contributing to my wellness:
1. We continue to make healthful additions to our nutrition and I continually experiment with new recipes. We have learned how to ferment vegetables and have enjoyed our first few batches of home-brewed kombucha.
2. The weather is warm and beautiful. I can sit in the sun, work in the yard or run around with the dogs.
3. Our community life is back. I am generally well enough to be involved again in our small group and am back on the praise team for the first time in a year.
4. I’m in the middle of the Mastermind and Body Challenge, a course taught by yogi Jen Hoffman that weaves healthy movement into everyday activities to strengthen the body and keep it in proper alignment. I’m re-learning how to sit, stand, bend, walk and stretch. I’ve noticed that my posture has improved and my body feels better at the end of the day. (You can learn more about the Challenge at healthymoving.com.)
Ecclesiastes speaks of different seasons, seasons of the soul as defined as the seasons of the earth. I was in a season of sickness for almost half a year, followed by a season of rest. Now, I am in a season of joy. I feel like a bowl of oranges.
Selah.
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Dear sweet Lauren, I so appreciate your sharing such a personal experience that is your life. You are truly a teacher……a teacher, valued. Valued by society that so desperately needs to learn, to understand the bi-polar vantage point of life & your experience in it, the world that we all share. I am not one to accurately know statistics, but I am aware of astounding numbers of people suffering the see saw of bi-polar, manic depression, frank depression……levels that vary uniquely with overlays of one to another. I am none of these specifically, but I am acutely aware of my own cycle of depression. I ‘go down’ in the Fall of each year as I watch the leaves of trees curl brown & fall, gracefully, to the Earth lying in comment that it is time for the Earth, me, to rest & restore for Spring. In short, I hibernate. If one must assign a label, a box, I inherently know that this is lamely called, labeled, Seasonal Affective Disorder……SAD. An appropriate acronym! Not to be a ‘downer’, there is always an ‘up-side.’ My joy, my hope, lies in looking forward to the advent of Spring. My element. I look for the first harbingers of life awakening in the Nature around me. Grape hyascinths, crocus, narcissus, daffodils & tulips encourage my energy compendiously as Spring brings on the full blow of Summer’s colors. I surround myself with these, God’s glory & grace, in His miracle of flowers……the magnificence of His autonomous cycles of life! ” There is a season, turn turn turn”….a song…..singing the passage from the Good Book. I feel closest to God in my garden. It is there that I understand & value.
You have a gift in writing. I hope you do more of it. I will look forward to your ability & your life experience maturing as time goes by. You are Loved. Miss Emily from the ‘Hood’