I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:4-13
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again--rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final things. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me--everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn't have the chance to help me. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

No matter where we are, or where we are going. We must always rejoice, be God's tangible hand and give and help others, and be thankful for our experiences both good and bad. We must always remind ourselves and each other that we need to focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. These are the things that are greater than we are. We must keep each other accountable and not let our loved ones fade into the darkness. We must tell each other that we are concerned for them, tell them that we appreciate them and are there for them. We must show agape, or unconditional love for each other because that is how God loves us. Our faith has to go beyond situational because we are all broken and messy people. God gave his only son for us, and we must lean on each other to help each other through the darkest times in our lives.

I have been dealing with weight issues my entire life. When I was in the sixth grade I was a size 23, and weighed 220lbs. I was depressed and had few friends. I found comfort in junk food: processed, dead food imitations. At multiple times in my life I wanted to end my life and not live through the ridicule that my fellow students put me through. There was no reason for my 12 year old body to be clincially obese. I had to do something. I started going to church and seeking God, someone who would love me unconditionally, and my mom started juicing carrots. I was active at church and at school through the marching band. By the time I was a senior in High School I was down to a size eight/ten, a normal body size for an 18year old. During my college years I got away from exercising and church. I also was trying to find myself and who I was, which I thought I had found in dating someone. As I have been told, I was not keeping my head vertical but I was being horizontal. I thought that in order for someone to love me, that I had to be physical with them. I also thought that if someone was spending a lot of time with me, then they wanted to be physical with me. I don't have any brothers, and I have never had close male friends, so I do not know what the difference between friendly love, brotherly love, and romantic love is. This past year I started my graduate program and I found myself depressed and seeking attention from men who I did not love me but wanted to use me. I was physically out of shape again was starting to get extremely heavy. I was back to a size 18, 200lbs. I decided that I needed some changes in my life. I started going back to church as an educational experience to help me learn more about the bible, but soon I learned that God still loved me, even though I had strayed so far away for being morally right. I meet some new friends who were seeking alternative health options. In January, even though this was not my new years resolution, I decided that I needed to help myself. I joined a small growth group through my church, and I started going back to the gym four times a week. I promised myself that I would never have sex again until I found my life partner. In March, I went against this, trying to seek love from other places, and I was set back emotionally again for a few month. In April, on Good Friday, I officially ended my multiple year sex addiction/ relationship. It had to be on Good Friday, so that it was as if I was dying to myself, and starting anew. And it still hurts, because I had found much comfort in that relationship, but in order to find true happiness in what is good and true in other aspects of my life and the world, I had to cut myself off to my old burdens. Also, at this time I started writing and meditating. The mediation was called holosync and really helped me deal with a lot of my emotional food issues, because it helped me start to realize my repressed emotions about my childhood eating disorder. I have been a vegetarian since January 13th, 2008. But when I started crying when walking into my kitchen because I was processing my childhood repressed emotions, I decided that I should start juicing again. I also decided that I would try to become a raw vegan for a while, so that I would be giving my body the best living food to help me over come these challenging emotions. Also, at this time I started falling in love with a good friend of mine, because we were helping each other over come obstacles in our lives. We would meditate together, talk about God and Jesus and the amazing peace and freedom that we could get from giving our lives to them, we even would fast together. We eventually started running barefoot through the woods together so that we could ground our bodies and get back to the basics of living as naturally as we could. I started teaching yoga and volunteering again, because I know that I thrive by helping others through being God's tangible hand. Today is August 15th, and I am still struggling to balance my life. I am a size eight/ten again, and weigh 156lbs. I am still a broken and emotionally broken person. I strive to give my body only the best vibrant living raw food everyday. I am also seeking to find the balance between romantic love and brotherly love. Mostly, I thank God everyday for giving me my brokenness, so that I can share my story with others who are struggling. I thank God for showing me what is true, and right, and pure, and lovely. I thank him for loving me unconditionally and walking with me. God has great plans for me and my life. I am not 100% exactly sure what they are, but he will show me the way, "for I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13).

New things in my life!

Hey friends,
There have been some new additions to my life! This week I have decided that I should start juicing again. In Born to Run, it was suggested to start your day off with a salad. Instead of a salad, I have been juicing making sure to get at least four of my five vegetables in for the day. My day has been looking like this:

Wake up and have 5 almonds and either an apple or an orange.
Go to the gym/ 5 Tibetan Rites/ Yoga (depending on the day!)
Juice: 4 carrots, 1 broccoli stalk, celery, and cucumber.
Shower (I use all organic or local products)
Smoothie: My smoothies have been getting crazy. I will have to do a blog just on my smoothies.
Work/personal time.
Grounding time: 1-3 mile run (wearing my vibrams!!) and then a swim in the local sinks!
Dinner: some type of veggie combo with a carbohydrate.
Wind down time: Reading/ meditating/ writing.

The past three weeks have been on this schedule! I am happy, healthy, and living my life to the fullest!!

Another thing that I have just remembered and want to get into is Laughter Therapy. I have been emotionally unbalanced lately. There are a lot of unstable things in my life right now and I am trying to find peace and give thanks for where I am, and where I am heading. In the process I remember my friend and I using Laughter Therapy when we have been mad for various reasons. I looked this up last night and found lots of good information. I love teaching yoga, so maybe I will start to teach Laughter Therapy. Check it out: http://laughteryoga.org/index.php

Just tonight I have decided to take on another thing in my life! This is bran new and I am excited about going through with it. I am going to be in my first marathon. It is going to be the 2011 Disney Marathon. A full 26.2 miles. One my my new friends started talking to me about doing it, and now my sister and I are going to do this together with my friends. I am excited about doing this though with my sister because recently she has seen my success and has started making healthier choices in her life. It will be fun and we will encourage each other to make it through. :) Here is the website if you are interested in joining us: http://espnwwos.disney.go.com/events/endurance/wdw-marathon/

Something else that is strong and working in my life is God. He has been extremely merciful and has allowed me to see that no matter where I have come from and what I have done in my past, that I am his beloved. He will love me no matter what my free will allows me to do. I am not only blessed to have great friends, but a stable spiritual community where I can grow and blossom into a beautiful lotus flower. I have also had the opportunity to write a devotional for my church's new series that is going to being in September. I will post this when the book is published. Here is the verse that I use to describe what God's relationship to me is like. “The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well- water garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58-59). Something to think about, something that I believe in that Michale Franti believes in: "I believe in the miracle, I believe in the spiritual, I believe in the one above, I believe in the one I love!"

Again just today, I was introduced to: Rusted Root! Great group. Check them out!!
My favorite line thus far is: "All I want is food and creative love!"

Okay, I am extremely tired! Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Remember as Michale Franti always says, "Power to the peaceful!"

Also, a good question to end on: Are you loving? It is interesting when you get messages like these from your friends who are trying to keep you accountable how your mood will change based on if you are putting your heart into something or not. So, I ask you, are you loving?

Much agape love,
jtodd

Born to Run - The Passion of Running Continued

I have been enjoying my lazy summer days training myself for the epic amounts of reading that will take place over the next few months during my third semester of graduate school. In the training process, I have finished one of the most inspiring and life shaping books that I have picked up in the past few year, Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Thursday and Friday I spent most of my days reading through the text, and last night I was able to actually try out the new running form that they speak of in the book. I look forward to getting back to native roots, because as Christopher McDougall states, “So simple…just move your legs. Because if you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are” (244). The following are my favorite quotes that spoke to me throughout the book. I encourage you to look through these and make comments; however, I urge you to pick up the book yourself. I promise that if it does not make you want to become a runner, then it will give you a new perspective on life. Happy reading friends! :)

Running Inspired by Literature:
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac: “ ‘Trails are like that: you’re floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you’re struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak…just like life’” (145). “When running stopped being as far as surfing, they had agreed, they’d quit. So to get that same surging glide, that same feeling of being lifted up and swept along, they ran to the rhythm of Beat poetry” (145). How awesome! :)

Charles Bukowski: “ ‘If you’re going to try, go all the way…There is no other feeling like that. / you will be along with the gods / and the nights will flame with fire…you will ride life straight to/ perfect laughter, it’s / the only good fight there is’”(145).

Grounding:
“Dr. Brand, ‘The barefoot walker receives a continuous stream of information about the ground and about his relationship to it, while a shod foot sleeps inside an unchanging environment’ “ (177). I know that it is clear to decipher what the word “shod” means, but I wanted to look it up. In my old timey Oxford Essential Dictionary, “shod” is the past and past participial of shoe. Learn something new every day! This comment rings true though for me, because by experiencing the energy that the ground gives the body by being barefoot is incredible. I enjoy being grounded to the earth: my energy levels rise and my mood stabilizes.

Praise for the Vegetarian Diet: Scott Jurek!
“…meatless diets works for history’s great runners!” (192)
“…no animal products—no eggs, no cheese, not even icecream—and not much sugar or white flour, either” (192).
“By basing his diet on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, Scott is deriving maximum nutrition from the lowest possible number of calories, so his body isn’t forced to carry or process any useless bulk” (192)
“Vegetables, grains, and legumes contain all the amino acids necessary to build muscle from scratch” (193).
“Eat like a poor person, as Coach Joe Vigil likes to say, and you’ll only see your doctor on the golf course” (209).

More Praise for the Veggie Diet: Dr. Ruth
“Geranium niveum is the Tarahumara wonder drug; according to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, it’s as effective as red wine at neutralizing disease-causing free radicals. As one writer put it, wild geranium is ‘anti-everything—anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant’”(210).
“Standard American Diet—or SAD” (210).
“She had a simple rule: if it came from plants, she ate it; if it came from animals, she didn’t” (210).
“’ Under the Tarahumara-style eating plan, lunch and dinner were built around fruit, beans, yams, while grains, and vegetables, and breakfast was often salad. You get leafy greens in your body first thing in the morning and you’ll lose a lot of weight…a monster salad is loaded with nutrient-rich carbs and low fat.” (211).

The way to run: Eric, Ken, Barefoot Ted
“Barefoot Ted believed we could abolish foot injuries by throwing away our Nikes” (138).

“Whenever you run, remember that feeling of straining against the rope. It’ll keep your feet under your body, your hips driving straight ahead, and your heals out of the picture” (204).
“Quick, light leg contractions are more economical than big, forceful ones” (205).

“Athletes are Tarzans. Tarzan swims and wrestles and jumps and swings on vines. He’s strong and explosive. You never know what Tarzan will do next, which is why he never gets hurt. ‘You’re body needs to be shocked to become resilient.’ Follow the same daily routine, and your musculoskeletal system quickly figures out how to adapt and go on autopilot” (211).

“Your muscles needs oxygen to burn calories and convert them into energy, so the better you are at exchanging gases—sucking in oxygen, blowing out carbon dioxide—the longer you can sustain your top speed” (215).

Evolution and Family Structure:
“As we evolve, we shucked our beef and become more sinuous, more cooperative…essentially, more female…Mothers see no reason why they should not continue to participate fully” (241).
“Humans are among the most communal and cooperative of all primates; our sole defense in a fang filled world was our solidarity, and there’s no reason to think we suddenly disbanded during our most crucial challenge, the hunt for food…We did everything as a family. The whole community was a family. We shared everything and cooperated, but now there is a lot of arguing and bickering, every man for himself. Running…made them better people” (242).

Prayer:
“The Hopis consider running a form of prayer; they offer every step as a sacrifice to a loved one, and in return ask the Great Spirit to match their strength with some of his own” (253).

Medicine:
“When I am out on a long run the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run. For once, my brain isn’t going blehblehblehbleh all the time. Everything quiets down, and the only thing going on is pure flow. It’s just me and the movement and the motion. That’s what I love—just being a barbarian, running through the woods” (149). Running is obviously a better solution than pharmaceuticals.

“It was the worst! The worst-tasting urine I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. You could bottle this stuff and sell it to bring people back from the dead” (271). Haha! :P Barefoot Ted: “…his observation that human urine is both nutrient-rich and an effective tooth whitener” (275). Have you ever tired this?! Matt and I were listening to a talk by David Wolfe or was it Daniel Vitalis about urine therapy. We laughed, and thought ewww, but the talk had really interesting points. The biggest that I can remember is that if we are putting the best in our bodies then we are just recycling minerals and vitamins. What do you think?

Random Goodies:
“Power to the peaceful” (130). Michael Franti would approve this statement! :)

“The heroes of the past are untouchable, protected forever by the fortress door of time” (131).

“ ‘…pleading doesn’t work on drunks in fountains” (140). Haha! This reminds me of my days at FSU, especially on many friends 21st birthdays.

“Living on the edge wasn’t about danger, he realized. It was about curiosity; audacious curiosity, like the kind Lance had when he was chalked off for good and still decided to see if he could build a wasted body into a world-beater” (144).

“Why add something if you’re born with everything you need? (165)

“If there is a magic bullet to making human beings healthy, it’s to run” (168).

“Translation: if you can run six miles on summer day, then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom” (228). I will one day be a lethal weapon! :)

“Poor and free was the way he’d chosen to live, but was it the way he wanted to die?” (280). This is a question that a lot of people who are on this same journey are asking. It is not about living for material possessions, but reaching towards the greater spirit within us. Giving it all up so that we can be humbled by what life gives us.

This I believe!

If you have never taken the chance to read a "This I believe" article, take the time now to do so. Here is just a sneak peak of what lies within the article:
Journalist Lucy Freeman covered mental health and social welfare subjects for The New York Times in the late 1940s. Her first book, Fight Against Fears, detailed her own psychoanalytic treatment for social fears and insomnia. Freeman's experiences in counseling led her to believe that we must accept ourselves before we can truly give and receive love.

"In order to change, I needed help in facing myself. For me, it was not easy to 'know thyself.' All my life I had accepted the lesser of the two evils and run away from self, because truth was more dangerous. Once I thought that to survive, I had to put on a mask and forget what lay underneath. But masks are false protections, and the inner part of me refused to go unheard forever. It caught up eventually, and unless it was to master me, I had to face such feelings as fear, anger, envy, hatred, jealousy, and excessive need for attention. When I realized I could not have done anything else except what I did, I was able to like myself more and be able to like others, not for what they could give me but for what I could give to them."

Read the rest at: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16560/

I want to write my own "This I believe", but I am not sure where I would start. I would talk about sitting on a mediation rock in the middle of Princeton campus, with a good friend, and letting our walls down. I would talk about sitting in a car and watching a heat lightening storm from the top of a building. I would talk about the real conversations that cut the most and make us grow because we trust what our companions are telling us. I would talk about the power of the holy spirit working through my life. I would talk about taking one step at a time in order to find who I am. I would talk about how jealousy over takes me at certain times and how I have tried to over come that which enslaves me. I would talk about a broken heart that needs healing, and through how being in nature I have given my heart over to my creator, and how I thank my father, God, and my mother, Mother Nature, everyday for giving me exactly what I need in order to survive. I believe in getting back to the basics. I believe that people are good at heart and that society jades us. I believe that there is hope for the future and that with my tangible hand, I will hold high standards for not only my family, friends, and students, but that we will make this world an amazing learning community.

What masks are you wearing? How can you work on lifting those masks? What do you believe in?