I have a friend who has recently had some health challenges.   Some of them have been very serious and I have worried about her.   An interesting thing is that she keeps talking about, well I have lived with a number of different things lately, I guess I can live with this.   It’s not about over coming it.  It’s about overcoming her resistance to it.   She put a lot of thought into her choices and for her, it is a choice.  I appreciate her fearlessness as she goes through this difficult time.

I do not claim to know where it will end. Neither does she.  I’m not sure she cares.  Her goal is currently to live her live with as much grace (and when there is lack, she goes with that too!) as she can.   Her grace comes from her honesty in facing something that so many of us don’t want to.

It is not always what we choose but what chooses us.   We can only keep moving on and realize that it is not so much the what but how we deal with it.

I’m laughing. I had a long break and then couldn’t think of a thing to write. I had someone post a comment on another post that they had no time for people who eat like pigs and then expect a magic pill to solve their problems. The sad thing is that there is just enough truth that many people would believe it. Then they would go and eat and think they were being pigs and feel guilty. The guilt would further justify over eating and the cycle would spiral down.

It is sad to think that we are always trying to blame something. We go out of our way to make certain things bad, when in actuality things just are. Some people do gain weight. Others on the same diet don’t. Different people have different energy. Some tend towards being fat and others not so much. We each have talents. We each have a purpose. How big or small our body is, is unlikely to be that purpose, unless you feel drawn to helping others lose weight.

It is important to let go of preconceived notions about what we should eat or not eat, or what we should or should not look like. We look how we do. Trying to eat nourishing foods should be what we all strive for. Sometimes we get some treats and then move on. Is weight loss really something we want to spend our lives trying to achieve or feeling guilty over not having gotten it right yet?

After last week’s post I was real clear about the kinds of people I wanted to interact with me. What I find interesting is that two new things opened up only after I got clear. One was something I have been hoping for for over six months. I never would have guessed that that was part of the issue.

I sometimes feel like my interests sort of create this haphazard look at a person and I am not sure how I fit together those things that interest me in one package. You know, the sort of package they talk about with marketing. I feel like sometimes I am being pulled apart. One thing that is important to me is to work with people who who are loving and compassionate. At some point I’ll be able to refine that even more I am certain. However, it’s a step and that step is opening some new pathways!

Everyone has a reason to be where they are. The Taoists would say you have something to bring. If I have created this moment then how can I offer the best of myself to this moment?

I see that everything is interconnected in a web that I can’t even describe well. I see that good health and a good life is more about an attitude than an action, but actions can bring about the attitude so where does it begin? It’s a wheel that doesn’t stop turning. The threads of the web seem hopeless tangled from my perspective. As part of the web, it is hard to look up and see the whole web.

So if I am here today, what can I offer to others? I can offer compassion. If they don’t have food on the table, I can offer that. If they need healing, I can offer that. If they need more than I can give, I can find one of those hopeless flawed institutions, government or charity that might be able to help them. If I hate the way that it works, I can work on making those institutions less flawed.

I also need to realize that being here now is part of realizing I am only a part. I cannot do it all. I cannot solve the world’s problems. Neither can the people around me. I can only come together to find like minded people who act with the same compassionate energy which I seek to put out to make great changes in the world.

I know a naturopath who works this law. He laughs when he says he is really proud of a patient who is eating breakfast at McDonald’s every day. For the patient it was a big step to eating anything regularly. As traditional foods person, this was astonishing to him, but McDonald’s was a start–a baby step to getting his patient to eat better. He was where he was in the moment with his patient and may have helped them more than he’ll ever know if that one small step towards regular eating takes the patient to not only regular eating but better eating and better planning.

We are not one step away from perfection. We are many steps away. We must start where we are and work to offer the greatest good to the greatest numbers, however we view the good. We must always start with compassion.

I have been debating walking in the Susan G. Komen 3 day breast cancer walk next year. Talking to a couple of people, they will support me but not Susan G. Komen because they do research into areas that they don’t agree with. On a forum I read about people trashing this organization because they promote research into pharmaceuticals instead of telling people how to prevent cancer.

After to talking to a breast cancer survivor, I have a few issues with this. First. SGK does more than just research. They help low income women and their families get the care they need. Politically they have lobbied such that the full treatment for breast cancer is covered for families with medicaid. They offer low income mammograms and screenings. They provide wigs to those women who need them and can’t afford them. They do makeovers. They provide financial help to those who need it to pay rent when they can’t work.

This organizations promotes awareness that the disease is fixed. From the standpoint of a yoga student, my teacher often reminds me awareness is the first step to change. While the people who argue that we need to work on prevention have a point, I think we also need to realize that for many people, prevention should have happened yesterday. For others, they aren’t sure what they can do to prevent a disease. There are many conflicting ideas. I say, these people need to sit in their awareness. We all have a lot to learn.

Going back to the post from Wednesday, I will argue that we should stop throwing away and opting out of what we think doesn’t work. Instead we need to work to change the focus. I think we do need to change our focus on health care. However, I also think that disease will happen no matter what. We can work to minimize it but we can’t control everything for perfect health. We need places doing research of many different types. I advocate more alternative health research and research into preventing and working with diseases. We need to support and assist others in their health care crisis rather than tossing them out and saying, in effect, “You messed up, now deal with it and not on my dollar.”

There is value in every person. To support or not to support something has to come from compassion. Tough love has a place, but it shouldn’t be the place from which we start. Is it more compassionate to tell a woman with breast cancer that sorry, you should have prevented it in the first place or lift her up as she heals and work with her to make sure she gets the healing she needs?