Taking the plunge!

Ok! I’ve done it!  I’ve made the commitment!

No…. I’m not getting married!  I’ve committed to the Nerd Fitness 6 Week Challenge!

What this means is for the next six weeks – starting September 24th – I’ll be working towards four specific fitness and life related goals.  Three will be fitness or health related, and the fourth is a “life goal”.

For example, here’s what I wrote down for my goals (copied from my thread on Nerd Fitness):

Goal 1 – NF’s Beginner Workout x3 a week - Right now I’m sedentary, and really need to get my ass in gear. The beginner workout is probably as good a place to start as any. Hopefully I’ll be able to work myself past it? [ +3 STR, +2 STA ]

Goal 2 – Yoga x2 a week. I was doing Yoga steadily for a while, but fell out of the habit months ago. I felt really good while I was doing it, so I think it’s a practice I need to get back into. [ +2 STA, +1 CON ]

Goal 3 – Learn to eat Paleo up to 80% - That’s really what brought me here. I’m excited to change my eating habits to something that, to me, just the thought of it feels healthier. With a small vacation coming up at the end of September, this will be a difficult starting point, but I’m up for the challenge. [ +3 CON ]

Goal 4 – Life Goal - Start steps towards getting into grad school. First steps would be getting tour of the University, meet with the Advisors about my undergraduate grades (which weren’t so great :/ ) and getting my Transcripts sent. [ +2 WIS, +2 CHA ]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention – NF treats fitness goals like a role playing game, with stats for your Strength, Charisma, Constitution, Wisdom, Stamina and Dexterity.  You can increase your stats by achieving your goals.  It sounds kinda fun, so why not try it out, right?  Anything that can make fitness that little bit more fun is all good to me.

The first steps on this Challenge are going to be hard, as I’ll be out of state next weekend, so it will be harder to control when I get to work out, or where I get to eat.  I’ll do my best to keep up with things though!  I’m an Advenurer!  GRRR!!

A Message From The Gods

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about faith, particularly mine.  As a child, I was adamantly Roman Catholic.  Through High School I started questioning too much, and was told my questions were “bad”.  In college, I met my first Wiccans and was initiated into a small Coven.  Soon after, after a dogma disagreement, I left that Coven to practice as a solitary Neo-Pagan, focusing on the Egyptian Pantheon and my patrons of Isis and Osiris.  And so it was for fifteen years.  Then I started to slip away from my God and Goddess.

I felt disconnected from them, and my faith didn’t bring me the joy it once did in my life.  It felt hollow to me.  Empty, like I was just going through the motions.  Eventually, I stopped practicing altogether.

Shortly after, I stumbled onto Buddhism, and found something that brought me truth.  I was such an angry person, and Buddhism brought me peace.  The teachings were meaningful, and I fell in love with Zen.  This kept me sated for more than five years, but soon – recently – that old ache started to grow in me again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my faith – and my crisis of faith.  I feel the calling back to my God and Goddess, and hope that they will accept me back into the fold.  It is said that Isis will always open her arms to those who call on her, in unconditional love.

So I’ve decided to reboot from the ground up.  I need to acquire all new altar tools (mine are in other states, sadly, as is my altar itself), rewrite my rituals, etc.  Part of that is facing my deities, admitting that I had slipped and tell them I am lifting myself up and bettering myself in their Name.

I spent the other night reading up on the Gods and Goddess of Egypt.  When I went to bed, as I lie there, I slowed my breathing to meditate (I do that sometimes, because I have trouble sleeping).  I thought of Isis and Osiris.  I said to them “Please accept my devotion to you.” or words to that effect.  It was more of a feeling than actual words.

Slowly, to my mind, the image came to me:  their hands spread in front of me, motioning to a massive banquet table, only the bottoms of their bodies visible.  Their upper forms and heads were cast in shadow.  I felt peaceful and welcomed.  It was as if they wished for me to sit with them and partake of their bounty.  They were happy to have me return to their table.  I ate with them, and as my meditation slowed to a close, I fell into a restful sleep.

Some might blow off the experience as a lucid dream, or fanciful thinking of a sleepy mind.  To me, it was something substantial.  Tangible.  I know now where my steps are leading.  I am not leaving my love of Zen behind, but integrating what I’ve learned there with where I am going from here.  I have reawakened to my faith, and eagerly await my future with my God and Goddess.

Namaste.

My Cat’s Buddha Nature

I am a total cat person.  I have two cats right now, named Vyvyan and Gaz, both girls.  Vyvyan is a large, adorable tuxedo cat, kinda tubby, who is lazy and unplayful.   She has almost never used a toy that I’ve seen, and spends her days sleeping and eating.  She’s not the one who we’re here to discuss.  Today, we’re going to discuss Gaz.

Vyvyan, bottom left, and Gaz, top right.

Gaz is a cute and tiny little tabby, and has an unfortunate habit at the moment.  She’s about 2.5 years old, and hasn’t been spayed, which means every couple weeks, she goes into heat.  That comes of course with all the yowling and rolling around and rubbing on everyone and everything in sight that heat brings on in a cat.  She also has one more habit that makes her almost intolerable to be around – marking.  She whizzles on anything that’s not nailed down, leaving me to follow around in her wake and clean up the mess.  She’s creative, too!  Her favourites tend to be things like bowls, or pots and pans – anything that she can climb into (or barely climb into).  Recent marking expeditions have been things like the microwave, the kitchen counter and even my new netbook (thank goodness it was closed at the time!).

I know once we get her spayed, the behaviour should stop.  Vyvyan used to do the same thing until she was spayed.  We’re hoping to get that handled soon.  In the mean time, I have to keep from having screaming fits every time I see that little striped tail raise in the air and wiggle near the furniture or our possessions.  I can’t believe how angry I get at her every time I see her do it, mostly because I get sick of running out of cleaning spray and toilet paper cleaning up after her little messes.  I know it’s part of the responsibility of being a pet owner, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it ALL the time.

It occurred to me today, in turning to the wisdom of the Buddha, that I need to look past my anger.  It’s not helping anyone when I scream, as it only makes me upset and sick, and confuses Gaz.  She can’t help what she’s doing, to her, it’s just an instinct.  Yelling or getting angry won’t change the behaviour in the slightest.  I need to radically accept that this is, for the moment, a behaviour that I can’t change in her, and accept her Buddha nature.

Gaz’s Buddha nature is her potential for enlightenment.  It is the Buddha within her, as all living things have a Buddha nature.  It may not be in this lifetime, or the next, but she does have that inherent potential to transcend suffering to Nirvana.  It may sound silly, but I need to learn to look past her actions that anger me and see the transcendent Buddha being inside her.  She may have behaviours that cause me to react negatively, but she’s also an intense cuddlebug when she wants to be.  Most nights she sleeps on my chest, curled up next to me, or on my pillow next to my head.  We play games together, like fetch.  She’s kept me company through a lot of difficult times, and I adore her for the joyful things she’s brought to my life.  Gaz doesn’t need to be aware of the Buddha within her, so long as I can remember to keep looking for it in those times where our relationship may be a bit on the strained side.

At the moment, things are quiet, as she is curled up in a chair nearby, her little peanut head inverted in sleep.  I’ll take the peaceful moments as I can get them, when she’s in heat, they are few and far between.  When she wakes up, I’ll try to remind myself again about the Dharma and the light of the Buddha within her, with cleanser and toilet paper in hand.

First post! An Introduction…

Welcome to my first post on Grimm Reality!  In the coming posts, I’ll be sharing the changes I’m making to my life in order to live happier and healthier.

Life these days can leave us all jumbled and drained.  In the last few years, I’ve found myself sick, without energy, gaining weight and thoroughly unhappy with myself as a whole.  Since relocating from Tennessee to Florida three years ago, my life had grown more sedentary and I gained forty pounds.  Recently, I started retaining water in my legs and began worrying about early symptoms of diabetes.  My doctor told me to cut out the extra salt and to get off my butt and exercise!

I’ve never really had to exercise before, and until now, wasn’t really concerned with my diet either.  My weight was always relatively stable.  But since peeking into my medical file at the doctor’s office and seeing where she wrote “Overweight” on her chart, I’ve been a bit more motivated to get my act together and start shedding the extra pounds.

I changed my diet a bit, tried to cut back my portion sizes, and stepped away from my computer to walk five days a week.  Since that time, I’ve lost ten pounds – which is 25% of my goal!  Seeing progress has become a major league motivating factor!

With all this motivation, I decided that I wanted not only to record what I’m doing to improve my health, but I wanted to share it with others.  Who knows?  Someone else might be interested in these real life changes, and might make changes for the better in their own lives.

The way I’m breaking down this site is that I’m organizing my posts into the following categories: Body, Food, Life, Mind and Spirit.  In each of these sections, you’ll find:

BODY: This section will be about things of the physical variety, whether they be sickness, health, doctors, fitness, exercise, etc.

FOOD: Kind of self explanatory.  I’ll be covering diet changes, my own eating habits, and maybe a few recipes, too!

LIFE:  Life changes.  A lot goes on in life, and this is where I’ll be putting a lot of miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t really fit into the other categories, but is still important to overall well-being.

MIND:  I suffer from mental illness, and have for the last twenty three years, for which I take medication.  This is where I’ll be documenting any mental health related issues.

SPIRIT:  Spirituality is important.  I try my best to live by Buddhist teachings and principles, and will be putting any spirituality related posts under this heading.

Wow!  That’s a long post!  I think that’s all for now.  I’m really looking forward to seeing where this journey takes me, and also looking forward to sharing each step with you.  Namaste.