Healing in the Giving
I'm making a real effort to be more regularly engaged on here, because I believe in what HIVE represents.
At the same time, boy am I busy these days!
As I wrote a couple posts back, it's as if the world is on fire. I do believe it is building toward something better than what was before, but we are in the thick of making sure that happens instead of things getting dramatically worse.
Happy Amidst the Despair
Somehow I keep finding my way back to a center of well-being, despite needing to stay plugged in with all that is wrong so that I can be of assistance when I can.
I'm in the process of shifting some of that though. For one thing, I'm getting kind of tired of the whole process of buying groceries for single parents and getting them delivered. It sometimes takes me an entire day of back and forth to get a single family helped.
This is probably not a particularly PC thing to say, but honestly, poor people are often hard to help for the same reasons they stay poor: they don't know how things work and are emotionally overwhelmed all the time, so not thinking clearly. My heart goes out to them, so I do what it takes to get it done, carrying the load of thinking for us both. Only once have I given up on someone with it just being too much frustration to get food to them.
At this point I think I'm going to just donate money to Food Not Bombs and then give out the URL for their form for folks to request groceries from them. They can handle the logistics of fulfilling the needs. I can't keep sinking this much time into it.
I share this under this headline though to say that it does give me some gratification to be able to help feed the hungry at all. So much of feeling okay in the midst of so much falling apart is knowing that you are adding something positive to someone's life. So I'm grateful to be in a position where I can do that and having the clarity to know how important it is that I do.
Also I'm dancing for at least an hour every single day and going to a fair number of weekly meditation events. All online, of course. There is still COVID19 lockdown where I live. Eating really well too, though my Keto is getting worse and worse. I can tell my stress is gradually building by my desire for carbs growing.
Is the stress around you getting to you?
Do you get queasy in your stomach sometimes?
I can also tell the stress is starting to build for me by queasiness that seems to come out of nowhere sometimes.
To de-stress I can't possibly exercise more than I'm already doing. Also I'm eating lots of fresh veggies and fruits and sleeping lots. Taking Ashwagandha supplements.
What else should I be doing?
Anyway, I'm staying busy during the day with searching online for opportunities to have a positive impact and then following through. And in the evenings I'm either hanging out with my new sweetheart or streaming videos from Netflix. (just signed up for that)
Hopefully I can hold down the stress enough to stay engaged sufficiently to know how to help where I can. I don't want to retreat from the commons just to stay mentally and emotionally well myself, though I realize that at some point I may need to.
How are you balancing your desire to stay sane with your desire to be of use to others?
(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)
You have a good heart! The kind one which the world need, either you give them food, shelter or cash, at least you did your very best
Definitely trying to. It is something we do for others that we do as much for ourselves in the end.
The waters of compassion are definitely healing waters for ourselves, as much as others. I have learned to turn a part of my judgmental head firmly OFF and also to be very much in the NOW - stops that convo about how did they allow themselves to get to this, and now what? And I ask the question: What does One Love mean in this moment?
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True that it's important not to judge, but also important to understand patterns. There are bandaid ways of helping, like what I'm doing right now in just getting them food. But there are deeper ways of helping them needed to get them to stop landing in a situation where someone has to get them food (and with so little help from them in the process). There is a lot that is needed. Figuring out where the most impact can be had is what I'm engaged with right now.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. It made me think deeper.
I hear you on the way that some people are poor because they don’t know how to do some things, or do them well. I have some friends I’ve tried to help quite a bit and they just turn back to the same old shit. You eventually just get tired of trying.
My keto diet has really taken a hit lately, especially since I have to cut out my favorite food: peanut butter! It’s going to be really tough but the peanut oil is too much inflammatory prone stuff for my joints that I’m trying to heal the damage in. Almond butter is going to help but it’s just not the same as a delicious helping of peanut butter lol
Good that you know peanut butter is the culprit. Sometimes it takes people decades to even know what it is they can't eat. Sounds like a slow acting allergy, the hardest to figure out. Almond is great for keto though. I am loving almond wraps in the place of bread these days.
Thanks for your comment.
My diet isn't perfect and it's changed since having a kid but I've done a fair amount of damage to my knees and ankles through many years of skateboarding and snowboarding and it's starting to take its toll. On the agenda for things to improve is my knees first. Doing yardwork this year with not going too crazy and my left knee is really sore, most likely meniscus damage. The damage won't be healed until I remove some of the things preventing my body from healing itself. The biggest culprit has been peanut butter, my little food-love!
I haven't eaten it much in the past few months and my knee has been feeling good but I recently started eating it again to use it up since we have 3 containers of it (smaller ones, and not the sweetened crap with oils, just pure peanut butter with salt). I might end up donating the other 2 because since I have one of the containers finished, my knee has felt worse so that's not fun.
The other component I'm not sure if we are entirely ready for is giving up the wheat based wraps. We will do one step at a time lol thankfully we found a local company that makes really good ones so we can at least support them instead of the big companies.
Personally, to get away from it all, I just get on my bike and get on the road with my buddies. Nature does heal us. <3
I haven't been able to do enough of that. I'm glad you're getting out.
Thank you!
You should definitely get out and unwind for a bit. It sounds like you need it too. :) <3
The problem is that with the pandemic and people not wearing masks where I live, each of the 3 times I've been to a hike in the woods it has added to my stress for days after. There are just soooo many people everywhere I go, and none wearing masks. This last time I actually got sick right after and was afraid it was covid19 until I thankfully started sneezing! (which is a symptom of a cold, not covid)
Dang! It seems like you are not having a easy time with this huh? ;/
Meditation can also reduce the tension and stress, have you tried to meditate? :)
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