About one month prior to him leaving me, I felt a weird sensation. As if he then took the decision to leave me and I was able to feel it from a distance.
My intuition also tells me that leaving someone is almost as hard as being left. It is in one way the dirty job.
It makes me think of the great French relationship counselor and author Jacques Salomé, when he says that a relationship shall be like a Mozart symphony. Sometimes it doesn’t work even if both people love each other.
Out of respect for the next man I will be with my friend my sister, maybe we could decide to do what it takes to be truly available.
According to my humble opinion, it means getting free from all negative emotions that we can now feel, like resentment or anger.
I feel eternal love for the man who left me. This love will simply change forms so as to welcome a new man.
The quality of a relationship is a direct consequence of the quality of the communication between two people.
Whether it is in love or friendship by the way.
I have tons of shortcomings and even if I love writing and speaking, I do not know how to communicate in a perfect way with people I love.
However, I now believe that I’d rather try to make me understand by using words, which may not be exactly right or perfect, rather than not saying anything.
This is such a shame to walk past happiness with someone because of misunderstandings resulting from poor communication.
Let’s talk my friend my sister! And let’s listen 😉
I started using spirulina when I was pregnant with my daughter 13 years ago.
Today my friend my sister I invite you to discover with me a magical place for living food fans: the spirulina production site Solis Culturae in the South of France.
Lilian was very generous in opening the doors of the spirulina farm and in letting us know how he grows this extraordinary seaweed.
Rich in iron and proteins, the fabulous seaweed is a whole food, beneficial at all ages (I give some to my children) and at all stages of life.
For women, the iron contained in spirulina is such an ally during menstruation. The genius tip from Lilian? Enjoy it with a source of vitamin C (kiwi, citrus fruit family) to make the iron even better absorbed by the body.
This Messy Magnificent Life is the book of a woman who changed my life decades ago with her books about bulimia (such as When food is love). She has now acquired so much wisdom that she generously shares it in a fascinating new book.
Here are my 10 takes on Geneen Roth’ latest book.
1. The way we eat or the way we live
“Putting the spoon down feels like falling into the crack between worlds, like the ending of every relationship I didn’t want to end“. Do you know the feeling?
This is the same feeling we have when a relationship is ending and we know it is a good thing but still there is so much resistance. Because we are afraid of things ending. Anxious of being left with a void in our life.
I love how Geneen Roth shares her struggles with us and allows us to relate and not feel alone in this weird emptiness feeling we can have sometimes.
2. Being thin is not the be-all and end-all
As I shared in my Weight loss series (“Why be #thin? Why loose the weight? – Weight loss Series Ep. 6“), it can be worth it to ask ourselves what being thin really means to us. As Geneen Roth writes in her book, being thin does not have only good sides.
Indeed, not having fat around us makes us vulnerable and visible. We cannot hide anymore and loose a kind of protection from the world.
Of course it does not mean that loosing weight is not a good thing, but maybe we can become aware of the positive and negative sides of being thin. It is not all easy and rosy and does not prevent us from being left and sad (see the video “I feel I want to give everything up! is being #thin a cure-all?“).
3. Our body is a source of creativity and wisdom
When I finally got rid of bulimia, I discovered a new thing: myself.
Instead of filling my body with tons of food to suppress the feeling of pain, I was discovering who I was. Very slowly, I reconnected back to my body.
After years of rebuilding my life, a miracle happened: I realized I had some creativity inside of me.
I am not an artist like my mother and my sister, I have no talent in drawing, sewing, singing or playing an instrument.
However I have one way to express: I speak and I write. Today I am exploring this creativity well with delight.
What is your way of creating my friend my sister?
In her book, Geneen Roth invites us to stop starving ourselves or filling our body with food to numb the pain. She writes that when we stop abusing our body, it can open and reveal our potential of creativity and wisdom.
4. The way we live our days makes our life
What matters at the end of life? “Whether you brought yourself to your relationships with kindness, or with reactivity. Whether you shut your heart or opened it, even in the face of rejection“. Relationships.
Life is too short for resentment. I love my parents whatever choices they made in the past. This is not what matters. The important thing to to keep some lightness in our heart. In our life.
Indeed he left me and I am so frustrated because I had so many things to tell him, places to go with him, moments to share, and a lot of giving to do. However he is still my friend. I am sending him good vibes as I always did. In a way, I love him for ever. In a different mode, inasmuch as I can welcome another man in my life, someone who is willing to build a relationship with me.
Our daily life makes our life. May we cherish it with tenderness so it is worth it.
5. Victim, not good enough, in lack
Geneen Roth noticed that each time she was feeling down, angry or hurt, it was because she was either feeling like a victim, not good enough or in lack.
When we decide to look at these three big worries with awareness, then we can let them go.
6. Choosing not to complain
As long as I can remember, I don’t complain, or not anymore. It became second nature. Furthermore, I cannot stand being in the presence of people who complain because I get discouraged.
Geneen Roth in her book is very clear about complaining: lamenting on the past is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die.
We only have one life my friend my sister. Yes I would love to rewrite the past differently. I wanted to tell the man who left me so many things, now lost forever in the big oblivion river. He will never know these things and we will never live together.
Nevertheless, being stuck in these thoughts, complaining and having regrets will not change a thing. To admit it is to be able to turn the page. It means opening up to the endless possibilities of life, to love and joy.
7. Spending time on what instead?
What we put our attention on determines our entire life. Geneen Roth underlines that since our days on earth are counted, we should simply ask ourselves: how do I choose to spend the days I have left (and which are gifted to me)?
I do not want to miss one second of this precious life, I do not want to ruin it with stupid stuff like regrets. Yes I do welcome grief, to better open myself afterwards to this beautiful life.
Our life is not like the big rehearsal of the dance shows I did at the Italian-style theater when I was a kid. The show is today. Life that matters is now. “I realized that this life wasn’t a dress rehearsal for some bigger, better promise around the corner. This was it, and my breaths were numbered“. May we not wait to be ready to live life, to have a man in our life to wear beautiful lingerie nor to have a reason to smile before smiling.
We become what we love and our life is what we do most of the time. Geneen Roth writes: “attention is the way you bless yourself with love“.
8. Paying attention to the ordinary
Geneen Roth shares a beautiful prayer with us: “After so many years of so many practices and so many prayers, I have only one left : let me remember to pay attention to the ordinary, not just to the extraordinary.”
9. Reconnecting to our body
I feel like we always go back to this idea, don’t you think my friend my sister? Moving from our brain to our body, from the rational and intellectual mind down to our gut, our intuition and our beautiful body.
My body, which I chose to abuse myself before a man did it, my body which nevertheless always supported me. Now I cherish it, I care for it, I love it and am thankful for it.
Now I practice yoga in the same way I make love to a man: feeling each sensation from my toes to my head, enjoying the nice energy which goes through my muscles and sometimes makes me shake and tremble, sometimes being on the verge of tears because I have so much gratitude to be able to gracefully move my body with such flexibility.
My body is precious now. I am not ignoring it anymore and this is a magnificent feeling.
10. What happened to us
When we stop defining ourselves according to our past, we can open ourselves up to life. Geneen Roth shares in the book This Messy Magnificent Life how such a freedom is even better than chocolate, sex or the most gorgeous pair of shoes 😉
Becoming aware that what happened to us does not define us in any way is true freedom. My friend my sister, you are not stained by physical abuse, even if you still have scars. Because we are far more than our past. We are infinite potential.
I am lucky to get crystal clear feelings with people at first sight. Men for instance. Either they directly enter the friends category (for life sometimes), either they belong to the friends category with a potential for love.
For instance I have been a friend of O. for ever. He is my brother, he knew me when I was wearing flowery shirts and big glasses at 15 years old, I can talk to him about everything and so can he. The relationship has never been ambiguous.
On the opposite, I knew A. from the last year of middle school. We spent our teenage years together as friends. He has always been there for me, when the teachers of my children made me crazy, when I was all alone to move with the children from one flat to the next.
A. has always been in the category friends for life. It has always been clear for me. I never had any physical attraction for him.
However I could feel it was not the same for him. I felt bad to see him love me with romantic love while I had only friendship to give him. So one day I said to him I cannot hurt you anymore like that. I said I wanted him to find a woman to live with.
I did not want to be the cause of his sadness. I distanced myself from him out of respect and concern for him. I like clear and happy relationships with people.
Another man, another story. Sometimes I am happy with being friends with someone while I can feel there could be more. When I met L. we were so different that I could not imagine we could be together one day.
Then I sadly fell into an inferiority complex where I admired him so much that I thought he would never have any interest in me. The one day on a bench at the park he said to me he would love to be in a relationship with me. I was so shocked I could not utter a word in reply.
I said to him once that I could only be in a relationship with a man who had read my book and he replied “This is a good thing I read it then!“. So my attitude changed. And I feel so in love with him. However it was not reciprocal or so it seemed so the relationship was short-lived.
The thing is, I cannot go back to the initial friendship, it hurts too much not to be allowed to love him anymore. Our friendship had so much love in it that it cannot go back in time. What is the most painful is that I have to mourn the loss of a man I was sincerely in love with, but I also have to mourn the loss of a dear friend who was naturally part of my life. Today there is a big hole in my life without him.
My friend my sister, I don’t think we must never fall in love with one of our friends. Quite the opposite, I was so happy I already knew him as a friend. Simply let’s be aware that grieving will be twice as painful.
Mashed bananas, chosen ripe so they are rich in potassium, with powdered spirulina. Why? Because this nice dark green seaweed is really rich in iron, in protein too.
My recipe for our menstrual cycle has to be eaten alone because it makes the teeth dark green 😉
By practicing self-care during our periods, we can get out of them full of life energy.
According to the extraordinary book Wild power (the review of the book is here), menstruation is like winter, preceding a beautiful spring and maybe a coming back together with our man, happy and healthy thanks to delicious spirulina!
Since I use the Fempo periods pants, I never felt this clean during my periods. It allows me to honor this period as it shall be.
Having our periods is magnificent. The goddess in us is purifying herself and reconnecting to her inner guidance. See the review of the book Wild power I did here.
Having our periods is being part of the cycle of the Universe, of the Moon and of the intrinsic mystery of life.
Having our periods is to keep in mind that we are able to create new life, that this blood is gold, and even scientifically periods blood contains a lot of stem cells.
I bought the Trio Set at Euros 94 with two hipster pants for the day and one night Power shorty.
The fabric is extra soft and comfortable, without chemicals. I chose size 38 as my trousers size is S and it was perfect. You can choose colors but I took everything in black.
I use pants number 1 until midday then I switch to pants number 2. For the night I have the Power shorty.
I wash the periods pants by hand with cold water and olive oil Marseille soap [ERRATUM: never use soap, I did not read the instructions properly, thank God I have a smart daughter who pointed it out to me!]. Because I live in the South, the pants dry quickly under the sun.
I was totally shocked by the efficiency of the Fempo periods pants. I have to confess I have very few clothes and half of them is still in Tunisia where I have to go back to get half of my remaining stuff. Moreover, most of my clothes are white. So it is a real challenge to get my periods!
Honestly, no leaks. Even at night. No blood on my thighs. I use to have periods pads with wide sides so I was afraid but it was perfect.
During the day when we sometimes feel a lot of blood coming out at once, it is a bit worrying. I work from home so I can easily change, however it may be a bit tricky at the office. Maybe a third pair of pants would be great for the day, just to be sure we feel dry at all times.
A third pair of periods pants may also be a good investment if you suffer from heavy periods or blood clots (two things I no longer suffer from since I slowed down my work and improved my lifestyle).
I am absolutely in love with the Fempo periods pants and have only one regret: that I did not know them before!
I gave up tampons early because it is not worth to risk toxic shock syndrome. Plastic pads were disgusting to me. The Diva cup is great but not comfortable for me. I ended up using fabric out of respect for my intimacy. Cotton rather than plastic!
Thank you Fempo. Thank you my dear daughter for introducing this brand to me. Thank you also for the advertisement with women who are different from the usual Barbie doll clone. It is so fresh!
