Personal discovery

Last night I made some deeper personal discoveries about myself and how I became the kind of person that I am today.

I gained a deeper understanding of why it is exactly that I have, for most of my life, had a fear of authority figures. I am still unraveling this piece of the tapestry that is my life so I can replace it with something more beautiful and productive, but great progress has been made already.

Let's walk back to my early childhood. I was a pretty typical kid, energetic and gregarious. My mother tells me that I was very sweet - before my brother "got ahold" of me. Is this the source of the problems I've had? I pose to you that it is not through any fault of my brother's that I became reclusive and shy. He was simply passing on to me what he himself had received, not understanding the complexity of that interaction and the emotional harm that it would cause.

So, where did my shyness come from? Was it from my second-grade teacher who told me on my first semester report card that I "socialized too much in class" and then, at the end of the year wrote on my report card "I can't get Charles to say a word in class"? I believe this was just third-party verification of something I had interpreted as a fact from my upbringing: adults aren't interested to hear what I have to say, and they want me to sit quietly or I will be punished.

How did I come to accept this mistaken belief? Routine spankings. Corporal punishment. I received harsh spankings no less than once per week during my childhood. Many times there was no infraction committed aside from me being glad that it was my brother finally being punished for something he had done. Yes, this also merited a spanking.

I'm sure someone out there is thinking "So you got spanked. So what? You probably deserved it." Please allow me to relate to you an experience I had last night. I was talking with my lovely, wonderful wife about this self-same subject and I picked up an empty cardboard box from the floor. I told her to watch carefully, because this is the way I got spanked as a child. She was dumbfounded and horrified at the way I forcefully flailed my open palm into the side of the box. She noted that the box, after my beating, was completely malformed. If this is what happens to a piece of cardboard when you beat it, how much more damaging is it for a child to routinely receive this as a punishment on his or her backside?

There were many times when I would try to defend myself by covering my bottom with my hands. The result? A spanking twice as hard and twice as long. This led to me hiding under my bed. I was always found there and forcibly dragged out to receive my beating. Ok, so hiding under the bed is no good. I'll hide in the closet. Oh, you found me there too? It just makes you more angry when I hide? Extended beating. Please also bear in mind that before and after the spanking, there was no discussion. Here comes dad into my room to give me a beating and then promptly leave again. It is this severity that led me to have feelings of low self-worth, always trying to prove myself by academic excellence. That never stopped the beatings.

After demonstrating to Faythe what the typical spanking was like for me as a child, I had the most sickening and disgusted feeling with myself. I found it to be an emotionally damaging experience.

What I don't want you to take away from this story is any implication that I do not love my parents. I love my parents very much and I forgive my father for all of the beatings. He did not understand what impact they would have on my growth and development. I have recognized that these incidents are the fuel that I have used to stoke the flames of my bad temper and my rage. So, I am cleaning up my life and removing that fuel source. I will no longer let these ghosts of my past rule over who I am and will become. I will instead always strive to shower my child or children (someday!) with all of the love, affection, acknowledgement, and understanding that they need to become whole, healthy adults. It is my promise to myself not to pass on this legacy of violence.

Five things I am grateful for today

"We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about."
-- Philip Dormer Stanhope

I am making a point of recognizing things to be grateful for in my daily life. Today, these are some things that I am grateful for:

I have employment that brings the necessary finances for the things that my family needs
I am grateful for window glass, so I can see outside without exposure to harsh elements
I have fresh drinking water to nourish my body
I have this computer to use to share these things
God has ranted me with a marvelous and wondrous body

When I approach life with gratitude - deep, heart-felt gratitude - it is so much sweeter and richer.

Peace and love,
Charles

The Relationship Between Happiness and Beliefs

It's funny that I would read this article only a couple of hours after finishing my previous entry. Very nicely aligned.

The Relationship Between Happiness and Beliefs

Posted using ShareThis

Attitude of Gratitude

I believe that being grateful for all of the things in our lives, be they great or small, widens the channels that more blessings are sent to us through. By being grateful we allow ourselves to receive more to be grateful for.

At this minute, here are the first five things that come to mind that I am grateful for:

1) I have a loving wife
2) I have an awesome son
3) I have a good roof over my head
4) The rain is bringing more life to my surroundings, and with it, more fresh air
5) I have a tranquil little fountain on my desk; it has a small zen garden that I like to gaze into from time to time

If we are not grateful for the things that we have in our lives, how can we consider ourselves deserving of receiving more? I encourage you to think for a moment and genuinely be grateful for the blessings in your life, great or small. I challenge you to start off every day by thinking about the things you count as blessings. Develop an attitude of gratitude.

I am grateful that you are here reading this message right now, and I am grateful for anyone that I have inspired to in turn be grateful.

You are welcome to reply to this post with the things you are grafetul for.

With love and gratitude,
Charles

Day 13 - almost halfway through the vegetarian experiment

13 days! That must be some kind of lucky number. Yeah, I know what you're thinking - 13 is bad luck. 13 has always been a good number for me. As a matter of fact, we are still trucking along with our vegetarian diet. No meat has been eaten for 13 days, and it has honestly not been difficult for me to stick to that. Why is that? I pay little heed to meat. I do not need it.

Today's menu included some tasty eggplant parmesan. It was my first attempt at making that dish and it turned out pretty decent. Now that I have a good baseline, I can add more seasoning to the batter to get more flavor. I got the batter recipe from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas. Good stuff.

Lunch was a BK Veggie Burger (MorningStar Farms) with a value-sized fries. The sizing of the fries and drinks at fast food restaurants deeply disturbs me. I can't believe a 16oz drink passes for a small, and that the current value size fry used to be the small fry. The medium drink is 32 ounces! Crazy! Honestly, you're probably better off not eating at fast food joints if you can help it.

Today was also quite a productive day. I fit in the time to finish painting the ceiling in our spare room and got a new ceiling fan installed in there as well. It looks great. The room is a vibrant green with a dark chocolate ceiling. Think of it like an upside-down tree. It's very soothing and will also provide a great office environment at home.

As a side note, I have been reading The Secret
and I am finding it quite fascinating. It is a book about the Law of Attraction, which relies on the power of positive thought to alter your life circumstances. If any of you have experiences with the Law of Attraction, I'd like to hear about it.

Signing off for now,
Charles

Vegetarian Experiment - day 12

It's hard to believe I've already completed nearly half of the days of my vegetarian experiment. Based on my progress so far, I think I will continue to consume a vegetarian diet. I will also attempt to cut out eggs and dairy as much as possible. It will be hard to cut out dairy cheese and eggs for certain recipes; I will have to find suitable substitutes.

I expect that something similar to what I have already experienced with meat will happen. I occasionally crave the taste of charred meat, but I have not given into the temptation. In fact, these cravings only occur between meals when I am starting to need a small protein boost. Given that factoid, I still do not crave meat itself. The smell of fast food restaurants is losing its appeal quite rapidly. It smells like a cloud of grease hanging in the air. I believe eggs will follow a similar fate. I do not crave eggs, but until I am better educated on the alternatives, I don't know what to use as a binder in recipes. Does flax seed work for this? I believe potato starch is also an option.

I found a tool on the SparkPeople website that is quite helpful in determining the nutrition values of a recipe. You input the ingredients and quantities that are in the recipe, specify the number of servings, and voila - you get a report with the nutrition information. It was quite useful in determining the nutritional content of the TVP burgers that I made for grilling today. You can check out the tool here. I'll give the link for the TVP burgers when I find the site again. I printed off a PDF that didn't include the URL but it should provided the clues needed to find it again. I will say that Faythe and I both enjoyed them, and they were designed not to pretend to be a meat burger.

Today was a much better balanced intake than yesterday. I didn't go way overboard with any milkshakes, but I still got too many calories all at once. Lots of great fruit and veggie options were at the party we went to, so we stuck to those. The fresh strawberries were absolutely fantastic! There was also a great assortment of salads that were delicious.

So far, as a result of dropping meat from my diet, I have dropped about 5 pounds that were otherwise stuck. It's a great feeling knowing that this transition is unlocking doors for me.

I would encourage anyone reading this to embrace trying something new, something outside of your comfort zone, for a limited time trial. Make a commitment to do something healthy that you just couldn't imagine yourself doing. Commit to doing it for 14 days. If you like it, extend it to 30 days. 30 days is about how long it takes to form a new habit. This works best if the habit is something that must be done daily. Remind yourself that if you don't like it, you can quit when your time trial is over and go back to your old habits. Set yourself up for success.

Blessings,
Charles

Day... what? of the vegetarian experiment

It's getting a bit late and I honestly don't remember off the top of my head which day this is out of my 30 day experiment, but I will comment that everything it going well so far. We took a little family trip to the Mall of America and walked around the mall for a few hours. Also, we picked up a copy of EA Sports Active
! and I must admit after watching Faythe play it for a little bit that it looks like a worthwhile exercise program. I'm going to be playing it in a few minutes, so I'm just dashing off a quick entry here.

Here is a little inspiration for anyone following this blog: it's easy to fall down with your dietary choices, even when you've cut out meat. I had an absolutely delicious meal at Opa! Souvlaki of Greece in the mall food court. It consisted of a vegetarian pita wrap, Opa! fries (YUM!), and a pita with hummus. In all, about 1150 calories for the whole shebang. I should have skipped the fries, but they were so good! I don't regret that decision. Now, we come to the decision I do have regrets about. At the end of our mall adventure, we stopped by the Cold Stone Creamery on the 3rd floor of the mall.

I ordered a "Like It"-sized Creme de Menthe shake. Bad. Choice. 1160 calories for that behemoth, entirely from fat and sugar. Get this: 124g of carbohydrates and 67g of fat, about 2/3 of which was saturated fat. Ugh. But, its ok, even though I surpassed my calorie goal for the day even counting the three hours of light walking that we did today. I will pick myself up and forge onward with my goals of good health and vitality.

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramble.

Love and best wishes,
Charles

Simple recipe for pure living

I'd like to quickly share with you a simple recipe to live a fruitful life. It is as follows:

1) Avoid evil
2) Do good
3) Cultivate the mind

If you can follow this simple recipe, you will find yourself changing positively from within. Your spirit will change and you will change with it.