Food, Food, More Glorious Food

Eve quit asking Adam if he liked lunch. He did not seem to notice, though once she did ask him, but it was about a brand of something he was eating, that she did not eat. It was a fairly easy habit to break, though Eve did not think she had gotten to the root of cooking and liking and not liking. A Course in Miracles suggested her fixation on food was a false idol, that food as pleasure was looking for salvation in the wrong place. Since Eve cooked, she could not quite comprehend what A Course was saying to her.

Then she found these Robert Smith videos though someone else's blog.

She listened to the weight loss videos first. She discovered acupressure and emotional triggers and began tapping, tapping away the feelings of pain, sadness, trauma, guilt, doubt, inadequacy, abandoment. Though she did not feel that she had gone very deeply, she discovered food was the one source that never disappointed her, where pleasure was permitted.

Robert Smith said, over and over, food is just food. It would never be love, approval, accomplishment, happiness.

Eve began tapping. One morning as she walked the dogs she began craving a fried egg sandwich, only she did not have good bread. She noticed a panicked feeling, as if she were being deprived of something she had to have. Immediately she recognized she had invested food with emotion. Food is just food, she remembered, and began tapping away the feelings that surfaced because she had not bread. She ate fried chicken instead.

Then she remembered her family reunion, one of the few occasions in America where people bring real food made by real people. She couldn't eat a taste of everything, dishes came and went because she just couldn't eat it all. The day of the big dinner, the day everyone cooked the vegetables and salads and meats of her growing-up years, she didn't eat breakfast, so she could have some of everything. She filled her first plate, many casseroles, all the desserts still to taste. After the first plate of a bite of this and that and that and thatthatthat she wanted to weep. She was full, so many foods uneaten.

Eve suspected that for her, food was not just food. It was everything.

So she tapped. She tapped away the past. She tapped in the knowledge that food could not love her or fix her. Food was just food.

Immediately Eve quit chasing food. She quit grazing through the day. She stopped eating when she was full. She still fried her chicken, but realized when she was ready, she could tap that away. She started dropping pounds.

Adam and Eve ate out once on the week-end. Eve looked forward to it, to the one day she didn't cook, she didn't have to worry about what she and Adam would eat. About what Adam would eat if she didn't want to eat. Understand, this was Eve's notion, that she was responsible for Adam and making sure he had healthier choices than canned croissants and soysage. And, as it has been said, Eve didn't feel competent at it. Adam liked canned croissants and soysage. But Adam went out five days a week to earn money, and Eve's day job was providing meals, even if she did it half-assed much of the time. But on Saturday or Sunday, Eve didn't have to think meals. She only had to decide which day of food freedom she wanted.

She was working on redoing the upstairs. By herself. She decided she wanted to eat out on Sunday. On Saturday she would work and they would eat leftovers--rice salad. Which hadn't been real good, but wasn't real bad, either. She told Adam. He said he woud eat croissants and soysage.

Eve felt betrayed. How could he? I'll just throw the rice away, she said.

Why, Adam asked.

Because, and yada yada yada. Eve to herself Eve sounded crazy, but the reason was this. She cooked for Adam and if she didn't throw the rice away she would have to eat the rice herself, and she DIDN'T LIKE IT THAT MUCH.

I'll eat the damned rice, Adam said, the only logical thing he could say.

No, Eve said, no, this makes no sense.

Adam agreed.

Eve thought about what she would like to eat. Cantaloupe. And fresh squash and maybe some peas. Tomorrow, not today.

She could throw the rice away. It was just food, nothing sacred. That's when she realized that Adam had always thought food was just food. She thought it was a sacrament, a holy duty, a rite of worthiness. A false idol.

She tapped. And for the rest of the day, she ate when she was hungry. She stopped when she wasn't. And food became just food, neither a burden nor salvation.

Eve Wants to Talk About This

Life is supposed to be fun. You said, "I'll go forth and choose. I'll look at the data, and I'll say, yes to this, and yes to this, and yes to this, and I'll paint a picture of the things that I want, and I'll vibrate about them, because that's what I'm giving my attention to. And the Universe will respond to my vibration. And then I'll stand in a new place where a whole new batch of yeses are available, and I'll say yes to this, and yes to this, and yes to this." You did not say, "I'll go forth and struggle into joy", because from your Nonphysical Perspective you know it is vibrationally not possible. You cannot struggle to joy. Struggle and joy are not on the same channel. You joy your way to joy. You laugh your way to success. It is through your joy that good things come.


Excerpted from a workshop in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, August 2nd, 1998
All Is Well copyright Abraham-Hicks Publications

Lunch, Again

Okay, Eve thinks at her age all of this sounds whiney, but hey, this is just one life-time. If this is her whiney life-time, so be it.

Eve cooks. She is not an instinctive cook, nor does she much follow recipes. Loosely she follows recipes. Then she wants to know how Adam likes the food, because if she were not cooking for him she might eat shrimp all the time, or potato chips and dip, or maybe just cantalope, or maybe nothing. And she is not sure she is that discriminating an eater. In many many ways in her life, she feels as if she's separated from her senses. Maybe she'll look at this later, maybe not, but she feels it comes from not focusing on her own life, from focusing instead on anybody who happens past.

Not today's discussion.

This is today's discussion: she cooks. They eat. She says, "How do you like it?" Fine means it's really good, okay means it's edible. If Adam says "okay", she wants to know what's wrong with it, because frankly, my dear, if she is going to the trouble to cook at all, she doesn't want to cook anything less than fine, but she often does because of that no instinct, no following the recipe thing. If she doesn't know it's not fine, how can she make it better? Maybe by planning and getting the ingredients and focusing while she cooks? Fine, then.

Today's lunch was green pea curry and lentils. The curry was missing several ingredients (she found the recipe twenty minutes before lunch was served) and the lentils were cooked from a recipe on the package.

"Fine," Adam said when she asked. And she had to ask. SHE HAD TO ASK, like looking at a car wreck when you slowly ease by.

She sat on the couch, eating and muttering to herself, saying something about it being a bit bland.

"Why did you ask me then?" he said, "I was going to say a little bland...". His conversation petered out.

Eve realizes Adam said 'fine' so he could eat in peace. Can you see how this puts a burden on him? He comes home for lunch and is grilled for it.

Why? Because she's doing it for him, not for herself, so what difference does her taste make? Scheesh. All those years.

Is this where she vows she 'll only cook for herself? Can't do that. She wouldn't cook. But there is something here, something important for her to know. And it has to do with focus. Her unique focus in this world of space and time from the field of oneness.

All she can think to do is watch and see if anything shakes loose.

The Beginning

was a long, long time ago. Eve wants to tell about it, but even something that happened a week ago seems a long, long time ago, and trying to pick up the strands to be rehashing, a process Eve finds counterproductive. Therefore, the beginning must be now. Except for these two blips:

On the spur of the moment Lily had wanted to come home for Mother's Day because a friend in town needed her support. For Lily to come home, Eve would have to stop her own project, clean the bathrooms, provide food, figure out sleeping arrangements. Adam wouldn't help. His brain did not function that way. Lily's plan sounded as if Eve were going to be the care-giving good stepMommie, business as usual in the Eden household. Lily had made Eve mad a couple of weeks earlier, had been dismissive of Eve and her interests, and had not even realized it. Though Eve wished she were a better person, she was not. Eve wished she were the kind of generous, open soul who did not harbor grudges. She wished she could say, Come on home, girl. I'll stop my work and we'll have us some fun--on your terms, on your time-frame, around your friend's needs.

Eve was not that soul. I CANNOT TAKE CARE OF HER, Eve's mind yelled. She did not tell Lily not to come, but she did say she would be busy, not available. The friend cancelled, and because Eve was adamant (the first time ever) that her project came first, Lily cancelled, too. All week-end Eve simmered: she should have insisted Lily come, she was glad to be able to focus on her own work, she was so exhausted she was glad she didn't have company, she should have insisted Lily come on. By Sunday night Eve had come to two conclusions: just because Eve was busy with this new house project, Adam was not going to take on even the smallest duties that were Eve's, not even walking the dogs all the way around the block; and, Eve DID NOT WANT TO TAKE CARE OF LILY.

She discovered by taking care of herself, she no longer held the grudge against Lily's dismissive behavior, and by taking care of herself, she didn't need Adam to do so. She now felt ready to love them both, without codicils. Still, she wished she had not been that kind of woman three days ago.

THIS IS THE POINT 1:
On Monday Lily called. Eve and Lily talked longer, more openly than they had for, oh, Eve didn't know, how long. Lily said, "Mike and I broke up Friday night." The night Eve had discouraged Lily from coming home. "This, and this and then this, and then he was yelling, 'I CANNOT TAKE CARE OF YOU.' He was the nicest person I've dated. I thought we were going somewhere. I don't know where that came from."

Eve knew. Adam, hearing the whole story, said, "Mike over-reacted, then Lily over-reacted." Which sounded logical, but Eve knew the Universe was listening, and letting her know it. She was a little chagrined. She had wanted Lily to date someone kind, considerate, not her usual potential serial killer kind of a guy. Mike had been shaping up to be one of the few good ones.

THIS IS THE POINT 2:
Monday evening when Adam came home, he kept his clothes on instead of slipping into his robe. He remained dresssed until bedtime. "I was going to walk the dogs," he said.

CONCLUSION? Eve knows thinking the Universe is spinning in accordance to the dictates of her thinking is more than a trifle grandiose, and wonders when she might slip into some sort of inflated insanity. Still, if the Universe is listening, she should be careful what she is thinking. Maybe she should be thinking what she does want, rather than what she doesn't.