Hope & Heart in Changing & Challenging Times
Ingredients for This Wonderful World
In this lonely, heartbreaking and often terrifying world, art is sustenance for the heart that reminds us of what’s wonderful. When that art merges with service, it creates something truly magical.
That being said, just as different grubs serve different tums (spicy food, bland food, sour food, comfort food, health food, hearty food, snacks and sweets), every piece of art feeds different needs of the heart.
So, for label-readers and British Baking Show fanatics (cuz it’s the only way for me to fantasize about so much cake being that I’m gluten, dairy, and sugar-free), here’s a little more about what and how This Wonderful World is made to nourish, including the process and ingredients that are put into it. I hope that it fills you up with as much love as it does for me to make it, and that it supports you in creating your very own recipes through these times that are so hungry for heart and hope.
Heart-Hungry for Hope
Everyday we all face the challenges of being human on an ever-changing planet that at once offers the greatest joys and pains that could ever be imagined (talk about indigestion…) No doubt, there are both gifts and difficulties to the human condition (and bowel system). The Living Mirror Practice is my base recipe for heart cookin’ and hope-servin’ This Wonderful World.
Still, it hasn’t been very easy these days. Life’s been pretty scary, and love can be hard to find when surrounded by so many threats to our existence (I certainly don’t think I’m the only one who gets heart-burned and bloated every time I turn on the TV). Understandably, reactions to catastrophic predictions and daily bombardments of crisis tend to land somewhere on the spectrum of human stress responses1, which I know well as I’ve cycled through my own seasons of activism, isolationism, and addiction, each with their own flavor of fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
On a collective level it’s easy to see these responses in the fight of polarization or the flight of escapism. Meanwhile, most of us are still consumed by the day-to-day challenges of being human: romantic wrong-turns, family flops, over-withdrawn bank-accounts, dirty toilets, snotty children, and new gray hairs. Who’s got the time to worry about the end of the world anyway?
Still, there are plenty of caring people who aim to encourage us through reminders that “We are all one.” But in the face of such extremes, what does that really mean?
As one who’s been quite prone to existential depression and anxiety, IBS and nights without sleeping, I’ve spent my life wondering how to digest the challenges that our world is facing. How do I engage such hard things in ways that preserve well being? How can I be resilient with the parts that are already breaking? How do I keep hope for what’s coming? When things hurt, how do I keep my heart open and caring? And: What does it really mean that peace begins with me?
No doubt the recipe to peace is a tricky thing that we’re clearly still figuring out. Inasmuch, I need as many cooking hacks and gastronomic guides as possible to help me stay empowered, healthy, connected and in love as I aim to whip up a world that thrives in Peace for all. With that in mind, the Living Mirror Practice is my creative cookery for rustlin’ up hope for our hearts and beauty for our becoming in This Wonderful World.
Nutrition Facts
These are the ingredients that I use to cook-up This Wondered World. Click on the link to learn more about each one.
And here’s the recipes:
Hungry ?
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-does-fight-flight-freeze-fawn-mean