Eat gently . . . and do EVERYTHING else with Exuberance!

. . . I just passed the six-month benchmark of when I created this goal. It’s nice to see a couple other people joined my goal and will keep it going, but after six months of watching myself, I can confidently say that I really do eat gently and do everything else with exuberance.

I think about the food I’m eating all the time. Even when I do pick up something and stick it in my mouth without thinking much about it, I still make the choice to eat it slowly. When I catch myself speeding up, I leave the food for a few minutes and go back to it when I can be gentle.

As far as my exuberance level, it fluctuates throughout any given day. I have zero caffeine in my system, after all. All my exuberance comes from whatever attitude I am putting out at the time, so I have to give it some thought occasionally, but I generally do a great job.

I’m calling this goal done and taking it off my list, but I will keep at it because life is more about attitude than eating food.

Gentleness is a good thing to remember while eating with others who gulp their food down too fast to taste it. While I was eating with someone yesterday, she gobbled down three pieces of pizza in about the same time it took me to eat two.

It “wasn’t delivery”, so the pieces were pretty small, but when I felt myself speeding up to her pace, I thought of this goal and remembered to eat gently. I chewed my pizza till it was no longer chewy. Then I swallowed each bite before I put more in my mouth. I even got a sip of water in between to be sure I wasn’t eating to fast.

I enjoy being gentle with food. After all, there’s no reason to manhandle it.

Raspberries are a good food to eat gently. If you go slamming around with them, chomping down and trying to chew, all you end up with is a mouth full of seeds.

I learned how to eat raspberries just last month. I’ve never minded the flavor, but I could not bear to put one in my mouth. I didn’t know the secret of the raspberry.

My whole family went to a farm to pick them right off the vine and the farmer told us to make sure we ate a bunch while we were out there! They are so fun to pick! And I learned to gently set the warm raspberry on my tongue and sort of suck the juice out, then swallow. No chewing necessary. No seeds to pick out of my teeth. It was AWESOME!!!

We had a lot more raspberries than we needed for the wedding reception cupcakes, so we brought them back to Arizona and put them in the freezer. I had a small bowl of them tonight. I gently placed a frozen raspberry on my tongue and waited for it to thaw, at which time it turned to liquid and I could just close my mouth around it and swallow. mmm…tasty.

Delicious and fun. Now that’s a great dessert!

Gentleness is required for eating. Snarfing food does nothing to satisfy hunger, which is the only real reason FOR eating. If you’re not satisfied, you will eat more. Instead, take the time to enjoy every bite. Leave the food in your mouth long enough to know what it really tastes like. Eat gently.

THEN,

GO OUTSIDE AND LIVE YOUR LIFE!

Be exuberant. Be joyful. Experience the triumphs and the trials with Gratitude. Smile. At EVERYTHING. Stop complaining. No one likes a whinybutt. Be the supportive friend, spouse, parent, child, leader, follower, or teacher you wish someone would be for you. Be the sort of person you like to be around.

I am exuberant to the point already that I can change the mood in a room just by walking into it. That’s great. It makes me feel good to know that my positive attitude washes over others and lifts their spirits.

Sometimes, however, people are so danged annoying. They do stupid, rude things that make me want to scream. Or smack them. But that is not the sort of person I want to be. I want to be the sort of person who can let others have their own problems, successes, idiosyncrasies, and opinions without feeling annoyed.

In actuality, I don’t need to be acknowledged for every wonderful thing I do. If someone else decides to take credit for an idea of mine that they copied, how does that really hurt me? Ok, I’m not talking about work right now, but I endured that for a good many years, too. I am exuberant about teaching, so if someone I’ve taught turns around and says, “Look what I did all by myself,” that should not make me mad.

But it still kinda does.

So that’s why I need a goal to tell me that it’s OK to just be the bigger person, without being a larger person:

I am determined to eat gently and do everything else with exuberance!