Love Hunger

I am discovering that deep, meaningful time with people I love... the kind wherein we bare our souls, laugh heartily, cry readily, probe spiritual depths, break bread, resolve conflicts, and conspire to love and serve others... is one of my best practice of self-care. The sense of well-being that comes from loving and being loved, knowing and being known, fosters life. When love feeds the hungers, counting calories becomes unnecessary. Food is restored to its rightful place as a gift from God to be enjoyed and is no longer needed to fill the voids.

I suspect that our trend of increasing obesity in the United States could easily be correlated with our culture's increasing isolation and loss of connection/community. We eat because we're starved for love.

I wonder if we spent less time at the gym and used that time meaningfully with others, and if we focused on increasing our uptake of hugs instead of obsessing about decreasing our consumption of calories, if we wouldn't find our bodies returning to a natural state of health.

This past week has been a difficult one. I'm involved in a situation of being a change-agent and there is considerable push back. It has been stressful dealing with unhappy people, but interestingly, I observe that I haven't decompressed through eating. I have better medication now. No, not Lexapro or Zoloft. It's love...from people who rearranged their schedules to sit with me while I cried, who prayed for me while they jogged,who gave me home-smoked bar-b-q, fixed my scooter, and bought me cute clothes at the thrift-store. It's love... that I gave to people through listening, speaking truth, and meeting needs. It's love from God... who reminded me that Love Wins. With love like that in my life, who needs chocolate cake?

Self-care is not something I can do alone. Self-care requires community... community that I can love and that can love me. Maybe I'm getting healthier because my connections with other people continue to grow in frequency and in depth. The Love Diet. Love Liberally. Love Lavishly. Feast. And be Satisfied.