A Big Bowl of Gumbo: Finding the nourishment and integration in life

When people hear about all of the different things I do, places I go, and people I meet, it can give the impression that my life is totally different from theirs. Although the details of my life are different from theirs, we often struggle with some of the same things. In fact, as I’ve been working with my nutrition and fitness counselors to uncover the issues contributing to my eating and exercise habits, I’ve come to find out a lot of my issues are exactly the same as other peoples’ — looks can be deceiving. Ah, the joys of being me continue to unfold daily.

My latest revelation: how out of balance my life is. My perception of myself and my life was vastly different from the reality. I thought I had it a lot more together than I actually do. I’ve discovered I am a “feast or famine” person in almost everything I do — not just food. I either fill my day with well-balanced, nutritious meals or I forget to eat all day and end up eating popcorn for dinner. I wake up, religiously get my exercise/meditation/journaling in before work or I wake up, roll over, and get on social media and email before both eyes are open, barely giving my needs a thought. I either work nonstop, double-booking myself, trying to squeeze one more meeting in my day, or I cancel all of my appointments, lie in bed swearing to become a full-fledged housewife, and stop working altogether.

The last time I went on my rant about housewifedom, my wusband laughed right in my face and told me she knew that would only last a couple of weeks. At best! This didn’t sit well with me. Then I wondered if she was saying it because she knew it to be true or if she was trying to goad me into proving her wrong, thereby giving her a housewife à la Donna Reed.

Previously, balance to me had always been an internal/external kind of thing, a kind of spiritual living vs. day-to-day living. I’ve now come to understand that it’s about living, period. It’s about how I live my whole life. It’s more about harmony amongst all aspects of life — feeding my body, moving my body, doing my job, living my mission, being a good partner for my wusband, a true loving friend, a supportive and understanding sister. It’s about my roles in life as well as my goals in life.

The way a spiritual advisor explained it to me once, it’s less about balance and more about integration. I understood what she meant … or so I thought. Now I’m becoming more aware of how big a statement that really is. Balance is just the beginning. Once you’ve found a way to keep your eyes on everything, you have to get it all in the pot together.

Previously, I’ve compared my life to a sandwich. My balanced life is a sandwich, layers of living. I thought the integrated, harmonious version of life was like hummus. I’ve now come to realize it’s really like gumbo. An integrated life is a gumbo filled with flavor and delicious, nebulous morsels of living. The more things in the pot, the more layers of flavor, and the better the life-gumbo.

I know how delicious a fully integrated, harmonious life can be. I have experienced it before, but had no appreciation for it at the time. I didn’t know that life wouldn’t always feel like that, be like that, taste like that. Now that I’m rediscovering myself, I’m beginning to understand the real work that needs to be done. This understanding will make things that much more delicious this time around.