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Health & Fitness

Learning to Love the Gray: December Notes

Local area resident Judy Shepps Battle shares her observations on learning to accept all shades of gray that come our way.

 

Gray sky...slightly icy gray drizzle...definitely gray chill in the air.

Feels like a Limbo Weigh-Station after the previous batch of new-arrivals have moved on and the next has not yet arrived. The furnace is flipping on and off like pancakes on a hot grill in a popular diner during a Sunday morning rush. 

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My energy level reflects all this.

Whatever the last bug to invade my body was, it still lives there without any other symptoms but periodic exhaustion coupled with an amazing desire to clear, clean, and organize the last four decades of inhabiting this house.  

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Of course, my mind is way more capable of thinking what this ideal status should look like and how to achieve it than my body is to sustain working on it.  

Perhaps this is why I need to turn off my idealistic brain and tune into my compassionate heart that whispers softly that I am enough just the way I am, that the house is enough just the way it is, and that you who share your breath with me in this beautiful universe are enough just the way you are. 

Slowly my impatience evaporates and awareness of the perfection of life saturates each in- and out-breath with deep peace. A soft, quiet smile radiates boldly from my expanding and joyful heart.

At least this is what it feels like here on the 7th day of December in Central NJ, USA in which the 35 degrees seems a lot colder. 

 

Judy Shepps Battle is a New Jersey resident, addictions specialist, consultant and freelance writer. Her weekly column "It Takes a Village" appeared in the South Brunswick Patch for a year. She can be reached by e-mail at writeaction@aol.com. Additional information on this and other topics can be found at her website at http://www.writeaction.com/. 

 Copyright 2012 Judy Shepps Battle

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