Jennifer Louden is known as “The Comfort Queen” and featured on many globally recognised TV shows, including Oprah, with over 800,000 copies of her first book sold internationally. She is the world's leading authority on carving out the time and desire to look after your own well being and hence achieve more with less stress despite having a very busy life.
I am a glutton. It's the passion of us 7's on the Enneagram (also perhaps Scanners or Renaissance Souls?). It may not be about food (although that fits for me) but a glutton for anything -- experience, doing, seeing, touching, hearing, learning, etc.. I can feel like a giant mouth searching for things to CONSUME.
Which can be really, really fun, if I keep coming back to the place of "Nothing is required of me, there is nothing to do, nothing to complete, nowhere to get to." (I learned "Nothing is required of me from Maryam Webster.) When I'm not in that place, that gluttony is far from fun--it's desperate, grasping, and driven. And did I mention unattractive?
Building on my last post, the best way to get to this place of acceptance / nothing required is through the body. For me, that could mean screaming, shaking, rolling on the floor moaning: letting my body vent the frustration it feels at being pushed and shoved into proving or accomplishing, letting my mind clear itself, letting my energy settle.
Then I like to practice what spiritual teacher Adyshanti calls True Meditation: "In true meditation all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness (consciousness) is the source in which all objects arise and subside."
It means being aware without changing or manipulating what you are experiencing (that would include judging yourself for having said experience or wishing it away or blaming it on someone else);
These days, it's a very challenging practice for me because it means being aware of my intense hunger to DO. To be aware and not act on nor judge nor push away this desire is, at times, agonizing.
Can you relate? Are you a glutton, do you get trapped in doing? Do you find yourself going from one idiot task to the other (and feeling very virtuous while doing it--my favorites include folding the blankets in the living room, cleaning up art supplies, and cleaning up the kitchen). I'd love to hear about what your doing...