Judith Klemos

I’ve been contemplating the meaning of sacrifice the past couple of days and I’ve come to a new definition and its changing my life…

sacrifice | ˈsakrəˌfīs |

noun

• an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy: we must all be prepared to make sacrifices.

• give up (something important or valued) for the sake of other considerations: working hard doesn’t mean sacrificing your social life. 

verb

• give up (something important or valued) for the sake of other considerations: working hard doesn’t mean sacrificing your social life.

There were other examples, mostly of religious or animal sacrificing, but these are the ones I want to focus on. This idea that we aren’t sacrificing anything unless it is something important and of value to us.

I am seeing it differently today. I think sacrifice is giving up something we are attached to, not necessarily something important or of value. In fact, I’d say its more sacrificial to give up those things we are attached to that are not important or of any value. These are the things getting in our way and need to be sacrificed for our advancement.

I don’t talk about it often, but I think its time.

I have a long history with weight issues. I wasn’t born with them, they were medically induced. I had absolutely no weight issues until I took began taking birth control. Almost immediately there were side effects and instead of ceasing, I kept searching other alternatives only experiencing worst and worst side effects. The last one launching my weight up 20 pounds in 3 months. The doctor’s advice? “Push yourself away from the table.”

From there things snowballed for me. I thought I caught a break some 20 years later when I gave up gluten and lost 55 pounds. However, that turned out to be a (simultaneous) medicinal side effect as well and after I went off the med I put the weight back in 6 years despite remaining vigilant about being gluten free. There have been other contributing factors such as fibromyalgia and herniated discs that have made this not only an uphill battle, but an uphill battle on icy ground.

I never give up though. I don’t do drugs and I don’t do diets. But nothing is working. My friend recently brought the Whole30 plan to my attention and I am currently investigating it. It scares me, which is always a good indicator that I’m on the right path. There doesn’t seem to be any extreme ‘hype’ things around it, which is also a good indicator for me. Its not drastic, really, even though my ego self says it is. It makes good sense. A cleanse, reset and then add back in to see what doesn’t agree with your body. I love that.

And as I gear myself up for this huge change, ‘sacrifice’ came to me in this new light. Sacrificing what we are attached to, but doesn’t serve us. I love dairy. I can’t eat dairy on this adventure. What if I found out that dairy is not my friend? The feeling of sacrifice is real. Its 30 days. If I can’t go without something for 30 days (besides air, water and good food) then I truly have an unhealthy attachment to it and it is past time to address it.

Instead of resolutions, I am making sacrifices. I have also sacrificed all but 2 hours of solo TV time. That was my first introduction to this new sacrifice perspective. I was spending far too much time alone watching TV when I could be doing other things, even though I was getting a lot of things done. I just felt I could do more and so I let it go. It wasn’t even very hard once I decided. I am listening to more music and writing more. But I had to sacrifice what was draining me in order to make room for what feeds me!

I am anticipating that same result here with the Whole 30. In preparing to do this 30 days, I realized I have not faithfully put the same effort into my physical existence as I have my spiritual one and I believe this discord is what is showing up as headaches, fibromyalgia, herniated discs, gastro pain etc…

I am committing to doing 30 days of whole food eating! #Whole30 I have been guilty of neglecting my physical -ugh I hate saying that, because indeed I did not truly think I WAS neglecting it. I had no problem seeing how those so intent on physical fitness were neglecting their spiritual and emotional wellbeing, while at the same time I gave less effort into my physical than my spiritual and emotional wellbeing.

Discord.

And any discord is measurement of the distance between your Earthly self and your Highest Self. ANY DISCORD and my body has been in discord for a long time. While I was trying to hear it, I wasn’t really listening to it.

Or maybe I just needed to have this experience, this way.

Or maybe I’m putting too much into the cleanse/reset.

But I KNOW in my heart of hearts that food is causing my problems – mostly because I’ve eliminated all other possibilities. I never ever wanted to follow diet crazes, as they are SO counterintuitive to what I feel is healthy for my body. So, over the years I have adapted many many healthy eating alternatives. I have been gluten free for 10 years or more. I have adopted a more Paleo way of eating, although not stringent (again, not one for extremes). Very few processed foods. NO drive through. Limited fried foods. Despite all these super healthy adjustments the scale keeps going up, I have recurring pain and inflammation, increased fatigue and lately some weird break outs and illnesses.

So, yes, I have super high hopes for this journey to render some really positive results.

I am super sensitive to energy; food is energy. So, it stands to reason that I would be super sensitive to foods as well. This whole foods journey will tell me a lot…about myself, about what I need and about sacrifice.

I will be doing physically what I’ve been doing spiritually and emotionally for decades. I will be looking at each bite of food with the same conscientiousness that I look at each thought I think. Makes sense right? See, why this is resonating so deeply with me? This is the time. One more opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and do the hard stuff, sacrifice the stuff not serving me so I can then later show others how it can be done.

I debated whether to keep this to myself during the 30 days and discuss the journey afterwards, but I opted for full real-time disclosure. I’ve never been this open about discussing my health issues, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. While I believe there is no problem without a solution, I hadn’t come upon my solution yet, so what was there to talk about?

I am not intending to make this a #Whole30 journal. This will remain exactly what it is, Willow Song Medicine Woman’s blog. This is just one part of my journey, so don’t expect things to change. But I will keep you posted on things I notice and if indeed it ends up giving me the answers I am seeking as well as some relief.

Does this resonate with anyone else? Would love to connect personally with those also on the Whole30 journey.

Remember, I love you. And now I’m going to take my love for (for both of us) to a new dimension!

~Jade