Day 14. Eating True Abundance

It’s been 2 weeks since starting my new eating pattern. I’m reluctant to keep calling it a diet because this is something that I need to keep doing - in perpetuity - if I want to keep a fit shape for a Lisa. The word ‘diet’ has such a restrictive feeling. It infers lack. It inters discipline and it feels like an external directive and not something that I might want to embrace. I need this new routine of mine to become a habit, and it will only be a happy habit, and therefore sustainable, if it is about abundance – true Abundance.

In the book ‘Love + Truth: The Ethos of Being Spiritual Art’, Robert Althuis talks about the difference between Plenitude and Abundance. Plenitude is about wanting more and more and more, and true Abundance is about being with the wealth of the world, the true wealth like: the beauty of a flower; the ability to taste a juicy, blushing, fresh tomato; the joy of sitting on an almost empty, open-windowed tram in the early morning with a soft, friendly breeze blowing through; the early morning long shadows of people walking to work; or the splendid colours of the buildings, as they are lit by strands of morning light finding their way through the high rises.

According to Althuis, in this state of Abundance I am available, open to see the wealth that’s all around me, including the wealth of my life as it is now. Not as I want it to be, but as it already is: my lovely, comfortable apartment; the fact that I can pay my rent and keep a home for my son, my helper and myself; the flow of new work projects; new knowledge; new skills; my precious friendships, my family and this beautiful life that I am so grateful to live in Hong Kong.

And I can also transfer this wealth, this Abundance, to my new eating design. For example, a plate of mozzarella, buffalo tomatoes and basil, drizzled in olive oil - three simple ingredients that sit neatly in the middle of the plate. Not a big dinner, and yet there is huge wealth in the taste - in the red juicy tomatoes, in the fresh basil leaves. There’s huge wealth in the smell of fresh basil, and in the colours of red and green and creamy yellow. And there is huge wealth in the nutrition that my body will savour from this dish. Suddenly I am not in lack, or restriction or ‘diet’ , I am in Abundance alongside smiles, and gratitude.