Heart Reading … Day 46

HALT … the signs to know when enough is enough.

I’ve mentioned over the past few weeks that I have been eliminating foods from my already very good diet in order to try reducing symptoms that make it hard to work and concentrate — like sleeplessness, monkey mind, chronic pain, etc. Removing meat from my diet has been a choice that I feel is overdue given my commitment to being a responsible inhabitant of this planet, but the other sacrifices have made meal preparation and eating in general more complicated than I have patience for at the moment. And chips are not a real meal.

In my effort to be kind to myself, I recall this awesome acronym that a friend reminded me about recently: HALT. Am I Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? If I am any one of these things, I need to address that before pushing through another proposal, another phone call, another whatever. I also added another letter to these four: C for Cold. So if you’re like me and get crazy cold in air conditioned spaces, you might like the LATCH acronym — like close the latch on the door, I’ll be back in a few.

Here’s my HALT assessment for today:

Hungry — Halfway through a lunch of cauliflower rice and broccoli, which I ate outside to trick myself into feeling like I took a real break (I finished in about 6 minutes), I remembered to give thanks to the earth and the people who grow, make, and transport food.

Angry — I am always angry about something, kind of like a low grade emotional fever, so I use careful words to not dump on anyone yet get things off my chest (like the exchange I had with the person I met with first thing in the morning — we agreed that consuming news in the morning, especially a Monday, may no longer be such a good idea).

Lonely — This morning I woke feeling sad and lonely about a friend that I miss very much. We had a significant miscommunication many months ago and I have resolved to email her tomorrow. Today I held good intention and gave myself time and space to understand what I want to say.

Tired — Fortunately I am sleeping a bit better with this diet, but I am still very aware of the limited energy I have when multitasking on the computer, especially when it crashes repeatedly. So I took breaks to hang my head upside down and oxygenate my brain.

I did get outside a couple of times to enjoy the warm (and humid) breeze, though I felt less joy given the plight of thousands of people struggling with the effects of Hurricane Ida.

And I missed a meeting tonight; that is surely not the end of the world.