Our Ward Trunk or Treat party was delightful. Bob and I wore matching Halloween aprons, chef's hats and carried these very cute little tin pumpkin pots with wooden spoons. We'd stir-stir-stir then pretend to fling "Halloween Magic" on our friends, young and old. Quick-easy-fun costumes, and our little nursery brothers and sisters were still talking about it all in Nursery yesterday. "You were a crazy chef!"
It was also the traditional chili cook off. I usually have little tastes of all, but this time I had only someone's fabulous white chili, that was mostly a clear broth with onions, green peppers, a little chicken, white beans and killer seasonings. I tracked down that chef, who is new in our ward, and she promised to get me the recipe.
It was interesting. Even with Halloween candy that belongs to someone else, there was this impulse, more like a REFLEX to grab those little treat-size packages during the actually trunk-or-treating and get rockin'. My joke was always to call about in the dark for "Anybody got any Mounds?" Kids and adults would come up with some for me, along with everything else. Of course. I'd nibble there, on the way home, and take it from there, as if the Trunk or Treat event opened hunting season, or something. Yeah, hunting season is right because from Trunk or Treat (and getting ready for it by buying the candy and "testing it" and/or letting it be "A-OK for eating " by merely opening the package) ... until every last bit of chocolate (which was then followed by the Smarties and Starbursts) was gone several weeks later, I was on the prowl. Yes. Hunting Season, indeed!
This time, it was all about the kids and the fun. I looked at their little packages of M&Ms. Hmm. Brown paper with the white letters on it. But the reflex for "how do I get some of my own?" was gone. Once again, it was a great relief.
We took no candy. We ate no candy. We brought home no candy.
I'm learning that other people do a bang-up job of providing the stuff. Nobody cares or even notices if I bring or do not. If I eat it or do not. Most of these events are so packed with people and kids and fun socializing that whether you eat anything or not is on NO-ONE ELSE'S interest level. At all.
Perhaps the biggest thing of the weekend, however, was a couple of challenging conversations related to ongoing family issues. I wonder how many of those in the past I have colored and fanned the flames with my sugar-highs and lows?
This weekend, with a clear head, unaltered by sugar, I was able to realize and accept that these feelings (on both my part and the other parties) really ARE just that intense! The difference, however, is that I was able to listen and let go. I was a much better validator. I was able to both express AND accept my own feelings for what they are: real, legitimate feelings, then walk away from both them and the situation without adding any fuel to the bon fire. Feelings that I can CONTROL and DISCIPLINE when I'm not on sugar. Time and space to come up with better answers to the problem, or if there are none, to be content with patience and faith as answers.
In the past, I am famous for making a big problem (or even little ones) bigger than they need to be by becoming overly-emotional, with a heavy element of over-talking and over-dramatizing. (I come from a line of very good story-tellers, and boy, do we love dramatics.)
How much of my past has SUGAR allowed me to turn little mole hills of problems into mountains that were entirely unnecessary? Things that could have been handled much more easily and effectively -- without the drama that is so unflattering in the hours and days afterwards?
Based on two significant conversations this weekend, probably more than I had thought. Goodness. Now that I'm thinking about it ... how many situations in years past, both in and outside of my family, might have been different/ended differently if not only my body was sugar-free, but my emotions and ability to communicate were sugar-free as well?
I can't change the past, but I can accept and embrace the future ... and promise myself to be at my best for those I love best by being sugar free and in control.
After all, there are SO many difficult things that are utterly OUT of our control. It's my DUTY to grab hold of the ones that are!
It feels wonderful to experience that during emotional, difficult times, when you're not high on sugar, you can know that your feelings and your response to other people's feelings is the real deal, not altered by body and chemistry changes that are not the real YOU. Or embarrassed afterwards when you realize that sugar was running the show.
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