Believe. Hope. Trust.: Winter Wonderland Thoughts

Believe. Hope. Trust.: Winter Wonderland Thoughts: NYC today was a child's winter wonderland playground. I haven't seen so many children out with their parents since the summer. Carrying thei...

Winter Wonderland Thoughts

NYC today was a child's winter wonderland playground. I haven't seen so many children out with their parents since the summer. Carrying their snowboards, sleds and snowball makers (whatever happened to making your own snowballs?!?) the kids were all laughing, running around with joy, not a care in their head. While their parents may have been worried about their little one running in street or slipping on the ice, they too appeared pretty happy. Waking up to a snow covered ground does something to people: even if you don't like going out in it, you have to admit, it's beautiful to look at outside your window.  I'll admit, I wanted to throw snowballs at a few strangers today and climb on top of the large piles of snow. While I didn't, even the thought made me smile.

The lightness in the air wasn't the only thing I noticed today. On a subway, I saw I child say to his mother "I'm hungry." She responded "what did you eat with dad?"He said pizza. She started examining his backpack and pulled out a granola bar and said "isn't it nice Dad packed snacks for you in case you get hungry?" She then unwrapped the granola bar and gave it to him. He immediately started eating. There was no hesitation on this child's face, no looking at nutritional information on the label, no deep breath to get through the anxiety. He just ate. Why? Because he was hungry. The very thing we were made to do when we are hungry. Our bodies cue us to let us know that they are running low on energy and politely say "please feed me." However, into days society, we hear about pills, supplements, drinks, etc to curb these feelings, to suppress our body telling us what it needs. It's no wonder we are all so confused as to whether hunger cues are good or bad, whether food that are dense and fill you up are suppose to be eaten or not eaten. When did we all lose our childish ways, our carefree nature, our ability to put food where it belongs- in our mouth and not on a pedestal. We keep it up there, letting it define our worth, our value and our strength. I challenge everyone, including myself to find that inner child, the care free one that eats because your hungry and eats what your body craves.