Having the Courage of Your Convictions

How are you managing your energy?  Are you losing something of yourself?

When you are successful, some don’t like what you have to say.  They want what you have.  Continue and overcome the obstacles in your path.

Keep the conversation going and negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.  You may be defending others as well as yourself when you become the spokesperson for the group.

Please just consider your self-awareness.  Protection becomes important as you are asked to defend your accomplishments.

Turn to your integrity, positive energy, and your good intentions.  You don’t have to accept criticism as truth.  Instead, align yourself with your highest values.

This may mean that you have to draw the confidence within yourself to say “no”.  If you find yourself at odds with your conscience, this is the time to set your boundaries.

Continue on and supplement this with your diet whenever you can.  This is a time for introspection, self-care, wisdom, and a healing diet.

Set your sights on the future while you leave adversity behind.

Your job isn’t easy.  But, remember, you have this job because of your prior success.

A STORY

“Don’t go away.  I need to talk to you.”  A man approached me in the basement hallway.  As he spoke, the hair on my neck stood up.

The scene is etched in my memory.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling or the toothy grin he showed that afternoon.  I’m convinced he practiced for years turning himself into the big bad wolf he projected.

Stocking shelves in the food pantry, I prepared for the hungry people coming to shop in the food pantry soon.  After filling the third shelf down from the top of a unit with canned green beans, I stepped into the hallway for a moment.

“Good afternoon, sir.  What can I do for you?”

“For starters you can stop feeding all those people.  Ever since you started working here, more and more people are standing in the halls waiting for food.  You’re feeding too many people and I want it to stop.  Right.  Now.”

The man standing over me in the hall was fat, old, angry.  His toes pointed outward, an indication he had painful back issues.  “I want to see your files on the people who use the pantry.”

“I’m sorry sir.  We don’t keep many files on our hoppers.  We keep a journal where we record their names and number of people in each household.  That’s all.”

“Well, you should.  No one should be allowed in this pantry who isn’t on food stamps.  You’re feeding people who shouldn’t be coming here.

“Just this last week you gave food to a man who you shouldn’t be feeding.  He wrote a book and published it a couple of years ago and he shouldn’t even be here.  He has a motorcycle.  Writers make a lot of money.”

I didn’t believe this story about the writer and his book, but I didn’t answer him back.

“This man is definitely a threat to the pantry” went through my mind as he stood over me.  “I’ll have to call the food bank about getting that kind of information.”

Not a secret, he didn’t like the way I managed the pantry.  And, he had grounds.  Before 2007, the pantry served about twenty-five of Woodstock’s most colorful characters on Thursday mornings and now with the economy tanking, new hungry people showed up weekly.  Lines got longer on every pantry day.

The Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) expanded pantry nutritional guidelines to include fresh produce, 1% milk, and whole-grain bread.  Now, instead of shoppers getting a jar of peanut butter, a box of cereal, a can of tuna fish, they chose from shelves filled with fresh produce.  Bread Alone sent bread weekly.

These changes brought not only hungry people but mountains of cardboard.  According to him, the pantry was overrun with vermin.  No amount of reasoning convinced them otherwise.  It didn’t matter one whit that not even one bug or mouse could be found in the pantry.

Our boxed, canned, fresh, food arrived clean from the food bank with no insects or rodents.  Food bank employees were proud of their clean food.  The reason is simple.  Rodents and insects prefer dark quiet conditions and immediately vacate a disturbed area.

Food pantry stock is in constant motion, the best pesticide.

Meanwhile, here was this angry man staring at me and demanding to see files I didn’t have and the State didn’t have and the State didn’t require.  And, if I had them, he wouldn’t see them anyway.

“I can call the food bank and find out what files we need.  However, an inspector was here only a few weeks ago, saw my paperwork, and pronounced everything excellent.  We’ve never done anything like this before.  After all, we’re not the police.”

“Well, check into it NOW!” he said as he turned away, his toes still looking outward.  With that, he walked away.

He looked back at me then and grinned broadly, displaying a mouthful of large, yellow teeth.

As he walked down the hall and out the door, I felt a terrible pain in my gut.  My solar plexus was on fire.  My adrenals knotted.  I realized I was afraid.  Cold.  Hard.  Fear.  He threatened the food pantry.  I knew in my gut that I was the only person standing in the way of his threat.  Others would mutter things about a job not being worth the aggravation and walk away.

It took a food pantry in a church basement in the most famous small town in America to teach me about fear in our country.  Food shoppers and volunteers live with the peril of starvation daily.  The subject is stark, deep, hidden, real.

Full-blown fear wasn’t in my personal vocabulary, so I rarely felt it.

At that moment I knew I wasn’t going to let panic get the best of me.  People shopping at the food pantry were afraid of being hungry, being homeless, or being unemployed.

I was not going to let go of this pantry.   I was not going to let go of this pantry.  I was not going to let go.  This anxiety stuck to me day and night.  I felt unsafe every moment.

It seems a bit strange, maybe unbelievable.  Looking back on the whole experience, it was a steppingstone on the path to the pantry.  We all lost things along the way.  I lost a lot of fluff and met up wiwth the stark reality of hunger in our nation.

I worked hard to avoid being overwhelmed by danger.  First, I defined exactly what alarmed me.  At that moment I knew exactly what that was.  I was afraid to let pantry deniers close the pantry.  I knew I had to negotiate my day-to-day work in the pantry to prevent that from happening.  I had to find ways to make sure the people got what they were supposed to get.  I had to balance things, so I didn’t go too fast but I had to implement the guidelines soon enough to satisfy the food banks.

“I’m walking a tight rope high above an abyss.” I thought.  I needed to be at my peak performance.

I surrounded myself with people who lifted me up and who wanted me to lift them up.  Volunteers and shoppers supported me even though they had no idea I needed it.  People at the food bank inspired me and taught me to do my job better.  People surrounding me made me successful because their support stopped anyone from holding me back.

I knew he wanted me to leave.  I decided then that I would not let that happen – not on his terms anyway.  I would not leave because of what he did did.

I stuck with my decision.  I left on my own terms in 2013 when I took my experience and skills to Boiceville to open a new food pantry.

Pantry deniers finally evicted the pantry in Woodstock in a public outburst several years later which ended up with a story in the local paper.

I kept my mouth shut, much like a woman married to an alcoholic man who beat her.  Whenever someone realized what was happening, I changed the subject and moved on to other topics.

Hunger in America is a hidden shame.  Those coping with it have smaller and smaller voices. As time passes, they have none.  More and more people with more and more are blind to those choosing between food and rent.

We know that the top 1% have more than the bottom 99%.  From my tiny spot in the smalltown food pantry, I connected with it existentially.

Volunteers defend the food pantry for the hungry people using it.  They feed hundreds of people weekly with as much dignity as can be mustered under the circumstances.  They attach no strings.

Shoppers live the fear daily.  There are no holidays.  What are they afraid of?  Hunger.  Inadequate or no housing.  No work.  Healthcare costs.  Clothing costs.  Transportation costs.

FOCUS IN

Journal about what gives you resolution in your life.  What do your purpose and your inner energy need now?

MEDITATION

`This meditation helps you find solutions to life challenges arising once you achieve your goals.  Use it to creatively solve your problems and generate new ideas.

Find a private and safe place for this meditation.  Sit in a comfortable position.  If  you want, turn on some healing music, light a candle.

Take in and out breaths.  Breathe slowly and deeply  The inbreaths encourage  invigorating energy.  The outbreaths release tired, worn out, toxic air.

As you continue with your meditational breathing, focus on this problem while you inhale and exhale.

After several grounding in and out breaths, you find yourself in a parklike setting.  You notice the trees, the plants, the path nearby, and the bench you are sitting on.

You think about your problem.  Focus on ways you can resolve it.

With each in-and-out breath, think about the different aspects of your problem and how protecting yourself fits into the overall picture.

Think about how to protect yourself in your situation.

As you do this, you get to know it intimately.  How does it smell?  Taste?  Feel?  Sound?

Can you see your challenge as an opportunity?  Can you see it as a solution?

See the challenge now as a way to grow – to move forward on your path.

Feel a sense of freedom as you see your problem’s new place on your path.

You know it is time to return to the present.

Focus now on the room where you began your meditation.

It is time to join the world of now.

You know you can return to this park and this resolution any time you want.

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading this article.  Please share it with your friends and family.  Forward it to your favorite social media network!  It is my hope that it will support you in your healing journey.

Have you read my book:  “Healer’s Tarot Memoir”?

Books are available at www.thurmangreco.com