Geneen Roth, Women Food and God

Oh, how I wish I could attend this event. Geneen Roth is going to be in Watsonville soon. I have a previous engagement from which I cannot excuse myself somewhere else. I met Geneen years ago and she inspired me so much.

I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of her new book. I'd like to understand my most unusual relationship to food. Due to medical problems I can barely eat enough to sustain proper nutrition, but it sure doesn't look that way. My body hangs on to every ounce I ever had. I would like to look at this as normal and maybe even spiritual as it looks like her book elucidates:

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

"The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. No matter how sophisticated or wise or enlightened you believe you are, how you eat tells all. The world is on your plate. When you begin to understand what prompts you to use food as a way to numb or distract yourself, the process takes you deeper into realms of spirit and to the bright center of your own life. Rather than getting rid of or instantly changing your conflicted relationship with food, Women Food and God is about welcoming what is already here, and contacting the part of yourself that is already whole—divinity itself."

Read more from her site

Change Your Name to Avoid Dying

When I originally changed my name to Elizabeth, I chose it because when I looked up the meaning it said Elisheba meant a covenant between God and humanity, I thought that was appropriate because I often felt that I survived chondrosarcoma because of what I believed was a promise from God with me.

I met a woman from Israel when I was facing my seventh bone cancer surgery. I was so discouraged. I had serious concerns about whether I would live or die, which I shared in a counseling group. The woman came up to me after the meeting, and told me that where she comes from there is a belief that if you change your name, the "Angel of Death" cannot find you.

So, after surviving the surgery, that was when I took her words to heart and made the decision to change my name.

I knew what name I wanted. Every time I was pregnant, I always wanted to name my girl babies, Elizabeth. But my husband always said no. Those were the days when women had to do what their husbands said. Back then, I didn't know the underlying meaning of the name, but as years went by, I learned. And so, I became Elizabeth.

So, who knows? What's in a name. Huh?