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Angustia: no way out!

  Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae describes anxiety as a narrowing (from Latin angustia - narrowness): "Anxiety is that which so takes possession of the mind as to leave no opening for escape" It is sorrow so intense it "binds the soul" and "shuts out all hope" The soul becomes trapped, unable to find a way out. This image is precise: anxiety feels like being in a space that keeps getting smaller, the walls pressing in. Aquinas's proposed remedies all point towards "dilatatio" (expansion) : -Grace as "enlargement and strengthening" of the soul. A distraction that provokes a "dilatatio" (expansion) and therefore:  -Joy and love causing the heart to widen -Hope opening what anxiety has closed -Contemplation of truth delighting more than pain saddens This is grace - not as theological abstraction, but as lived experience of sudden release. My frustration:  Around my 20s when I was trying to deepen Catholicism, I bega...
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The colours of my food

 


About eighty percent of my food is vegetables. The intense green of the veggies comforts me. My best combination of colours is when I add something whitish, like the potatoes, to the deep green of the rest.

Even if a lot of green with some white is for me the best combination of colours on my plate, I can't avoid other coloured veggies, just because I neurotically stick to that combination! And, honestly, I enjoy a lot the different colours I can eat. For instance now, pumpkin, red cabbage, and of course the green of some other vegetable is a great ensemble that gives me another kind of inner comfort when I prepare my food and when I have it on my plate!

Colours help me in stimulating my expectations. Something that I have been missing in my growing up, therefore my problematic relationship with food. Eating alone helps me establishing a relationship I never develop with food. Also sitting at the table helps. Instead of eating en passant while doing something else I take my time and space and learn to enjoy my food!

These are further little steps that contribute in improving my everyday life. 




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