The Body Reunion Solution

Breaking the Cycle: Unconscious Behaviors & the Body

2012-01-24T11:48:00.000-08:00

(Image taken from naturallyintense.net)

Do you ever find yourself doing things you don't really want to be doing, especially when it comes to food, exercise or self-care? Do you 'suddenly' find yourself in front of the tv with a bag of chips at 1am? Or sleeping past that alarm that was supposed to get you up for the workout you keep saying you're going to commit to? Or eating that dessert you didn't really want because someone put it in front of you at an elegant meal out?

Our relationship with our body is full of all kinds of unconscious moments, moments that reveal to us that we're not always in control of our behavior and our choices. Once we slip into those moments, it's hard to get out. When we do realize we've 'done it again,' we're more than likely to wallow in guilt or shame, tell ourselves 'I'll never do this again,' and then repeat the same cycle a few days or weeks later.

What makes it hard to live our intentions out into the world and into our choices with our bodies? What takes over instead and makes us do things we don't mean to be doing--and what can we do it about it? (No pun intended.) I have a few thoughts I'd love to share.

1) Don't give in to shame.

One of the easiest things to do when you realize you've repeated a behavior you really didn't want to, is to slip into an icky feeling of shame. Your thoughts about yourself may be bad: "I can't believe I did this again," or "I'm never going to change." When we look at our body as something we're in relationship with, there's a different kind of accountability and a desire to stay connected. You might feel bad about what's happening, but how can you speak to yourself (and your body) differently about it, with more compassion and honesty: "I'm so sorry. I know I did this again. I'm not sure what to do. I'd like to show you I love you more than I do. How can we do this together?"

2) Learn to feel what's happening in your body and what's really going on.

One way out of the cycle of our behaviors is to begin to catalog what gets us there in the first place and to begin to commit to feeling it. If you slow everything down, you'll realize there are ways that you actually feel in your body as the unconscious behavior is happening that give you information. As you reach for the cupboard for something you don't really want, what are you feeling in your body? What's going on inside? What does it feel like in your body when you eat for emotional reasons rather than out of hunger? Does it feel like more of a choked up feeling? Foggy? Can you check in with your body to ask if you're actually feeling hunger first? As you become aware of the differences and take the time to listen, your body may have a lot to say about what you really need.

3)What are the reasons for the behavior?

When we act out unconsciously, there's usually something else that's being communicated. See it as a kind of inner temper tantrum. What was really trying to be said by the overeating, oversleeping? Do you need a break? Are there feelings you need to express to someone about something? What steps can you take to take care of what you're really feeling and needing? This is why staying connected to the body even through unwanted behaviors becomes so important. It wants to feel listened to and loved, not abandoned, rejected or criticized in that moment.

4) Practice giving yourself what you really need.

...And then you can give yourself what you really need. If you finally begin to listen and your body is telling you you're upset about something because you feel heavy in your heart and a little panicky, then you might want to call a friend and talk or go for a long walk or write it all out. If you need to express a feeling or have a difficult decision to make, see if you can get support for doing that and take the plunge. And if feelings are too big or overwhelming, get some help for sorting them out so you can feel more conscious and present in your life. Your unconscious urges are usually replacements for getting to the real issue at hand--kind of like when you procrastinate by cleaning out your sock drawer instead of getting to that difficult email for work.

Overall, it's so important to have compassion for unconscious behaviors and begin to understand the message behind them. They're not there to make you feel ashamed of yourself; they're there because they are trying to communicate something that needs to be heard. If you can slow down, have compassion and stay connected to your body, you have the chance to figure out what that actually is and begin to address it.

Embrace the behaviors as the beginning of a message you can start to listen to; then let the information in. It's been waiting for you all along; it just had no other way of speaking. Being in a kind and loving relationship with your body, one where you can partner with what you (and it) are feeling rather than ignoring it, leads you to the possibility of real change and healing.

Returning After A Long Absence

2012-01-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

(Image taken from organicsoul.com)

What do we do to begin a relationship with our body when we don't remember ever having one? I was talking with a client about this tonight as we scanned his past for any memories of when things felt really good in his body. Through struggles with weight and illness, he couldn't think of even one moment. In fact, he could recognize that much of his life and even childhood, his head had been filled with obsessive thoughts about food, his weight and how he was being perceived by others.

Sometimes are best moments in our bodies are ones we can't even remember, before the judgment and self-consciousness set in. One client recounts tearing around in the fields behind her childhood home, climbing trees and pretending she was enacting a live tv show about a kid living on her own in the wild. She fiercely loved her body and all it did for her. But for many of us, even our earliest memories may be tainted with the comments of others, including peers and parents, or a sense that we were the wrong size, shape, weight.

How do we find our way back to our bodies when we can't even remember what it felt like to feel good in them?

We start right now to find our way back in.

If we accept that we are all in a relationship with our bodies all the time, then even this unconscious, blocked out place we've come to with our bodies is a relationship of sorts. It's just not a very good one. It needs more of your consciousness and attention. It's grown some cobwebs.

We find our way back in by doing just that: stepping in. One of the first exercises I give to clients in my Love Your Body work is to spend 5 minutes 2-3 times a week simply committing to sitting, closing their eyes, and feeling all the sensations in their bodies.

In order for a relationship to begin, we have to take a first step and just show up. That's all. What does it feel like when you step into your body? What feelings are there? Aches or pains?

When your mind begins to wander in this exercise (and it probably will), commit to returning to the body like you would a good friend after the conversation has turned back to you. Keep inquiring, stay curious: what is my body feeling right now? How is it communicating? What's it like to be here together?

Somewhere in the process, simply say to your body, 'I'm here,' and see if you notice a response. Your body may have been waiting a very long time to feel that sense of presence from you, to even feel you care.

Because where else do we begin when we've been absent from someone or something for a long time? We have no other choice but to start exactly where we are, and to begin to establish trust by being present. We have to be patient for this process and know that it won't happen overnight. But slowly over time we begin to trust again: the self and the body, finding their way toward each other.

Spend a few minutes atleast twice this week stepping into your body, an open observer and a committed and returning friend. What do you notice? Does your body begin to bend back toward you, like a long lost partner? Can you feel the difference in its responsiveness when you show up with an open, caring and listening heart to the world it has held for you, all this time?

We can't move into the next steps in a body relationship--listening, trusting, forgiving--until we've started with this very simple one. To reconnect, we have to begin by returning, consistently, and without protest or excuses, to inhabiting our own skin, to get curious about what's there and build trust by staying--or coming back as often as we remember. I believe our bodies are just waiting for us to do so.

The Lullaby of Sleep

2012-01-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

(Image taken from indianhindunames.com)

Sleep seems to be a huge issue for clients these days. How much sleep are you getting and how good is it? For some it's an issue of time: "I just don't have time to get more than 5 or 6 hours a night...." For others it's an issue of quality: "Between my kids and my husband snoring, I'm lucky if I get more than a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep..." And of course sometimes it's just the stress of our own minds that keeps us awake, churning and reworking the day or things to come, even as our body wishes for sleep and rest.

A few themes emerge. First, is the importance of how you interpret the lack of sleep. Does it make you crazy, anxious, worried to not be getting sleep? Often this can become a vicious cycle, so that the worry about not getting sleep or falling asleep becomes a problem in and of itself. See if your language and thinking about not sleeping can become gentler and more kind, less stressed: "It is what it is, I'll get however much sleep I get..." That softness and lessening of anxiety around the problem itself can make a huge difference. (I once heard that just resting is worth a larger percentage of sleep time than we think and that also put my mind at ease. Even if I'm not actually asleep, I realized, just lying here is still allowing my body to rejuvenate.)

Then consider if you're being too rigid about how or when sleep needs to happen. If you're not getting enough sleep consistently at night (especially if it's due to circumstances you can't control), can you let yourself rest briefly at other times during the day? Can you step outside of the box and shut your eyes in your car for twenty minutes on a break from work? Take a brief nap while the kids are at school? Listening to the body means getting out of our concepts of when sleep should happen and into the moment of what our bodies want and need right now.

I also think the transition to sleep and into the lull of our bodies takes some ritual, a ritual we may have known has children but have mostly lost touch with as adults. So often we're in bed with the television on or our computers, finishing an email or surfing the internet, then expect that we'll close our eyes and drift off to sleep. Instead, consider that our bodies and our minds may need what we once needed as children: a place of lullaby, story or mystery. Can you light candles and play soft music for a few minutes before you go to bed? Read a favorite book instead of television or the computer?

My husband frequently gets irritated if I try to have too serious a conversation before bed. This used to annoy me (and sometimes it still does) but I also appreciate the wisdom of it. He's protective of his 'sleeping space.' He knows that if he gets too involved in a conversation right before bed about something important, he'll be replaying it and considering it as he's trying to transition to sleep. Instead, he prefers to read or watch something, to get into the story part of his mind and not the problem-solving one. Good for him. How many times do we do the opposite, keeping ourselves awake with analysis of the day or the future, simply because we don't know how to shut it all off?

A sleep expert I heard speak about insomnia recently was very insistent on our need for transitional space, a time before bed when the lights get to be lower, when our minds get to slow down. Our bodies too need to take cues from us that they no longer need to be operating at full speed, reflexes at the ready. To surrender to the vulnerability of sleep is a metaphor for so much of the surrender we can forget how to do in our lives. We are still human beings in need of whatever that mystery of darkness is; we are still mortal, no matter how much we thrive on efficiency and productivity in our waking life.

Practice setting time aside for stillness before bed, and for valuing the quiet place you've created as much as the sleep itself. Notice how your body feels in the gentleness of it, and how much it craves it. Our bodies so often need to know they're safe and cared for; and we can't tell them with our minds but rather with our actions and our choices. This is one way the mind and the body can be reminded, like children, of the sacredness of sleep, and the way we can greet it and open to it like humble devotees, allowing it to take us to its depths.

Standing in Our Bodies

2012-01-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

(Image taken from http://ccsalina.com/2010/05/01/taking-a-stand/)

Why does it feel so good to be grounded in our bodies? To feel our feet fully on the ground, take a deep breath, stand tall? When we inhabit our bodies in this way, we seem also to be brought more fully into our lives.

In fact, a great deal of anxiety and depression can come from being out of touch with what it feels like to be 'in' our bodies. When someone is having a panic attack, one of the key tools for coming back is to take deep breaths, to feel their feet underneath them and to slow down their thoughts. We could use a dose of this throughout our days, with or without a panic attack flooding our systems.

We let our minds take over with analysis and worry; along the way we forget what it feels like to be in the non-verbal expanse that is the body, with its sensations and awarenesses, its mysteries. There's something simplifying and humbling about journeying there, to feel in this moment how something is being felt, simply physically felt: not interpreted, anticipated, criticized. Our bodies and their sensations exist without our deciding what they mean.

Have you ever felt yourself drifting away during a massage, sauna or any physical experience that really brought you into your body? The 'you' that leaves is the mind, and you are left with a present experience of the body, one that can often be blissful and surrendering. From this place we remember our basic, physical connection to everything around us. The mind no longer has us in its grip; we simply feel.

It's one of the reasons that sexual experiences, food, exercise can be so addictive. There is a cessation of thought, a rootedness that takes over. That state of being is something we long for. We can cultivate it by moving into our bodies, and noticing when we've moved away.

Just in this moment, take a deep breath and ask yourself where you are. Are you in this moment, or are you thinking about something in the past or future? Without judgment, see if you can take a few more deep breaths and begin to observe the sensations in the body: what does it feel like in your legs, your chest, your neck, your belly? Ask yourself if you can actually feel your feet below you and practice wiggling your toes and becoming more conscious of the surface underneath the soles of your feet.

Notice as you take even a moment to come more fully into the aliveness of the body, what happens to the mind. You may feel a momentary feeling of peace, of cessation of thought. You might also become aware of feelings or emotions that are in the body but not allowed to be felt when the mind is taking over. Continue to explore all of the sensations of the body.

When life seems like too much, or a problem seems unsolvable, see if you can practice going to this place, if only for a moment. Find your feet. Find your breath. Notice how your body greets you and what happens when you come into relationship with it.

There's a reason why we have certain expressions about 'standing on your own two feet' or 'getting the wind knocked out of you.' We want to take back the legs we stand on, the breath we breathe, until we know with confidence that we are here and fully alive, allowed to be just as we are.

The "Magic" of the Holidays

2011-12-27T21:51:00.000-08:00

(image taken from http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/187496/winter-wonderland-christmas-tree.html)

When I was in college I went through a phase with my body where I had what you'd call a bit of 'magical' thinking. It wasn't that I was totally off my rocker, but I wanted to be able to eat whatever I wanted (a.k.a junk food) and not have there be any consequences. I was curious how much of my weight I could control with my thoughts, and not the physical consequences of the food. If I loved myself enough and sent loving thoughts to what I ate, would that transform it?

I've often heard my clients say how unfair it is that some people seem to be able to eat whatever they want, while instead they toil and experience weight gain, discomfort. I felt the same way. I wanted my body to magically be able to take in whatever I was giving it and just 'be' the weight I wanted it to.

The holidays too are a time that bring up the childlike longing for magic, for things to just turn out the way we want them to. Wasn't it nice as children to make list of the gifts we wanted and see them appear under the tree or on one night of Hanukkah? As we get older we realize that we are the creators of the magic, the buyers and wrappers of the gifts that somehow 'appeared.' We bake the fruitcake and make the holiday dinners. We begin to realize that that the magic is also created by us. It's much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz pulling aside the curtain to realize that the being she had put on such a pedestal was just a human being not so different from her.

It's a sobering realization, but also an important one when it comes to how we view our bodies. We need to find the right balance between the 'magic' that our love and consciousness can create and the very concrete ways that we can love and care for ourselves, take responsibility for our health, in the physical world. Love does heal all; but that doesn't give us the excuse to behave irresponsibly. We need to find the ways that love can come through our actions, and encourage us to create the body and the world we most dream of.

A client recently observed that when she was younger there was a feeling of seeing what she could 'get' from her body--just as we greedily make our lists for Santa and rummage under the tree. As she gets older, she realizes it's also about what she can give to her body, humbly and with gratitude, for all it does for her. It's a different way of living in our lives, to become the adults who can give as well as take, who can responsibly create the magic as well as revel in it.

This year, as the holiday comes to a close, see if you can find the balance, embrace the way of living that lets you be both a child and a kind and loving parent to yourself and your body. Watch for the part of you that wants your body to just 'take it'--whatever junk you have to throw at it--and still show up healthy and alive. And also watch for the part of you that's willing to do the work with your body of creating what feels better and makes you healthier. How do you embrace the magic and consciously and responsibly create it, all at the same time?

Our Bodies And the Path of Least Resistance

2011-12-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

(Image taken from: randomfartings.blogspot.com)

Our bodies are constantly doing so many things we take for granted: breathing, detoxing, digesting, pumping blood through us. It's awe-inspiring to stop for a moment and even consider what's happening inside us all the time. There are so many things we can criticize ourselves (and our bodies) for that sometimes it's important to stop and think about all the things that are happening automatically, without our having to make anything happen at all.

This holiday season, when the to-do lists mount and you are scrambling to parties or wrapping gifts, hosting family, baking or cooking, it might be interesting to ask yourself what the things are that you do without even thinking about them? Do you listen simply because you find other people fascinating? Have you always loved telling jokes? Do you have a knack for bringing people together?

It's so easy to push ourselves and our bodies hard to reach the goals we set, only to forget that there are certain basic things we are and do without even trying. What did your partner love about you when he or she first met you? What shines through even in the worst of times when things seem beyond your control?

One of the gifts of this holiday time, linked as it is to the winter solstice, is to see the light in the darkness, to recognize that the hardest part of winter is coming to an end and the light of a new season is coming. It's a time for inspiration, reflection, and for letting in new insights and ideas. We come out of darkness and into a different way of seeing.

Take a moment, through this metaphor of the body, to think about all that you bring to your life involuntarily--as easily as breath or pulse. If it's been awhile since you got in touch with those parts of yourself, give them some room for expression. Let them remind you that you have innate value, whether you are pushing yourself or not.

Do you like to move, laugh, reach out to others?

Our bodies teach us a lesson by doing certain things without our having to manipulate or force them. We need to remember that there are ways we have of being that are easy for us also, paths of least resistance. As we find and allow them, our lives can flow more effortlessly. That's good for all of us.

The Resolution to Choose Love

2011-12-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

(Image from: korinakaycarlson.blogspot.com)

Our culture gives us so many ideas of how we're supposed to be: look a certain way, act a certain way, make a certain amount of money. Of course our bodies bear the brunt of that as well, and we can drive ourselves crazy constantly analyzing whether or not they are fitting the mold the way they 'should' be. I've worked with many clients who are genuinely in pain around that question, always feeling like they don't measure up.

I reached a crossroads in my own life not long ago of feeling like I'd had it with the constantly critical voices in my head, badgering me and telling me what I needed to be like or look like. I realized I was never going to get to loving my body except by choosing to be loving right now. There was no amount of change that was ever going to free me from the negative feelings except deciding to no longer let them in, to be accountable and compassionate to my body and love it right now.

In a sense, that moment was about choosing love for its own sake--not because it makes sense, or because the world (or your body) has proven something to you, given you your dream, but because love itself is a better state of being to be in than hate, loathing and fear. And love, compassion, self-care, kindness beget more of the same. Choosing love meant my life got to change right now. And it was up to me, not anything outside of me. Learning to love my body meant that I could make choices that were healthy out of love and not out of judgment or fear.

I realize now, years later, that this work about the body has really been work about life, too. We are about to enter a season--that sparkling holiday time--when many people choose to be giving, loving, and compassionate just because. I walked into an office I do corporate work with recently and saw a pile of toys practically up to the ceiling for their holiday toy drive. My husband spent last Friday evening with a local charity packing up boxes and boxes of food to be given out over the holidays.

The question that always seems to linger after the holidays is 'why don't we do this all the time?' What would it take to be that kind, that generous, that compassionate even when it's not 'the most wonderful time of the year'? Do we need a reason?

Marci Shimoff wrote a great book called Happy For No Reason and followed it up with another book called Love For No Reason, in which she argues for the benefits of choosing love. Love feels better. Love increases our energy and vitality rather than decreasing it. Love gives to the world rather than deciding it's not enough.

I ask you this holiday season to consider how you might choose love in your body relationship not based on weight or fitness goals but just because it feels better to be in love. Then see if you can make that your New Year's resolution, and not just a number on a scale. What would it be like if you chose to live this year in love and compassion for all your body does? How would your body feel if you finally--without needing a reason or season--chose love? And isn't that what we've all been waiting for, to know that we're loved just as we are right now?

The Secret Truths Your Body Holds

2011-12-06T08:03:00.000-08:00

Do you know when you've stepped into something that doesn't feel right? Maybe someone is taking advantage of you and you get a weird feeling in your gut. You feel like you 'should' want to spend time with them, but when you try to make plans something more visceral stops you, as if your body knows something your mind doesn't.

The truth is, I think it does.

Our bodies carry memories, truths and feelings we've long since wished we could forget about, and they call us to resolve them, to move more fully into our lives.

A client I'm working with now, for example, would love to believe he's 'done' with an old love, a relationship that ended five years ago. But he keeps noticing that something is holding him back from forming new relationships. He's always comparing current potential partners to that relationship from way back when.

When I ask him if his body is carrying any reminders of that love, he's able to isolate a whole area in his heart and moving back to his shoulder where he actually feels heartache. When we move more fully into the sensation, it's clear that even if my client would love to believe he's done enough work to let the old relationship go, his body knows otherwise. There's something more there to be understood.

So we begin the unpacking: if your body could speak to you from this sensation, what would it want you to know? What is it feeling? As we begin to explore, we realize that what's coming up for him through the disappointment of this relationship is old: a familiar feeling from childhood of being let down again and again by his mother. His body has been holding this feeling in order to give him the opportunity to work through primitive patterns around being let down, learning to love himself even when others can't or won't give him what he wants or needs. Though it seems attached to one more recent story, his body is holding a whole pathway of healing for him, down to his deepest core.

Another client, an older woman in her 60's, tells me her parents survived some intense torture in Communist Russia but that no one has ever talked about it. She wonders why she's having regular panic attacks as she nears the age that her parents were before they escaped. Together we see where in the body the sensations are living that create the panic: what is her breathing like when she's sitting still? What does her anxiety feel like in her body before it gets big and overwhelming? Behind the panic attacks, in the pushing through of sensation in her body, is my client's scared self, the child who had lots of questions that never got answered. She begins to voice those fears and we find ways to help her feel safe inside, even in an unsafe, unpredictable world.

Your body's messages may surprise you. It may look as though you've put something behind you, but your body may still be carrying pieces of it, pieces that make themselves known when you are still, or when something else triggers that place inside of you. Sometimes we even carry unfinished stories from our families that need to be completed somehow, through us. It's as if the body knows what your soul work is and reflects it back to you in sensations, tightnesses or symptoms until you find it. Even illness can have its messages to convey.

Today, scan your body for any places that feel uncomfortable or tight and ask yourself if there's a story living there that you've put away. Even if it doesn't make sense to your mind, try going into the sensations and see what they're doing there, what they want you to know. First explore the physical sensations: what am I feeling? Where? What is the quality of the sensation? Then see if there's a feeling attached to it: sadness, anger, shock. Finally, ask yourself: if that feeling could speak a message to you, what would it say?

We learn very early on how to move with our bodies in the world. As babies they are our first contact with our own sensations, the vehicle through which we discover life. As we get older, we begin to privilege our mind and all the stories it tells us. But still on a basic level, the body is the final and most basic frontier of how we take in and process our lives.

What story does your body tell you that you might need to revisit? Can you make time to explore what's unspoken, the truth that your body won't let you forget?

The Body Barometer to Emotional Health

2011-11-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

When you feel overwhelmed or sad, where do you feel it in your body? Where do you feel it in your body when you feel excited, happy, confident? What happens to your breathing in each of these states, or the way it feels around your heart, your head, your thoughts?

The amazing thing about our emotions is that they always have a physical component. Our bodies tell us how we feel. And our bodies often get their cues from the thoughts that are running through our minds at any given moment. If your body is feeling dejected and foggy, your thoughts probably are too.

Why is this important? Because once we start to notice this mind/body link, we can do something about it. If stress is making your heart race or if negative thoughts are making you slump over your desk, you can begin to ask--through the body's cues--if you'd like to be playing a different soundtrack in your head, one that would change the way it feels, literally, to be in your life.

It's an empowering moment when we realize that our body is actually taking in everything we think and believe and mirroring it back to us. But the opposite can also be true: if we can find a peaceful and open place in our bodies, we can often move ourselves to a different mental space, simply by shifting how the body is experiencing this moment. If you're feeling tight, tangled or foggy, take a deep breath and see if that changes your mental space. Give your body permission to unfurl, imagine itself on a beach in the sun, or take a few minutes to stretch and notice how the blood flow and movement affects you.

You can also do this experiment the other way around. Try thinking thoughts that are negative, judgmental and hopeless and watch what happens to your body: your posture, your breath, the sense of aliveness in the core of your body. Notice how this changes if you replace those thoughts with loving and open ones. How does your body respond?

Our bodies give us an important barometer not just for our physical but for our emotional health. They are like a litmus test for what we are doing to ourselves inside. If your body feels crappy, see where your mind is and try changing one or the other: with a different set of thoughts, a deep breath or a movement of opening that gets you away from your desk and into something more positive. Use your body as a reflection of your state of being and be willing to alter what's happening if it's not working for you.

Often we become aware of our dysfunctional reactions to life through our bodies first: the quickening of our pulse, heat, reddening. I will often ask clients to check in with their bodies in those moments to see if the reaction they're having feels helpful or defensive. One way to begin to shift our dysfunctional behaviors is to watch how the body experiences them and see if we can approach the same situation with a deep breath, with less charge and greater calm. Our bodies tell us when we're seeing red.

Try playing with using your body's cues to work with your emotions and your thoughts. If you notice tension or stress in your day, break down what thoughts might be creating your body's strong reaction and see if you can shift it. Alternatively, experiment with relaxing and opening the body as a way of relaxing and opening your mind and your perspective.

Our bodies and our minds are intimately connected and reflections of each other. The more we understand and appreciate this, the more we can use it to help us become healthier and more connected to the life we want to be living, the person we want to be living as.

Do Unto Others: The Body Ethic

2011-11-22T22:36:00.003-08:00

When I was a kid, if I could get away with something, I usually did. I can remember being clever,doing my best to make something appear to not be my fault. As long as I succeeded at not being punished or noticed, it was as if my 'crime' didn't really exist.

Then a strange thing started to happen. Slowly, over time, I started to feel guilty anyway. It was as if I had--unbeknownst to myself--developed some kind of internal compass that told me when something wasn't right. Even if I got away with it, I still didn't feel good. Some niggling part of me knew it wasn't right, and that meant I needed to apologize, confess, or live with the consequences.

Now, all these years later, I realize that the way I knew something was 'bad' really was deeply rooted in the sensations in my body. A sludgy, slimy feeling would come over me that I couldn't escape unless I did the 'right' thing. I'd feel kind-of sick, distracted and dizzy. I could feel a weight over my heart and a feeling of darkness over my head.

These physical symbols had a doom-filled quality to them, and were unavoidable. I couldn't make them go away by talking myself out of them, telling myself I didn't do anything wrong. To this day, I can feel in my body in a spine-chilling way when I've stepped out of line with my own ethics. I've gotten better, maybe, at compartmentalizing so that I only feel the gross, slimy feeling when I think about the situation that created them. But my body's compass is still undeniable and very strong and clear.

The expression 'do unto others as you'd have done unto you' always made sense to me intellectually as the way I was 'supposed' to operate. But it wasn't until I started 'feeling' my ethics in my body that I realized I didn't have as much of a choice as I thought. In fact, it seemed that if I did something bad to someone else, I pretty much ended up feeling bad myself. The age-old statement worked in reverse too, and was somewhat inescapable.

I hadn't thought until recently about the way our ethics are enacted in our bodies, but I think it's an amazing thing that they are. The same place that 'gut feelings' come from also gives us information about what behavior is appropriate and what is selfish, what is loving and what is, well, wrong. I can still choose to ignore it, but that place of information exists. The ethics we're taught intellectually like 'Do unto others...' actually has a physical place in us as well.

As we familiarize ourselves with our body's language, we can feel when we're in the presence of a 'wrong' step. What are your cues? Do you feel sick to your stomach? Light-headed? Does your heart start to race? Rather than ignoring or shoving aside our bodies' wisdom, it might make sense to listen to it. After awhile, repressed knowing tries to show itself in other ways if ignored. Is there any knowing you've sat on for too long that turned into other physical symptoms: illness, stress, a panic attack?

When was the last time you listened to your body's way of communicating to you about what's right and wrong? Can you recall a time when your body told you loud and clear that something was wrong? What did it feel like for you? What happens when you choose to listen?

It's the simplest of ethics, the ethics of the body. We can literally feel when what we're doing isn't right. Which means we didn't really get away with it. So we might as well listen and correct it in the first place. Our bodies can show us how.

The Embodied, Passionate Life

2011-11-15T18:57:00.001-08:00

We all know the feeling when we are totally jazzed about something, 'on fire' with a kind of purpose or passion that fills us up. We can feel it from our toes all the way to our fingertips. Sometimes it's hard to contain.

Our bodies tell us when something really matters to us, because they're more engaged in it. We actually feel it more fully: with heightened senses, energy, elevated heart rate, a change in our breathing.

Our bodies also tell us when the opposite is true, when we're dragging through our days, uninspired and sluggish. We can feel dragged down and exhausted even when we're not doing very much at all.

I wonder which of these two you feel more of the time in your body and in your life, because I think if we really listen, our bodies don't lie about how we really feel about what we're doing (or not doing). One wise client told me that a career coach she knew had said that she could tell what someone's true passion was by how much they moved their hands when they talked about it. More movement meant the person was more passionate about what they were talking about, less movement--not so much.

It may seem simple, but I think it's important to check in with our bodies to see how alive we really feel in the things we're doing in our lives. Why shouldn't we feel fully alive? And if we don't, what can we do about it?

Sometimes it's just a matter of shifting toward something we love, so that our lives feel more balanced and full. You can feel your energy shift when you start nurturing the parts of you that haven't been getting enough attention: taking a class in something that interests you, writing a blog, finding a group to meet with and discuss a favorite book or topic. When your energy rises, so does the way it feels to be in your body. And when things feels better and more alive in your body, you can bet it feels the same way to be in your life.

Finding out what your passion is can be as simple as checking in with your body. As you scan a list of activities, career options or even potential partners, watch to see how much heat, energy or excitement gets generated, even at the subtlest level, in your body. Notice for yourself when you talk about something how animated you get. On the other hand, also notice which things have you feeling like you're going through the motions instead.

Remember that feeling as a kid of jumping out of bed because you couldn't wait for the day to start? We've imposed so many rules and regulations on what our days are supposed to look like that we forget to check in with the delight and vitality available to us. Let some of your body's urges and impressions guide you more fully toward the things you love. You might have a novel in you waiting to be written in the hour before you go to bed; or a secret passion for baking cookies or following celebrity stories. Just pay attention to whether your passion adds to your energy or drains it. Then do more of the things that light you up.

Isn't that what life is all about?

Staying Connected Through the Cold of Winter

2011-11-08T20:30:00.000-08:00

It's almost winter, that time of year when cabin fever can set in. On the one hand, our bodies acknowledge it by moving into a kind of hibernation mode--becoming slower, craving heavier, warmer foods. We often fall into a pattern of slowness and stillness, spend more time inside. Rest, as we talked about last week, may bring us into contemplation and deeper thinking.

On the other hand, our bodies still crave and need activity. I think of running and sledding or having snowball fights outside as a kid, even in the fiercest of weather. Now that I'm in California, the seasons are more subtle and I can find myself going for a run or a hike in the middle of January, barring any rainstorms. But wherever you are, continuing to move your body through the winter months is essential not just for your physical health, but for your emotional health as well. Bound to inside, the body becomes restless, like a child. You might feel like it's crying out for an adventure, or just to unburden itself from the bundled clothing and into a stretch, a yoga class or run on a treadmill.

As much as we want to listen to the rhythms of our bodies, we also want to respect their need for activity and motion throughout the season of winter. If you could give your body a voice right now through your movement, what would it be? Would you go for a walk, even if it means wearing an extra layer, feeling like an intrepid traveler in the cooler air? Would you make time to go to that dance class you keep meaning to get to? The shift might even be as simple as stretching in front of the television instead of grabbing for the extra bag of potato chips.

It's too easy to get cut off from the body's needs in the vastness of winter. Much calls us to be inside and less active, but our bodies still want us to connect with them and use them. How can you be a steward to your body through the winter months, without cutting off into complete stagnation and hibernation?

If you need to, choose a buddy to remind you of your intention through this season. Take walks together or have a cup of tea followed by a stretch. If you have kids, let your kids' activity spill over into yours as they burst out into the excitement of a new snow or the chance to ice-skate. What would it take to join them?

Our minds crave the cave of winter, and our bodies certainly crave more rest and more substance. But they also don't want to be forgotten about, the connection to them lost under layers of clothing. I can remember growing up as a child in Maine feeling like the winter meant saying good-bye to the richness of my body's sensations until the warm sun of summer released them; when I finally started taking dance classes in a studio near my house, it was amazing to realize that no matter what the weather, there was a mirror, music and a wood floor waiting for me several times a week.

Make a commitment to stay connected to your body this winter, no matter where you live or what the weather. If it's snowing outside, ask your body what it would like to do to feel seen, stretched, experienced. When the sun comes back around next year, you'll both be ready to jump right in...

The Power of Rest

2011-11-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

Are you totally exhausted? Seriously. Do you think to yourself, 'I wonder how I'm getting through this day on so little sleep?' and then do it again, and again? I hear this complaint more and more among clients and friends--some who genuinely have insomnia or issues staying asleep; and some who just don't make enough time for sleep, getting up early with kids and then crashing after a long day of catching up on work.

Of course this isn't great for our bodies. More and more studies show us the value of sleep for our body's sense of rhythm, rejuvenation and overall health. And yet most of us are walking around like zombies, half-asleep, with a layer of exhaustion like a hanging fog in the horizon of our minds.

Our bodies know the difference between a good night's sleep and the sharp awakening that comes with an alarm clock too early in the morning or the kids knocking or dog barking outside your door after only five hours of sleep. Good sleep feels soft and warm, our bodies open like rising dough and greet the world with an innate sense of hope and lightness. Challenged sleep increases paranoia and literally makes us feel less stable. How many times have you bumped into things after a bad night's sleep, as if your internal balance is off?

Lack of sleep affects our internal regulation, our metabolism and our mental clarity. It affects mood, memory and visual acuity. And yet it's something, separated from our bodies and tuned into a fast-paced culture, we almost always prioritize last. Why is that? If we really valued how our bodies feel on a day-to-day basis, I wonder if we could do that. It seems that so many of us have a deep and longstanding call to rest, one that is constantly ignored for other priorities and needs.

I challenge you to value your rest as one of the most important gifts you can give this relationship you're building with your body. What if you created a different way of thinking about it for yourself, acknowledging it as essential rather than something you'll get if you can? How would that change your relationship to your body or your life?

I know, I know. You'll rattle off the list of things that tug on you, the impossibility of more time for sleep. So perhaps you challenge yourself to one good night's sleep a week. Or maybe one morning a week (and you might have to trade off kid duty with a partner to do this) when you get to sleep in an extra hour or so, or have the privilege of not getting up to kids or an alarm clock. Even one day reminds the body of who it is, and gives you you access to your body's true functioning, its greatest gifts (and your own).

Rest is also found in moments--a choice to step away from the computer and stare outside the window; or sit with a book; or listen to music. Sometimes with stressed clients I will actually assign a block of 'rest,' to be put in their appointment book like anything else. One hour of stare at the ceiling, let your thoughts wander, nowhere to be, nothing to do time. If getting more sleep seems daunting, try giving yourself a restful moment and watch how your body responds. You'll get better over time at knowing when you need them, your mind over-full and overwhelmed. Rest restores us to sanity.

We are moving into the season of stillness and cold, when the flowering of trees shifts to bare branches and stiff ground. Listen to how rest might be a natural part of this, calling you to rejuvenate your senses, deepen your awareness of self and soften your body into a trust and reliance on your ability to make time for what it needs. Listen to the body's rhythms--even if your mind calls it inefficiency--how it calls you away from the phone calls and toward the cup of tea, the open mind, the silence.

Getting Off the Diet Bandwagon

2011-10-25T18:03:00.001-07:00

I have several friends who are always trying out the latest fad diet. I can count on them to give me a report on their progress--wildly enthusiastic at first, and then, eventually, disappointed and mute. What happens?

My usual response is to support anyone's effort toward positive change, but I realized recently that I might do more for my friends. I can begin to ask them what it is they really want, and how they imagine they'd feel when they get to the other side of this 'new' diet. What is it that they believe being thinner will give them, and how can they have more of that quality in their lives now?

Diets usually don't work because they require unrealistic deprivation and result in an eventual explosion of acting out behavior and sabotage. But thinking about what it is we imagine it will feel like to live in the body we most want is creative thinking. It means we have to fantasize and feel in our bodymind where we're going; we have to connect physically to the goal and not just abstractly, with our mind alone.

Unfortunately, so many of us have lost touch with that. The drive to be 'thinner' has become a goal so ingrained in our culture that it's not always even associated with things like feeling better, healthier, more connected to our bodies. If it's just another mechanistic goal, something to check off a checklist, it lacks the passion and aliveness we need to have to feel really connected to it. Our bodies have become mute objects to be silenced as we subject them to diets, rather than being encouraged to be participants and have an actual voice in the process.

Intuitively, we know what feels good to our bodies. And we can begin, if we're willing to listen, to use that sense to guide us to better health and choices. When I'm willing to ask a friend how it would feel to accomplish whatever weight goal they want, I look for real physical, visceral descriptions like 'I'll feel lighter,' 'I'll feel freer and more able to move,' or 'I'll have more energy.' When I hear things like, 'I want to fit into my old pants,' or 'I don't know, I just want to be thinner,' I worry more that the external goal hasn't been connected yet with the body's possibility.

If you're thinking about going on yet another diet, consult with your body and see if it is excited about what lies ahead. Does the diet feel like a plan that supports you both in developing a more intuitive, connected relationship, or does it require you to ignore your body's needs and force it to jump through hoops? Are you looking at weight loss as a task to accomplish, or have you really connected to it as something you and your body both want, something that will bring you greater health and aliveness?

It's not that I think diets are always wrong, but it's too easy to jump on the diet bandwagon for the wrong reasons, without connecting with the wisdom of our bodies. After too many fad diets, you can lose your ability to sense basic signals your body tries to send: are you hungry? What would feel good to eat right now? Cycles of mistrust begin to develop that don't ever bring you closer to your real body, no matter how much weight you lose.

Encourage yourself and your friends to think about what it will feel like when you lose the weight you want, not just what it will look like, and make sure that the way you're getting there includes your body's voice. Have fun, move with a vision you and your body can both get onboard with, one that still allows sensuality, play and flavor. On the most basic level, our bodies already know what they need to be healthy. But in our fad diet culture, are we taking the time to listen?

After Sexual Violation: Getting A Healthy Body Relationship Back

2011-10-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

One issue I haven't talked about much here, but which I see all the time in my practice, is the connection between sexual abuse and body issues. There are so many feelings that go along with having our boundaries violated sexually: shame, self-blame, helplessness. When we take on too much responsibility for someone else's physical transgression, even if it's a kiss, a gesture or a comment, our body relationship also suffers. It might be hard to stay in the body with feelings of attraction or sensuality because they now feel risky or unsafe.

Sometimes reconnecting to the body means forgiving what has happened in the past and moving forward together. I'll often ask survivors of sexual abuse in my practice if they are still harboring any feelings of blame or guilt for something that was out of their control. Then I ask if those feelings are being lodged somewhere in the body relationship, consciously or unconsciously, by shutting down or off to vital parts of themselves, their sensations and their desires.

The responses to surviving sexual abuse are as varied as people are: some survivors become very protective of their sexuality, wearing bulky clothes or putting on weight to discourage sexual attention, burying themselves in food or numbness. Others become hypersexual, actively engaging in sexual activity that doesn't always feel good, as if they have to redo what happened to them. Self-care and boundaries can go out the window.

The body feels the consequences of both of these responses, and from a relationship perspective it is impacted by our growing distance. As if waiting to regain some hidden or lost part of ourselves, our body wants to reconnect to safe sensuality, to feeling good, vital and alive. Once we begin to look at our bodies as half of a necessary and constant relationship, we have to become responsible for our part in shutting down and turning away from all that our bodies offer us. How do we reclaim that?

One way is to begin to make your new intention known. If you've hidden or not taken care of yourself or your body as the result of a sexual boundary violation, let your body know you're sorry and you want to do it differently. Write a letter or meditate with your body on a new intention or a new way of being you'd like to create. Also, consider the person or people who violated your boundaries and write them a letter, saying that you and your body no longer take responsibility for what happened and are now choosing to be free from that person's tyranny and carelessness.

Watch how it feels to make a new commitment to your body as a survivor, one who gets to live fully in her body rather than abandoning it or numbing it. As you make this commitment, you may feel a rush of feelings--from sadness to relief to anger. Give yourself the time and the space to get the additional support you need. It's never too late to heal.

It may also be helpful to write new affirmations for the body relationship and life you want and see if any resistances come up as you do so. Can you affirm that you deserve to be happy sexually, fully connected to your body? Can you affirm that you are safe and know how to care for youself and your body, from this moment forward? If you notice a lot of emotional baggage standing in the way, contact a caring professional who can take you through this piece and out the other side.

I affirm for you that your body relationship can be something of joy, wonder and sensuality, something that opens you up to the world rather than making you run from it. Ask yourself which one you're doing with your body, and if you're taking responsibility for someone else's mistake, something that doesn't belong to you. The ultimate in our healing journey is taking back the fullness of feeling we had before we were ever violated, now with greater consciousness, compassion and love. Your body is waiting for you with open arms.

The Seasons of the Body

2011-10-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

The blahs this week. Darker skies at night and I am tired in my bones, even with enough sleep. My body is tired and restless at the same time, in anticipation of some shift of the seasons.

I resist its knowing: the way it would feel to crawl into bed early with a book, to feel my tiredness held and soothed. Instead, I push with the activity of a summer that is leaving; it will be replaced by decaying autumn. Eventually I succumb.

Our bodies know the seasons and live them; I feel mine slowing down, looking around, wanting more contemplation, stillness and rest. My body is a part of the natural world, knows its way through the rhythms and ebbs of energy, of light and dark.

How does the season of the fall live in our bodies, take us as physical selves into the point of passage from one stage to the next? Fall is harvest too: the reaping of lessons, the gathering of what we've sown. Our arms can be open to receive.

My body is pliant, soft and open and tired, restful, vulnerable.

What does your body right now teach you about the season of fall? What wisdom of the seasons does it bring to you to contemplate or to live, slowing down for long enough to let it in?

The Spirituality of the Body

2011-10-04T12:04:00.001-07:00

How do you know when you are in the presence of something greater than yourself--something holy, divine, inspiring? Religious philosophers have called it the 'numinous,' the 'mystery.' Its presence can feel like a moment of clarity or calm or like a flush of heat, a quickening of the pulse. Mystics have been deeply stilled by it or pulled into spasms of energy or chanting. Whatever it is, it is a powerful place when we feel it.

But this is my point exactly: we feel it. As physical beings, even the holy moves through us in grounded and physical ways that we experience in our bodies. A feeling of bliss can still be catalogued as a change in our breath, a sense of lightness, an expansion in the chest.

So often we have separated the spiritual from the physical, believing they exist in two separate realms. But actually, they are necessarily intertwined, just as they are in us as human beings. When a spiritual or mystical experience of the divine comes to us, it also must move through the nuances and languages of the body.

I think the two worlds are becoming more connected--spirituality and the body--in terms of how we conceive of and articulate what it means to live a spiritual life. Today, practices like mindfulness and yoga that seek to understand and listen to the wisdom of the body are gaining in popularity. Even centering prayer, out of the Catholic tradition, borrows much of its technique from meditation practices involving the breath and the following of sensation. It may be that our body, separated for so long from the world of spirituality, is in fact our greatest guide into it.

Often I will ask clients to trace their feelings or discomfort inward toward the body, particularly when an issue is coming up strongly or feeling unresolved for them. As we move into those depths of sensation--a tightness here or a feeling of energy there--feelings and awarenesses get accessed. 'What do you feel when you stay with that constriction in your chest?' I might ask. And out of that might come a fear or anxiety the client had been unaware of in their conscious life, the knowing of which releases her to look at it and heal it so it no longer stands in her way.

If we could learn to look at the pains, sensations and constrictions in our body as spiritual teachers, we might hold our relationship to our body in a totally different light. Instead of trying to escape unwanted body sensations or issues or tame them in order to 'get to' our spiritual work, we might instead see our bodies as the very place where that deep spiritual work can happen. What would change in your relationship with your body if you trusted that listening to its language might bring some of your truest learning and surrender?

Too often we see the issues with our bodies--whether its weight, pain or injury--as inconveniences to be subdued and erased. But this other way of thinking about the body asks us to assume they have a lesson for us, something kind and knowing that's trying to be said. We might ask: what spiritual lesson does this issue with my body force me to face? What might I have to learn about myself if I chose to listen and surrender rather than resisting it?

Just this day, try on this way of thinking and ask if there's anything going on with your body that calls you into a spiritual lesson or practice. Chronic pain, for example, can be one of the greatest teachers of how to live in the present moment; there may be no other way through it. Overweight may move us to making choices around self-care or even to sitting with the pain caused by our attachment to the thoughts and opinions of others. What is your lesson?

Once you sense it, see how it would feel in your body if that issue were cleared away and get a sense of walking in your body in that new feeling. Thank it for giving you the message about what needed to be changed within and ask it if it might join you in releasing the lesson and moving into a new future. Our bodies are willing partners in our transformation; its as if they too are waiting for us to discover it in order to open them more fully to life.

Finding Peace Through the Body

2011-09-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

How does it feel in your body when you are open, surrendered, relaxed? How do you know you're in that state? What's your breathing like? Your posture? The feeling around your head, neck, shoulders? Your vision?

The reason why I ask is I'm starting to think more and more about the choice we have over how we walk in the world day-to-day. Do we want to be stressed out, tight and reactive; or would we prefer kindness, openness and breath? We mostly don't think we have a choice. When we're reactive, we believe our thoughts are real, and they--consequently--create our physical state. We're angry at someone and our body becomes congested by shallow breathing, tightness and a low-level of pain. Or we're stressed about something at work and our thinking sends messages to our body that there's never enough time, we'll never get it done. Our bodies take in the energy of the thoughts and go into 'fight or flight' mode, ramping up for battle.

But the truth is, we can flip this scenario by focusing on the body first. Anytime we want, we can check in to see how it feels to be in our bodies. Right now: do I feel relaxed, open and content? If the answer is no, we can ask: what would it take for me to change that state in my body to the one I'd rather be in? Leave the mind out of it, ask it to step inside, and make a choice on the body level for a kinder state of being. Begin to create the reality you want through breath, posture, perhaps a stretch.

If it's hard to get there right away, use a memory of when you feel relaxed and open. Maybe it's an image of you lying in the sun, getting a massage, taking a nap with a pet. If you catalog the series of sensations connected to that feeling of relaxation, you can begin to recreate them by going there with your mind and body the next time you're stressed. What's it like when your body feels relieved, relaxed, unbound? Again: what is your breath like, the feeling in your chest, a sense of lightness, an openness?

Now come back to the present moment, take a deep breath and build that state again through your body. Feel the breath the way it feels there, then the expansion through the chest. Take a few breaths. Now bring in other senses: the melting feeling of being in the sun or the surrendered softness of being touched. Watch what happens as your body goes into this remembered state. After a few breaths here, notice if the situation you'd created as stressful in your mind has the same impact.

Our bodies remember, and they tell us--by being keepers of sensation--when we're stressed or out of alignment with how we want to feel. But they can also be the doorways for how we get back. To allow them to be that, we just need to be willing to disengage from believing in the story about what's stressing us out and create and experience peace and openness through our bodies now instead. It just takes practice.

If it helps, find a word that you can say that brings you back to that relaxed and peaceful state and series of sensations you imagined earlier. It might be 'peace' or 'contentment' or 'love.' Say it to yourself when you visualize that moment of relaxation, and then practice saying it throughout the day and repeatedly calling up the state you associate with the word. What's your breathing like? Your level of openness? The sense of relief in your body? See if you can feel that state getting more easily accessible as you practice saying the word.

The power of this remembering is to see that we have more of a choice over the state we're living in than we think, all the time. Through the simple physical cues of the body we can practice and recreate what we most want to be feeling in our lives, or notice when we're in some other state and change it.

I encourage you to stay open to the possibility that you have more of a choice over the state you're living in than you think. Practice some of these awarenesses with your body. Then watch your life change on the outside to meet the kinder, more peaceful state of being you've learned to create from the inside out. Thank-you body!

Getting Rid of the Skeletons in the Closet: Other People's Voices About Your Body

2011-09-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

Do you remember what kinds of things other people said about your body when you were younger? Ways they treated you that made you feel bad about your body? One step of the process I do with clients to reconnect them with their bodies is to do an inventory of the beliefs they took on about their body over the years. Like a couple reviewing the history of their relationship, we look at how you got to a place of negatively relating to your body. What happened in the past that brought you here?

One of the ways we take on beliefs about our bodies is through actual physical experiences: illnesses or injuries that make us feel like we're not sure we can trust our physical selves. But another way we can take on beliefs is through the way our body is treated or talked about by others. It's important to also take a look at the impact of those forces, because we may want to undo the beliefs we once took on--especially now, as we want a better relationship with our bodies moving into the future.

Looking back on the messages we got about our bodies, it's not hard to see where we may have abandoned a loving relationship with our bodies for someone else's criticism or judgment. One client I worked with was constantly 'scanned' by her mother and analyzed for how much she weighed. It was easy for her to lose a deeper connection with her body because it was always being examined from the outside, and her worth was associated with it. The belief she took on was something like, "My body is only worth something to me if it pleases my mother."

Another client lived through constant sexual harrassment by a stepfather who made lewd comments about her appearance and her attractiveness to boys--something she grew to be both desirous and afraid of. Her stepfather's voice made her feel that her body was something she couldn't control, that brought her unwanted attention. The belief she took on was something like, "I can't trust or control my body and the attention it brings; it's forcing me to experience things I don't want."

I urge many of my clients--and you too--to look closely at the actual beliefs you may have taken on about your body as a result of the observations and actions of others. Then ask yourself if you still want those beliefs. Sometimes we need to literally review our history in order to mine out the moments and patterns that created what are now beliefs we don't question. But we can begin to question them, to apologize for taking them on, and even to undo them.

One powerful exercise can be to write a letter now, from the desire to have a better relationship with your body, to anyone who treated or spoke about your body in a way that demeaned it, belittled it, or caused you to take on a negative belief about it. In that letter, you can say that you no longer accept (if you ever did) their behavior or their truth about your body and that you are now forging your own way with a body relationship that includes trust, respect and compassion.

Tell this person or group of people that you are learning to love your body no matter what, and that they no longer get to be right about how to treat or think about your own body. Sign the letter and date it, and make a note to yourself that from this moment on you're no longer living with other people's baggage about the way you relate to your body.

It's amazing how powerful this can be. You begin to realize that ultimately no one has the final word on your body and how it feels to be in it. And you begin to recognize and let go of the beliefs that may have accumulated over the years that take you out of a better relationship with your body. Realizing they never belonged to you and choosing to no longer carry them around makes you and your body both breathe a sigh of relief.

Take the skeletons out of the closet. Tell them you no longer need them.

Then when you're done with that letter, look at those old beliefs you may have taken on from others and see if you might reword them into new and beautiful ones, ones that make you and your body sing with delight and a deeper place of peace and self-love. It's your choice now, and no one else's.

The Body As A Bodyguard to Intimacy

2011-09-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to get close to someone and then realized that your body won't let you do it? You get a weird feeling, feel sick or shut down. You like everything you see and hear but your body doesn't go there with you. Something else is calling you away from the person in front of you.

Of course, for the most part it's good to listen to these instincts. When we learn to listen, our bodies can show us truths we might not want to hear with our conscious mind. But what if your body is simply defending itself based on old patterns and beliefs? What if the body is putting up its defenses and you don't need or want it to anymore?

This often happens when we've been through past traumatic events or if something makes it hard for us to get close to people. A client recently admitted that although consciously he says he's thrilled to be in relationship with his current partner, his body's repeated inability to sustain an erection seems to be saying something else. As we move into exploring the body's message for him, we realize that his past history--and a particularly damaging and abusive former relationship--means part of him may feel he needs protection every time he lets his guard down. As he begins to open up emotionally, his body has put up a different kind of road block for him.

From the standpoint of the body relationship, what do we do if our conscious mind and our body don't seem to be on the same page? We get curious. As Joe and I work with his experience, we realize that he needs to let his body know somehow that it's safe for him to be vulnerable and aroused; that he's now capable of taking care of himself emotionally and that he chooses to be present and open in his current relationship, even if that openness was unwarranted in the past.

I suggest that perhaps Joe write a letter to his body, letting it know how he feels and that it's okay to take away the sexual obstacles to intimacy. (Of course I also suggest that Joe get a medical check-up to see if there's anything else going on!) He's mature enough to handle what's happening and he appreciates the body's attempts to keep him safe by avoiding sexual intimacy. I then suggest that Joe let his body know how he'd like to be experiencing sex and create a vision of himself being able to have sex with his partner and enjoy it, fully embracing both the power and vulnerability of that act, giving his body a map of what he'd prefer to be experiencing instead.

The same process is important for any disconnect we go through with our bodies, but I think it's particularly poignant with sexual issues. Our body is the boundary with which we meet the world, and it is possible for it to react to protect us if it doesn't know it's okay not to. Even if we think we're 'over' something and ready to handle the intensity of sexual intimacy, our body may be holding on, not believing us, thinking it needs to take charge.

Ask yourself if this is true for you anywhere in your sexual experience. Are there places where your body holds back that you might let it know that it's okay to trust instead? On the other hand, are there any truths your body is trying to tell you that you ignore, but that keep showing up in sexual side effects or shut down? What would happen if you listened instead and tried to discern what's being said?

I'm always amazed at how little most of us use our body as a resource or move through physical challenges without dialogue. If you are struggling with blocks in your body around sexual intimacy, ask yourself if there's anything your body might need to know from you in order to let down its guard. How could you kindly thank it for doing what it thought it needed to do and let it know it can stop and move toward greater openness and receptivity?

When Your Body Tells You Something You Don't Want To Hear...

2011-09-06T20:32:00.001-07:00

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend, the final hurrah of the summer. I returned to my family's home in Maine for lobster, blueberry cobbler and the occasional cocktail. There's also homemade ice-cream and cannisters of nuts, chocolate and cookies. My husband, a former bartender, whips up fresh summer drinks with lime, mint and rum. It's the ultimate opportunity for indulgence. The only problem is, indulgence isn't fun like it used to be.

You know what I mean. Come on, you do. Even if you think you don't. Indulgence feels like a headache the next day. Or a sense of something happening in my stomach that doesn't quite feel right. More important these days, indulgence can feel like I ignored a deep part of myself, and I'm sadly realizing I don't actually find that enjoyable.

This epiphany is showing up the most in my use of alcohol, which I've never particularly overdone, but which often accompanies a good meal or a piece of chocolate. Lately, alcohol just makes me feel sick. And I mean actually dizzy, with a headache and the sense that I just need to lie down.

I want to ignore it. I want to say, 'just forget about it, have fun!' and yet I think my definition of fun is changing. My body must be changing. And now, in the moment, alcohol is no longer appealing--no matter how much my mind wants it to be, or my emotions want it to be a social lubricant at the party my parents bring me and my husband to. I just have to listen, say no, and respect what my body is saying.

But it gets me thinking about the crossroads we're faced with when our body is telling us something we don't want to hear: a negative reaction to a food we love, a sense of tiredness when we want to push to get the best workout for the week, even a gut feeling that a relationship isn't right when we want to convince ourselves someone is perfect for us. It's like any relationship when a partner's truth is inconvenient, not what we wanted to hear, interferes with our agenda, our own perfect plan.

What I have come to realize in most of my other relationships, however, is that when that inconvenient truth is spoken (and I can actually hear it) there is almost always something very important, some gift gleaned, by actually listening and finding middle ground. That kind of humility and openness to my partner's needs aren't just good because they make my partner want to stay. They're also good because my partner's thoughts and feelings--even if I don't think I want to hear them--almost always have something to teach me. They help me to grow.

The same is true of our bodies. And yet, mute partners that they are, unable to threaten us with divorce, they often do get ignored when they tell us something we don't want to hear: when they give us a symptom we wish weren't there, a reaction to something we'd like not to have. Things usually have to reach a fever pitch--legitimate overweight or some kind of health crisis--before we listen.

Lately--as I have come to feel in most of my relationships--I'm wanting to choose the kindness of being in a listening, compassionate relationship more than I want my way. Even though it's annoying and inconvenient, I think I'd rather not have that wine if it's going to give me a headache or eat the homemade ice-cream if it's going to make my digestion feel stuck.

I used to think this was boring; maybe I used to think it was too much like my body controlled me and I wanted my freedom. But these days I think I'm beginning to see that within a loving connection to my body is a kind of freedom and peace that exceeds the wild whims of junk food and alcohol. Not unlike a swinging single finally committing to a relationship that matters, I'm truly seeing that playing a field of choices that might harm my body is not as much 'fun' as moment-to-moment listening, awareness and attunement to my body and my life.

Call me crazy. But I urge you to think about how you respond when your body sends you a message you don't want to hear about something you'd rather keep doing, ignoring the body's voice. Then take yourself through to how you'll actually feel when it's all over. Will you still be glad you made that choice?

Think of it as body maturity, body commitment: finally settling down into this relationship you'll have for the rest of your life. What if you let yourself fall into it, belong to it and partner with it? How much more time would you spend experiencing your body rather than resisting it? What will you do the next time your body tells you something you don't want to hear?

How to End Binge Eating? Stay Connected.

2011-08-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

Do you struggle with emotional or binge-eating? Do you find yourself eating because you're lonely, sad, bored? We've spoken in previous blogs about how to begin to tell the difference between those feelings and hunger in your body. But what if you can tell the difference and you still can't stop? Knowing that we're overeating can be humbling and humiliating, and--like other self-destructive patterns--leads to feelings of shame followed by a stalwart promise to never do it again. Over and over, we set ourselves up for failure.

Using the relationship that you have with your body, I propose a different way. It came out of working with a client who had struggled with binge-eating for years. Despite her relatively normal weight, she found that she continued to act out with food and then beat herself up afterwards: 'Why did I do that? I have to stop. I won't do it again...'

Because she had begun to understand that her body was something she was in a relationship with and not just a mute object to be controlled, we started to get curious about what was happening in her relationship to her body every time she binged. The pattern that emerged was similar to what can happen in any of our relationships when tough issues came up, or when we do something we aren't proud of, let someone down. Reflexively, we can move to denial or shut down. We don't want to share, talk about what we did wrong. Or we feel so guilty that even if we do share, we can't forgive ourselves. She was doing this with her body every time she binged.

But this client had a different experience in her own personal relationships. She found that the best solution when she messed up with her partner was to just fess up, be honest and stay connected. She also found that if she could bring a little humor to the honesty, that helped too, "Boy, I did it again didn't I? I'm sorry, I don't even know how that happens sometimes. Thanks for hanging in there with me..." Her partner was often far more sympathetic to this approach and they often got through the situation and came up with a situation that worked for both of them, rather than staying mired in animosity.

We came to realize that there was a similar and important tactic to use with her own body after a binge. Rather than beating herself up, feeling guilty and separating from her body's sensations, we got curious about what would happen if she treated her body much like she did her partner: staying honest, owning what just happened and wondering how they might get through it differently the next time.

She could feel in her body the difference between the guilty rigidity and judgment she usually slipped into after a binge and the possibility of this feeling of connection and humor instead. She was literally redoing her relationship with her body and herself. And guess what happens when we do that? We break the cycle of 'having to be better' the next time and then failing. We choose the love and forgiveness right now, and cop to what's happened. And the healing connection with our own body eventually becomes more powerful than whatever it was we were seeking in the drama of guilt and purgatory we created with the food.

I urge you to try this the next time you emotionally eat, at any point that you notice--whether it's before, during or after. Instead of shutting down, stay connected. Ask your body how it feels about what you're doing, admit that sometimes it's hard for you to stop. But stay honest, loving and real about what's going on. Notice if your body responds differently, with less fear and stiffness. And notice if you break your own cycle of shame.

Once we own our bodies as something we're in relationship with, an entirely different relationship to our behaviors is possible. We might find that we actually want and need to be accountable, and that feeling connected feels better and kinder than perceiving ourselves or our bodies as 'right' or 'wrong.' We begin to choose love over judgment or loathing. And love has a tremendous capacity to heal, even those things we thought we'd be stuck in forever.

Watch yourself grab for those cookies, let yourself pick up that carton of ice-cream. But stay in relationship. Ask your body how it's doing. Admit that this is hard for you. Over time, the realization that you're in this together and that you're doing the best you can will start to work surprising miracles. Your behavior will start to change not because it's good or bad but because love and acceptance are easier and more present, because they feel better. And so will taking care of yourself when the hundreds of options other than food begin to present themselves to you, like weeds growing out of fertile ground.

Is Eating the Same as Taking a Break?

2011-08-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Each month I'm an emotional wellness expert on 'Your Caregiving Journey,' an online radio show devoted to caregivers. This month: the link between taking care of others and NOT taking care of ourselves. So often, we use food to give us the 'break' we really need, because eating makes us feel like we're 'doing' something. Really, though, our souls may be yearning for lots of other outlets--including the ability to sit and do absolutely nothing, stare into space, take a bath.

So how do we stay in touch with those possibilities? One of the ways we explored on the show is to make a list of 20 or 30 things you'd love to do to relax or nurture yourself--include staring into space, calling a friend, putting on music, reading, drawing, going for a walk--and put it on the refrigerator or on your cupboard. The next time you reach for food and this list stares you in the face, ask yourself whether or not one of the other things on your list would meet your deepest need more kindly.

We also talked about continuing to pay attention to the body's signals and language as a way of understanding what you need, similar to the blog of a few weeks ago on Body Language. Do you know the difference in your body between sadness and hunger? How would you describe each physically in your body? Paying attention to these differences can make you more aware of why you're eating and the difference between emotional and truly physical hunger.

I could go on, but it might be more fun to just listen to the interview yourself! So here's the link:

http://www.caregiving.com/2011/08/im-enough-so-ive-had-enough-of-the-doritos/comment-page-1/

And for those of you who don't know, 'Anna Stookey's Befriend Your Body' page is newly up on Facebook. I'll be posting thoughts a few times a week on the bodymind relationship and include inspirations from other friends and followers... Check it out!

My warmest thoughts for a healing end of the summer--

Taking time to take care of yourself even as you care for others...

The Limboland of Illness

2011-08-16T18:53:00.001-07:00

I'm back from a whirlwind tour of my hometown in Maine. All the way from the coast of California, my husband and I got ourselves to a little town in the middle of the state and--with my sisters, their husbands, my three nephews and my parents--squeezed in a day at Acadia National Park, a lobster dinner, a cocktail party and a million other things. I came back to a full schedule of clients, including all day at a women's retreat.

This morning I woke up with a headache that hasn't gone away.

It's not completely debilitating--I've seen clients, shuffled some papers around. But I find myself walking in circles, not completing thoughts or tasks. I am not quite tired enough to sleep and not quite with-it enough to be operating at my usual frenetic pace. As a result, I have spent most of the day, literally, staring into space, flipping through a magazine, listening to the sound of birds. I have no idea where the day has gone, in fact. But I wonder if this isn't the point.

My body is up to something. Its pain calls me into the wilds of Limboland, a place that is neither here nor there, where I respond differently to everything around me. I can't even make to-do lists in my mind if I want to. I have surrendered, succumbed. I have to give in.

I remember how strange this feeling was in childhood--when a perfectly fine day would suddenly yield itself to a woozy feeling, chicken soup in bed and constant sleep. It surprised me, and it felt like an altered state, something bewildering and powerful, to which I gave myself completely. A day or two later I was back in action.

It's more of a battle as an adult. I like neat lines, agendas, moving forward. The limboland of illness is something I fight, want to get out of. As I sat with my head pounding today I realized how little I ever just stare into space, doing nothing. I realized how rarely my time is vast and open with no activity in it but just being. I'm talking about sitting, like a blob on the bed, watching the world around me through the slow-motion filter of non-doing.

Almost never. Which must be the function now of illness for us. Our body calls us into an altered state, a place of other-soul work, a moment removed from the functioning of life. It's a kind of initiation, though we could never fully put it into words, when we fall into it. And things feel strange and dizzying until they don't anymore. And that state can last a moment or years, depending on our symptoms and our health.

I often ask clients with chronic pain or illness to go more fully into what they're experiencing, become curious about it, dialogue with it rather than resisting. But the resistance is ingrained in us, the desire to move forward heroically without slowing down. We learn surrender from illness and the sense it ultimately gives us of something greater than ourselves running the show.

So I am in slow motion today, but--let's be honest--I probably deeply need to be. My whole being is integrating a week full of experiences and travel that went by at lightening speed. Stop, my body says. Please don't do anymore. Let's just be, like a cat in the sun or an open boat on the flat water. Let's just be and soak in all that is.

If this is what my headache has to teach me, I'm trying to listen.

Illness is like a funny guru, coming to call us into deeper places in ourselves.

Sometimes we forget how to get to that stillness, that netherland, on our own.

Our bodies remember. Our bodies, whether we like it or not, take us there until we find it.

Stepping Back Into the Body

2011-08-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

"I don't want to go in there..." is how he said it tearfully when I suggested Adam take a moment and feel what was actually going on in his body. Middle-aged and overweight, he was now struggling with a flood of negative thoughts about his body that kept him from his life. Like many of us, he'd developed a habit of judging and criticizing his body that kept him locked out of it. He was genuinely afraid of what he'd find.

Sometimes that first step back into the body is a tearful one, full of thoughts and feelings held in reserve like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for our consciousness to wake them. We can all think of moments when we slowed down enough to let ourselves catch up with the vastness of our lives, step out of the reign of the mind or of logic, to feel what's happening right now in this moment. We may be aware of things we thought we'd left far behind.

I love this quote from Oriah Mountain Dreamer, the great poet and writer who wrote The Invitation. She was going through a move--something she wanted to do efficiently, without slowing down, so she wouldn't have to feel it. But living in her were an array of feelings--grief and sadness around the change--that her body called her to be with:

"The minute I bring my full attention to this moment, letting go of mentally keeping track of what has happened or needs to happen next, I become aware of my body. I feel my breath and the stiffness in my back and remember that I have not done my yoga yet this morning. I let my shoulders drop. I am aware of my tiredness and fear that it won't all get done or I will get sick getting it done or I'll forget something critical. And if I stay present with these feelings, letting my hands pause as they pack a box or move over the keyboard and just take three deep breaths, I am aware of another feeling that I do not want to touch, a feeling of something welling up inside me that I have been keeping at bay for weeks.

"Herein lies the answer to my question Why is it so difficult for us to bring our full attention to the present moment, to be here now? Because there are aspects of reality we do not want to accept, that we cannot avoid being with if we are present." (Oriah Mountain Dreamer in The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here)

To be still with the body is to allow ourselves to be right where we are, and to say that we are willing to hear what is there. What we have to sit with may be years of abusing and ignoring our bodies. It may be old traumas or losses. Or it may simply be the quiet joy of being present, feeling the energy and aliveness that's there, waiting for us, like an eager and open child.

Today I invite you into the present moment with your body, just this moment. Take a moment to feel what's going on in there, to notice the sensations and feelings that emerge when you slow down and step back in. How far away have you felt from the immediacy of your body? As feelings emerge, stay present and compassionate and watch what happens. Like any uncharted road, the path becomes more comfortable with time, revisiting the tracks, marking what shows up with attention.

How long has it been? What happens if you just show up to explore the body's sensations and the feelings that emerge, without expectation or judgment? If the mind wanders, return to what is present now. What is the breathing like? Does your body feel heavy or light? Where is there feeling?

Sometimes the first step to befriending our bodies is simply being willing to step back in. Will you take that step today, even for a moment? What will your body reveal if you do?

Are you afraid of, or open to, that truth?

Take Your Body On A Honeymoon

2011-08-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

It's not every day, sadly, that we feel like we can really and truly listen to our bodies. Sure, we'd love to eat a lighter, healthier meal but instead we choose that thing we can microwave at work. And yeah, we'd love to get more sleep but we're burning the candle at both ends as it is and our kids, dog, or partner is going to wake us up before our body is really ready, long before eight hours of deep dreaming have soothed our senses.

I'm not letting anyone off the hook. But I know how it is. It doesn't do us much good to punish ourselves for this state of existence. The problem is when it becomes a permanent one. So permanent that before we realize it we have utterly, deeply forgotten how to check in with our bodies at all. How do we know when we're tired, hungry, ready for a breath of fresh air?

I want to suggest a kind of body get-away. Last week we wrote about the body relationship that's caught in a rut, that's gotten boring and stuck. This week I want you to consider what it would be like if you went on a bit of a body honeymoon. I mean it.

Maybe it's not possible every day, or even for one whole day. But I invite you to consider framing a chunk of time out of your weekend or taking a few hours away from the fray with one clear intention: to pay complete and undivided attention to your body and its needs. I'm talking total romance, the kind you get on a first date: gazing into your body's eyes and saying 'What do you need? I'm here. I want you.'

If you're tired, you let yourself sleep. Before you grab for whatever it is that's lying around the house, you ask yourself what your body actually wants to eat. And before you check out on the couch for the afternoon, maybe you ask your body if it feels like doing anything different.

For one day, one hour, one afternoon your body gets to rule your life. How often does it get this chance and how do you think it feels about being ignored day after day while you and your mind run the show? Can you give it one bit of time to be the center of your attention?

I'll tell you what happens when I do this. First, I realize how deeply, deeply tired I am. Most of us are running on fumes and if we stopped for half a second and asked our bodies what they wanted, really wanted, our eyes would probably roll back in our heads and we'd be out cold. So usually this kind of time means letting myself just plain get some sleep. Even if my mind thinks I'm being lazy or unproductive, if it has some other 'idea' of what I think I should be doing. My body rules. And boy does it choose sleep.

Then of course, after getting lots of sleep I start to realize how much of my random grabbing at food has been fueled by exhaustion or the need for distraction. When I'm getting enough rest and I'm actually being kind to my body, I'm a little less interested in potato chips. Seriously.

Your body feels different when it's being paid attention to, as do we all. If you romanced it for a day, let alone a weekend, and really listened to it moment-to-moment it might just surprise you. It might feel like more of a partner. It might hum in quiet bliss to the bottoms of your toes. You might be fighting it less and wanting to feel it more.

I dare you to try. Even for an hour or two. Where would your body guide you if you listened? And would you order room service or a bouquet of flowers?

The Seven Year Itch: Surviving the Boring Body Relationship

2011-07-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

Call it the Seven Year Itch. You've been with your body awhile, say decades. It doesn't always do everything you want and it may even, at times, have disappointed you with pain, illness or weight gain. That 'in love' feeling you may have had as a kid, the sense that you and your body were invincible and could do anything, may have shifted to a more ginger, tempered approach--one earned by years of body history, of learning that things can happen that leave a scar or a symptom. The truth is, we're not immortal. Much as we'd love our bodies not to change, buckle or age, they do. What do we do to keep the love alive?

It's the same crossroads we come to in relationships, if we're lucky enough to have them for that long. They go through cycles. Sometimes your partner is boring, disappointing and blah. Sometimes there's connection, beauty and grace. What is it the makes the difference? There seem to be a few key pointers for those relationships that survive, and I think they apply to the relationship we have with our bodies too.

1) Commitment - In our relationships, we can be with someone and still have one foot out the door, always looking to see if something better is going to come along. Ironically, we can do the same thing with our bodies, wanting to be someone else or escape from where we are with some magical, miracle cure, diet, etc. Our relationship to our bodies benefits greatly from our fully choosing to be present, without fear, to whatever is showing up. If we can see our bodies as great teachers (even if we don't always like the lesson while it's happening) we stay in the relationship in a different way, uniquely committed to it. The same is true when we honor any relationship. We actually want to listen to what our body has to say instead of judging it and wishing we were somewhere else.

2) Patience - The best relationships honor not just our strengths but our weaknesses, having some compassion for whatever's hard for us. Patience with your body and yourself means that slow and steady wins the race, that you have good days and bad days and that you're here for each other one day a time. Instead of being impatient because your body isn't giving the results you want--or you're not following through the way you thought you would on some new regimen of self-care--have patience that you're both moving toward a goal. The most important thing is the connection along the way. Impatience breeds contempt and a lack of respect, and makes you both miserable.

3) Fun - Don't forget to actually enjoy each other's company. When was the last time you did something that felt great for both of you, that connected you to each other? Sometimes that can be as simple as checking in, taking a breath, feeling what's actually going on in your body. Maybe it's also putting on some music and dancing around, going for a walk outside in the fresh air, stretching, getting a massage, taking a bath. We can be such stern task masters in relationship to our bodies that we forget we can also enjoy them and all the senses they provide us with.

Boredom, judgement and disappointment can plague all of our relationships. We all have the fantasies we'd like to escape to. But sometimes the escaping keeps us out of really creating the best relationship we can have in the here-and-now. What could you do right now, today or this week that would surprise and delight your body? How can you renew your commitment to it by taking some move toward it rather than away? Maybe the Seven Year Itch can become the Seven Year Hug.

Conversations With Your Body

2011-07-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

For those of you who've read Neale Donald Walsch's book Conversations With God, you know that he struggled with life challenges including homelessness, joblessness and depression before he finally threw up his hands and cried out to God. And to his surprise, God answered. The result was the Conversations With God series, which is Neale's ongoing conversation and questions to God, the answers he heard back.

I mention the book not just to plug it--though it's a fascinating read for anyone who hasn't thumbed through those pages--but because I wonder if we don't do a similar thing with our bodies. We rally against them, fight them, try to get them to do what we want, feel disappointed when they get sick or injured. But I don't know if we really believe that we could talk with them, interact with them, have a relationship with them.

What if we knew that our bodies were there to talk to, make requests of, interact with? What if, instead of resenting our bodies for not being the weight we want them to be, we assumed we could present them with our request and ask them how we might make it possible? What if we learned that we could partner with our bodies instead of just resenting them?

It's a radical shift, I know, not dissimilar from the one that found Neale Donald Walsch. But it seems like we spend so much time and energy acting as if our body is some inert thing we can't have a dialogue with, something we have to feed and clothe without ever getting to know it. What if we're wrong?

I encourage you, especially if you're struggling with your weight, to stop acting as if your body is a thing and start acting as if it's a partner, a living thing to talk to about what you want for it. What happens if you sit for a few minutes with your body and present a desire: 'I'd love to be about thirty pounds lighter...how do we do that?' Then see what happens. Do you get any messages back, any urges in your body that give you more information? I can promise you that you will. Then the question is, will you listen?

What if you let your body be involved in the process of creating change, showed it the vision you'd most like of your healthier, lighter self and asked how that might be possible? Imagine the possibilities when you stop spending your energy acting as if you can't have a relationship with the very thing you're wanting to transform!

Today, give yourself a few minutes to get quiet. Sit in meditation with your body and scan it for sensations, feelings. If you just listen to what's present, what do you find? Then create an openness to dialogue, making yourself available to speak what you most want and to listen to what the body has to say in return. Ask the question you most want to ask. Present what frustrates you the most about what's happening. Then see what you hear back. Is your body frustrated too? Are there changes it would like to see happen? What would it like you both to be doing that you aren't?

Each day, give yourself time to revisit the dialogue, and throughout the day begin to check in with your body, asking as you eat, move: do you want this? Do we want this? Does this align with the vision we're creating of how we want to feel and what we want to weigh?

When your body becomes something you're in a relationship with and not just an object to be fixed, there's a different level of accountability. It's harder to ignore. And it's there to work with you, even to experience the same frustrations you do. You can no longer blame it or separate from it; you're connected to it.

Spend a week being willing to begin the dialogue--the one you didn't think you could have. Don't be surprised if you begin to realize there have been whole conversations you've blocked out: insights and feelings the body had to share about how to get to your goal, but you were too busy blaming or judging it. Write down what you're learning. See how it feels to be in a different kind of relationship, to acknowledge that you're in a relationship at all.

Once you start, it's hard to go back. Like Neale's voice of God, your body will come out of its silence and show up in a way you may never have expected. Let it. Then see how you both can heal and transform, together.

The Power of Now

2011-07-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently confessed that she's been feeling very out of touch with her body. It's showing up in extra weight, in eating things when she's not really hungry, and in an increasing sense of awkwardness whenever she does anything physical. Sound familiar? The more time that goes by, the harder it is to check in with herself and the less she actually wants to be in her body. Like other relationships that grow distant, when we start to lose touch with our bodies, it's harder to reconnect the longer it goes on.

Why is that? You feel guilty or you've lost the path back. You think there's something you have to do in order to make it all better, some dramatic gesture like getting back into an exercise regimen or making a huge change to your diet. "If I could just start going back to yoga every day..." she lamented. Then every day she doesn't go back to yoga is another day she feels she's done something wrong.

What if we changed that paradigm and said it's not so much about what we do (though that's important too) as it is how we 'be' with our bodies? It hadn't even occurred to her that one way to start connecting with her body was just to communicate the desire to connect, to sit, and to begin to pay attention. We talked about what might happen if, instead of making a list of all the things she thought she needed to do to feel better in her body, she could just listen to it right now and hold an intention to reconnect. No big dramatic changes, no fireworks or Biggest Loser. Just a shift in perception and a willingness to hear.

If you've been feeling at odds with your body and want to reconnect but keep missing the mark, keep not 'doing' the things on your list that would make it all better (supposedly), ask yourself instead how you could 'be' right now in a way that would begin to give you a sense of the connection you really want.

Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and with awareness, begin to scan the body for sensations. Notice how the mind wants to get involved, distract, and just come back again to the body, exploring what's there. Notice if there are any feelings, sensations, messages. Notice if your body responds to you at all as you make space for it to be heard, seen and made important.

Sometimes this reset is the most profound for a relationship, not all of the 'things' we think we're supposed to do. One client I worked with had a long list of the classes, smoothies and breathing exercises she was doing to connect with her body and wondered why she still felt dead inside. Something in her wasn't letting in the simplest thing of all: an intention to just 'be' with her body, pay attention to it, be willing to go back inside it and see what's there.

Ask yourself if you might be willing to take one moment to reconnect, whether you get to yoga this week or not. If you're stressed out at work, see if you can take a deep breath, feel the sensations in your body and follow them instead of just wishing you had time to get to the gym. Reconnecting is really as simple as your next breath, your next thought. The more complicated we make it, the more we begin to believe that we'll never get there unless we're doing all the right things. Don't buy into that.

What could you do right now to reconnect, listen and open to your body again? How long will you wait to let yourself be exactly what you need, one moment at a time?

The Happiness Diet

2011-07-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a delightful vacation away--a few days of sun, swimming, and all the sleep I could stand. I was--and still am a bit--open, relaxed and contented. And I was surprised to discover while on vacation that my appetite was different. I didn't want sweets with the same desperate desire. I stopped eating when I was full.

Of course I'm always working with these awarenesses with clients around the body relationship and food, but I was struck by how easy it was. I wasn't needing to check in as much to see where my urges came from. I naturally gave myself what I wanted and stopped when I was done. Clearly, when I'm more relaxed and less stressed, I'm naturally more in touch with my body and less likely to use food as an escape. I have nothing to escape from!

The question is how to bring that awareness more and more to our daily lives. One of the questions I often like to ask clients is, 'If you were blissfully happy right now and you could feel your whole body infused with that light and openness, would you be eating what's in front of you?' If the answer is 'yes', then they're probably really and truly hungry. If it's 'no,' they're more likely to be using food to fill some other need that gets supplied when happiness floods their system.

What's true for you? The next time you go grabbing for something, practice filling your body with a sense of happiness and light, and then ask yourself if you still want the thing you're grabbing for. If you find that you don't, ask yourself what experience gets you closest to that happiness and light and go do it! Too often we've tricked ourselves into thinking that experience is food.

The advertisers don't help us: images of women with perfect lips floating away by eating a chocolate filled with caramel...the ooey, gooey images of that perfect candy bar or ice-cream. But inside, when we're truly happy and in touch with our real needs, sugar that makes us crash afterward isn't the first choice. We may want something very different, something that honors our ability to move and be more connected to the world.

It just takes discipline, a moment, to get connected to what we really want rather than what we've been sold as happiness, escape or bliss. Home from vacation, I'm watching my mind fabricate all kinds of escapes from insurance paperwork, catching up with client scheduling, the phone calls that need to be made. My urges toward sweets are also urges to time with myself, more sun, deeper breaths. How can I make those things more possible in my life right now, so that I don't need to 'escape' with food? What is it I really want?

It's another reason the body relationship is so important too. If we feel safe and connected, in good dialogue with our bodies, it's much easier to find this place than it is when we are judgmental, warring or trying to get away from our physical selves. Cultivating a good body relationship gives us a reference point, a place to check in about what we really want and be honest rather than running away or shutting down. Another way of asking the question above often comes up in body relationship work: 'If I felt really connected to my body and alive right now, would I want this (fill in the blank)?'

When our body relationship is off, we're more likely to act out with food or treat ourselves poorly because we're not consciously cultivating the possibility of feeling good in our bodies, listening to them and being honest with them. When you choose happiness and the possibility of peace instead of constant criticism or disgust in your body relationship, you're giving yourself a lot of the qualities of a vacation. Then you're able to make choices that feel better for both of you, rather than running away.

Body Language

2011-06-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

(picture featured on Tube555.blogspot.com)

Is it hard for you to listen to your body's cues as to whether or not it's hungry, tired or sad? For a lot of people, it may seem as if all of those things get mushed together and acted out through food--the one great solution. It's easy to do.

But too often we're eating when our hunger is for something else: we need soul stimulation, a sense of purpose; or we're exhausted from doing too much for others; or we're sad or lonely and want to mask our feelings with the sense of doing something. Learning the subtle difference between our body's hunger and our emotional hunger or fatigue takes courage and focus. It's part of how we become better partners to our bodies in the here and now, no matter how long we've ignored them.

We can begin to do it, but first we need to be open to the idea that we may not always translate our bodies' cues accurately. One exercise in my forthcoming book is to breakdown the physical cues in your body you get for a number of different thing. How does your body tell you, for example:

1) When you're actually hungry. There's probably a growling feeling in your stomach, a sense of weakness. You might get a slight headache.

2) When you're sad. It may feel like a kind of hunger, but pay closer attention. Do you feel choked up around your throat? Is there a sense of heaviness or anger in your chest? How is your breathing? Is it okay to feel what you feel?

3) When you're tired. Again, you may want to move toward food, but ask yourself how tiredness actually distinguishes itself in your body. Is there a slight ache in your legs or arms, a feeling of being heavy behind your eyelids? Do things feel overwhelming or is it hard to focus? Maybe you need a nap instead of a drink or a candy bar.

4) When you want to move. Sometimes we eat when what our bodies really want is to move. Do your legs feel restless? Is there a sense of pent-up energy wanting to be released? When we don't feel good about our bodies, we're more likely to ignore this one because we don't feel comfortable exercising or acting on it. But the simplest of activities can address this set of physical cues: putting on music and dancing around the living room, going for a walk, even getting outside where your body may feel some more breathing room.

Spend some time noticing the cues your body is actually giving you and see what it might be like to decipher them more specifically. Create a list like the one above and actually check with it the next time you open the cupboard or the refrigerator, especially if it's at the end of a long day. Ask what your body is really wanting right now.

Sometimes it helps to also give yourself a hunger scale, noticing if your hunger is really as urgent as you think. If a 5 is ravenous and in desperate need of food and a 0 is not really hungry, where is your body's hunger level really? Sometimes when we have to measure it this specifically, we may find that our body isn't hungry at all and it's our mind or emotions that want the food.

Like any partnership that's gone astray, we need to begin to really hear each other, making an effort to understand each other's language and signals. When you begin to do this, you help your body better communicate with you. It can feel, almost instantly, your effort to listen and a softening of the relationship can begin--one that initiates greater heart, kindness and mindfulness.

Declare a Truce

2011-06-21T13:40:00.001-07:00

(photo by Bernie Boston, 1967)

The title of my forthcoming book (out to publishers now) is The Truce: 10 Weeks to End the Weight Loss War and Discover a Body You Love. Today I wonder, what would it take for you to call a cease fire on the negativity you might be hurling at your own body? What if, instead of judgments and criticism, you tried firing appreciation, gratitude, respect? (I get an image of those pointed guns with flowers being put in them from the sixties...)

Just for today, practice putting down your guns, the old war. Begin to pay attention to the constant dialogue that's going on below the din of your daily life. When does the criticism of your body begin? How much is it with you during the day?

As you practice turning the volume up on your thoughts, see if you can also place that flower in your arsenal. Even if you don't mean it yet, see if you can take whatever negative thought you're having and turn it around. Instead of, 'Yuck, you're too flabby,' see if you can say, 'I so appreciate everything you do for me; I know we're working together to get to our perfect weight.' Instead of saying, 'You're so gross,' see if you can say, 'You're amazing.' You might only mean it 30% of the time (maybe 20%, maybe 10%), but you also might just notice that if you say it enough you come to believe it.

Declaring a truce means that for the day--and I mean the whole day--you don't let yourself do the usual barrage of analysis and criticism. You acknowledge, appreciate. You choose to see the glass as half full. Just today you choose love.

Hard as it may be, I want you to give yourself this experience because I want you to see how you feel at the end of it--and, especially, how your body feels. What's different when you have practiced seeing, feeling, appreciating it instead of rejecting and chastising it? Do you have more energy, vitality, a sense of ease? What's different about any relationship when we lay down our arms and become more willing, more open to see another's possibility?

If the difference is significant, make a note of it and consider whether you'd be willing to start an ongoing truce, one you'll negotiate through dialogue, listening and honesty with each other. What if you could end the war and experience a different kind of peace, a lasting kind of partnership? Would you do it?

The Final Myths to Let Go Of

2011-06-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Finally--the last two 'myths' about having a good body relationship. Here are two more to let go of as you give yourself permission to create a great connection with your body now, regardless of your weight. See if these make sense to you, and that let yourself release what's no longer working for you. One thing you do have is the power to create your own state of mind!

MYTH #4: No one else loves me, why should I love myself or my body?
Why not? If you’ve been treated poorly in the past or told you and your body weren’t enough, that cycle needs to stop somewhere. Why not with you, and why not right now?

You may have bought into the belief that you won’t be enough until you please someone else’s version of you. You may even have taken on those beliefs so deeply that they’ve now become your own. Maybe you’ve tried your whole life to accomplish what you think will make someone else happy with you. And you can spend your whole life continuing to do that.

When you decide to be loving to yourself and your body, simply because you know it’s a better way of being in your life, you take back your power. It’s like you’re saying that you’re sick of waiting until ‘some day’ to give yourself what can belong to you now. You’re debunking the myth that there’s some other version of how you’re supposed to be that would allow you to deserve love.

Why do you have to keep waiting to be loving to yourself? Have you begun to get the feeling over time that maybe that day is never going to come? There’s nothing you should have to do to earn that feeling of peace or love inside. It’s given to all of us as a possibility, and something we can choose to create and cultivate. When you choose to create a better relationship with your body, you’re taking a powerful step of self-care, moving toward a way of being that will make you happier and healthier right now rather than waiting to prove to yourself that you deserve it. When you do that you are, of course, not just relating to your body differently; you’re giving yourself the possibility of being loved and accepted just for being who you are in every aspect of your life.

MYTH #5: If this doesn’t help me lose weight, it’s not worth it; that’s all I want.
You may have believed for a long time that losing weight is the one thing that will make you happy. Sometimes it’s more convenient to put all of our beliefs about our self-worth into one place; it’s less messy and less complicated. Of course, when you actually do lose the weight, everything else that you hoped would change as a result will still be there. There’s a good chance it won’t have miraculously changed just because you’re now a size 2.

That’s why it’s so important to think less about what you want to look like and more about how you want to feel. If you can find ways to cultivate how you want to feel, you get to keep the benefits forever. You’re feeling good is in your hands. What happens or doesn’t happen with your weight can never be the only thing that gives you your happiness.

It’s the same thing with any relationship. We can fight so hard for a goal we think we want: to be married, to have our partner say they love us. But if we don’t actually feel connected to them or feel good with them, the milestones have no meaning. We may fool ourselves into thinking they do, that we’ve arrived. But what we have on our hands is a hollow representation of what we want and not a living, breathing thing that we’re glad to be in every day.

If you make weight your only goal, you hold both your body and yourself hostage, as if you don’t exist and your relationship can’t exist until you’re thinner. It’s not fair to either of you. More importantly, it robs you of knowing that your happiness is so much more infinite than what size your waist is.
The irony is, that like so many things in life, when you let go of pursuing them so hard and concentrate on being who you want to be, miracles can begin to happen. By choosing to be in the kind of relationship you want instead of always focusing on the result, results have a chance to come to you without feeling like your life depends on them. When you know your worth is more than your weight you’ll be less attached to it as a representation of who you are, and more likely to be free of the negative cycles of guilt, blame and judgment that may have contributed to acting out with food or numbing out to yourself and your body’s needs. There is another way.

It can be scary to give up the external goal and just look at what’s here right now. But it’s also the only place change really happens: by facing what already is. What is it that you imagine being that perfect weight will somehow make you feel about yourself and your life? And if you can imagine it, why not try to create it in your relationship to your body right now?

You may understand all of this intellectually, and yet there still may be fears and blocks standing in the way of a more positive body relationship. When you try on a great relationship with your body, there might be voices that whisper to you things like, “You can’t have that…” or “The last time you felt good in your body look what happened…” or “You’re not allowed to feel good and not get shot down.” Whatever those voices are, now is the time to take a look at them and see if they might be willing to go away... See if you can stay with those voices until they grow silent; or silence them yourself by looking at how you no longer believe them or believe that they help you.

The Myths of the Good Body Relationship, Part Two (of Three!)

2011-06-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I promised the final three myths or fears around having a good relationship with your body. But this next one is so juicy, that I think I'll finish with the final two next week. See if you can relate to this one and how it might be informing your own journey with your weight loss and self-esteem!

MYTH #3: I have to punish myself for my weight.

This is the greatest Catch-22 of them all. Don’t let yourself be happy until you’ve dropped the weight. Then guess what happens? That unhappiness creates more of the same, and makes it more likely that you’ll want to act out in unhealthy and unsupportive ways: by overeating, drinking, avoiding.

Happiness seems to create more happiness, while unhappiness creates more of the same. That’s why punishing yourself for your weight is never going to break the cycle. It’s only going to bring you more unhappiness.

You can go on doing this, but since you’re connected to your body for the rest of your life, sooner or later you might get sick of feeling like a martyr. It’s exhausting, and you’ll keep finding that it doesn’t get you to anything new. The more guilty and awful about yourself you feel, the more likely you are to keep recreating that state of being.

Books like The Secret have started to tell us how important our mindset is, that sometimes our thoughts can literally create our reality. I think it’s even more tangible than that. I think how we feel right now can create our reality. If you choose love and connection, you’re more likely to create a life that feels loving and connected. You have to feel what you want to feel in order to create more of the same in the future.

That’s the leap of faith here, and that’s why the tools in this book are so important. You can’t get to feeling good about your body by feeling bad about your body. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s hard for so many people to see.

When you stop punishing yourself and your body and start focusing on building a better relationship, you’re already giving yourself the tools to create something that feels better right now. That more connected, loving place is more likely to create more of the same. When that happens, you begin to break the cycle of negativity you were stuck in. Then you’re already creating the feeling of the reality you wanted: to feel good, to feel more energized, to feel more alive. The external changes become the icing on the cake, and much more possible.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking punishment is required for you to get where you want to go. Punishment will create more feelings of punishment. Forgiveness, listening and reconnecting will create a way of being with your body that change that cycle, which is really what you’ve wanted all along: to feel better!

You may need to ask yourself if you believe it’s okay for things to feel good and to be easier. Maybe you’ve gotten used to the feeling of punishment, to never feeling like enough, to having a reason—like your body weight—to minimize your goals or your dreams. As you forgive your body, you may also need to forgive yourself, and allow a way of being that is kinder and more loving into your life.

The Myths of the Good Body Relationship, Uncovered

2011-05-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

For the next two weeks, I'd like to focus on the things that can get in the way of a good relationship with your body. Below is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, now out to publishers. I've included the first two 'myths' we all have about having a good relationship with our bodies. Next week I'll finish it off with the final three!

I want to take a moment to address some of the resistances that might be coming up for you when you think about actually feeling better about yourself and your body. I saw them in myself and many of my clients. Let’s just call them the ‘myths’ of the good body relationship. Part of reviewing your relationship is examining the beliefs that may have held you back from what you’ve wanted. If you’ve been making excuses, or think you can’t begin to create a good relationship with your body yet, see if any of these sounds familiar to you.

MYTH #1: If I’m nice to my body and make peace with it, nothing will ever change…

If you’re used to operating from criticism and blame, it might feel uncomfortable and wrong to commit to a better relationship with your body. You might feel like you’re letting it ‘off the hook,’ and that if you love yourself the way you are now, you’ll be unmotivated to change. In fact, the exact opposite happens. The more loving and connected to our bodies we become, the more likely it is that we’ll naturally want to treat them well, to listen to them and to make choices that honor them. It’s practically impossible to be connected to your body on a deep level and act in any other way.

On the other hand, constant criticism and nagging often create a negative cycle that begets more of the same. If you’ve ever been in a relationship where someone was constantly criticizing you and telling you everything that was wrong with you, you’ve experienced this firsthand. Neither of you feel comfortable or happy. Frequently, if you’re on the receiving end of the negativity, you all also want to rebel and act out, just to get away from it all. Criticism and negativity often lead to self-destructive behaviors because we feel trapped. Choosing to be loving and connected opens up the possibility of change that comes from a deeper place.

A great deal of energy is wasted with the criticism too. Instead of getting to be on the same team as your body, you oppose each other and feel exhausted, like you can never be enough. It’s hard to accomplish much from that place, because there’s never any reward. Even if you fool yourself and your body into thinking you’ll be really nice and loving when you reach some external goal, that so rarely happens. Instead, the same fear and judgment that got you there stays with you, and instead of enjoying a goal weight, you’ll find yourself guarding it and fearful of putting weight back on. If there’s no change in the relationship, it’s likely you will.

Healing the relationship with the body gives you more than the possibility of lasting and positive physical changes. It also changes how you relate to yourself. A lot of your criticism of your body may mirror how you were treated in the past, or how you’ve felt in other relationships. When you choose to break that cycle—uncomfortable as it may be at first—you’ll be amazed at how much more freely you can move in your own life, knowing that you’re loved no matter what.

MYTH#2: I do have good reasons to not like my body.

We all have checklists in our heads of the way we’d like things to be: in our relationships, at work, the size of our bank accounts. It’s only natural to be disappointed when we don’t get what we want. The same is true with our bodies.

We can look at rolls of fat, cellulite, weight that won’t come off and decide that until those things change it just doesn’t make sense to be at peace with our bodies. They’re blowing it; they’re doing it wrong. They’re not matching our picture. But if we’re actually connected to our bodies and in relationship with them, the checklist by itself won’t work—just like it doesn’t really work in our relationships.

If your partner doesn’t do the dishes, you can decide that you don’t like him. But if you don’t talk about it, listen to his feelings and express your own, nothing’s going to change. When you decide that you have good reasons to not like your body, you’re doing the same thing. You’re treating it like something outside of you, rather than something you’re in relationship with. You’re not asking what might need to change inside both of you to make the relationship better. No problem gets solved any other way.

If you want to be attached to what your body is doing wrong, feel free. But without your participation and responsibility, there’s a good chance nothing will ever change. We can’t be so passive about how our bodies are, treating them like machines that aren’t performing the way we want them to. We have to acknowledge that we are a part of that dynamic too.

The other assumption that we make when we decide that our bodies are disappointing us is that they are somehow doing it on purpose. How many times do we make those same assumptions in our relationships? Often when we talk things through with a friend or a partner who disappointed us, we realize there were lots of other things going on that we just didn’t understand.

The same is true with our bodies. Somehow over the years we may have taken on some belief that says they’re out to get us, that they’ll never be the way we want them to be. Biology would tell us otherwise. Mostly our bodies actually want what we want: to be happy, healthy and vibrant. They’re biologically motivated to be trying to do whatever they can to create those qualities. The need to survive and thrive is in their DNA. If something is preventing that from happening, we both need to look at what’s going on and see what we can change.

This is a different way of approaching our bodies: assuming that they are doing the best we can and probably want the same things we do. In most relationships—no matter how dysfunctional—it becomes clear sooner or later that the both people also want the same things: love, respect, connection. Instead of deciding that there are reasons not to love, we can start focusing on creating what we both want and how we contributed together to where we are now.

The Body As Guide

2011-05-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you following the blog, and anyone interested in having a place to connect with this idea of a better relationship with your body, go to the newly created Facebook page, 'Anna Stookey's Befriend Your Body' and click on 'like.' I'll be posting thoughts and comments there and welcome yours!

I'm continuing to evolve and think about this message and what step to take next in my work with the body. As I listen more deeply, I'm aware of how much action we can take in our lives without really being connected to it: we do the things we think we're supposed to do to accomplish the things we think are good to accomplish. There's always a next thing to be done.

But if we check in with our bodies, they'll tell us almost instantly if we're coming from a true, connected place that's rooted in who we really are or if we're just spinning our wheels. How do they tell us the difference? Here are a few thoughts. When you're faced with a to-do list or a decision to make about what to do next, try on these tools and see if they help.

1) The 'yes' test. Often we're dragging our bodies along with us to accomplish the missions of life. But if we're not aligned with and 'embodying' what we're doing, we're often less efficient and connected to to the task at hand. One way to 'test' whether or not we want to be moving in the direction we're moving is to check in with our bodies. Standing straight up and down, ask your body a yes-or-no question you have strong 'ye's to and notice if it leans forward at all to answer your question. Similarly, ask your body a question you have a strong 'no' to, and notice if it leans backwards in response. Often our bodies will betray our true feelings about something through their movement and positioning.

Now that you've seen how it works, ask your body a question you're not sure you know the answer to: 'Should I leave my job?' or 'Should I stay in this relationship?' Notice how your body responds: whether it enthusiastically rocks forward or leans back. How do you feel when you receive that information? Is it accurate? Is it what you've 'known' on some level but haven't wanted to hear with your conscious mind? Consider what might happen if you took your body's perspective into account.

2) Following tension. Sometimes our bodies are trying to speak to us but we're not listening. Throughout your day if you notice tension, tightness or any other physical response in your body, practice breathing into it and asking it if there's anything you could be doing differently, or anything that sensation is trying to say. The results may surprise you. You may get an image of a different behavior or have feelings arise around something that's going on in your life. Stay open to what you receive and see if you can translate it in some meaningful way into your life.

Our bodies' sensations may also simply be reminders to slow down, tune in and take a moment to center. Once we do that, they may go away. Sometimes bringing consciousness into the moment effects change without our having to get more information.

3)What makes you 'sick?' Beyond tension, you may get a feeling of nausea or stomach upset when you think about certain situations or choices. If that's the case, see if you can dig deeper and find out what the body is trying to tell you. Do you need to stand up for yourself? Let yourself leave something that's no longer working? There can literally be a feeling sometimes of 'not wanting to digest' what doesn't feel good or right. By paying attention to the cues your body gives you, you may be able to make choices that are in your best interests before things come to a head.

Our bodies are miraculous partners in the evolution of our consciousness and our lives. Learning to listen to them and partner with them, especially to help us get information we may be avoiding with our conscious minds, is life-changing. Practice going to your body in the midst of turmoil and choices and see what it has to say. It may just have needed to know you were listening!

The Power of Forgivness

2011-05-17T22:51:00.001-07:00

When we begin to think about our bodies as something we're in relationship with, we also have to begin to acknowledge all the ways we may have ignored them or treated them badly. One client who had always judged and blamed her body for being overweight found herself needing to take a new kind of responsibility once she realized it was a two-way relationship. What was she doing to contribute to her body's feeling unhealthy and heavier than she wanted?

Often we think of our bodies as being to blame for what we don't like about them, but really when we start to check in, we may realize they were doing the best they could with what they were given. Based on our behavior, we may need to be forgiven too. Letting go of our own guilt and shame around how we have been with our bodies is essential to our healing moving forward.

This is especially apparent with clients who struggle with binge-eating, who frequently find themselves in a cycle of overeating, then feeling horrible and restricting, then feeling deprived and once again overeating. The cycle repeats again and again. When they can learn to partner with their bodies and forgive themselves for their behavior even as it's happening--staying connected to the body rather than shutting down with shame or guilt--the cycle often ends.

Darren, who would frequently eat an entire package of cookies after a bad day at work, used the tools of our work together to keep dialoguing with his body even through a binge: "I'm so sorry, I know I'm doing it again. Please forgive me." Something about choosing the connection to his body over his own cycle of shutting down eventually made the whole cycle lose its power. He found that instead of acting out with food, he could check in with his body and find ways to relieve stress together rather than at odds with each other: go for a walk, call a friend, take a hot shower.

Forgiveness is powerful. Our intention to forgive and be forgiven often changes negative behavior altogether. Forgiveness is an expression of love and a willingness to change and transform a situation, even if we don't exactly know how. When we do this with our bodies, we say that we're willing to look at a situation differently, and that we're primarily committing to being in our experience together rather than separating or shutting down.

Think about the ways that you may shut down in your body relationship when you blame or judge your body or when you feel guilt or ashamed yourself. What might happen if you chose togetherness and forgiveness instead? Try these three steps:

1) Let yourself feel and express your feelings as they arise. If you're in a binge, say how you feel even if you can't stop right away. If you're judging your body for how it looks, acknowledge that it's happening even if you'd like it to be different.

2) Ask for forgiveness and/or be willing to forgive. Instead of shutting down and feeling guilty or pointing the finger and blaming, see if you can simply say you're sorry and stay open to repair. Be willing to offer the same kindness toward your body and the misperceptions you may have toward it.

3) Notice what follows when you stay connected to your body instead of separating from it. Though it may take time for a negative behavior like bingeing or judging to change entirely, you'll probably notice a shift right way in terms of how you feel. It takes a lot of energy and emotion to blame, judge or carry shame. Choosing forgiveness and connection keeps you more open, relaxed and present--like choosing to tell the truth instead of covering something up.

As you move through the week ahead, continue to pay attention to opportunities to forgive and stay connected to your body. Also notice if you can accept forgiveness for your own negative behaviors and practice communicating and being honest. As in any of our relationships, we can't always change overnight. But we can express our feelings, our desire to work on things together, and ask for forgiveness along the way.

The Control Freak Revisited

2011-05-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen the movie When Harry Met Sally, you remember Sally's penchant for controlling and convoluted food-ordering: 'I'll have the salad, but the dressing on the side and no bacon unless you can cook it well-done and then I will have bacon but crumbled not strips...' Harry sits next to her and rolls his eyes.

But how many of us can secretly relate to Sally's attempts to control her world? They scream of an internal vulnerability, a need to know all the answers. Sally's not just showing us her relationship to food; she's showing us her relationship to her whole life.

When clients tell me they've started restricting or hyper-managing their food intake, one of the first question I want to ask is what's going on in the rest of their lives. Where do they feel a loss of control in another area of their life that's being filled (unsuccessfully perhaps) by the control they can feel when they keep their calories under a thousand or get to some perfect weight? Feeling our humanness, our vulnerability, means the relinquishing of control--even Sally gets there eventually: snot-nosed, human and despairing. It means realizing we aren't always going to know the answers or even understand the plan for our lives, let alone create it.

How we relate to food and to our bodies can tell us a lot about how we're relating to our lives. When I become more self-conscious, more restrictive and judgmental with my body, it's often a sign that something else in my life is making me feel vulnerable and I don't want to feel it. One client I worked with began starving himself and working out like a maniac when his job security suddenly became shaky. Another client notices that she has a tendency to diet whenever family is about to come into town; it gives her something else to focus on besides the growing feeling of anxiety and confrontation she's afraid will swallow her up when they arrive. If she can be thinner, maybe she'll be invulnerable to the drama that usually ensues.

Our bodies take a lot of this abuse, but I'm sure--just like we would--they'd rather be seen and connected to rather than objectified and controlled. Control puts us in a robot-like position, gets us out of feeling and into doing. As with a bad relationship, living with the dynamic of control can feel like walking a tight rope; inside, our bodies and our psyches live in fear of doing something wrong and no longer being valued, rather than knowing we're valued no matter what we do.

If control is coming up for you around food and your body, ask yourself what else might really be going on? Are there are other things playing out in your life that feel out of your control? Are there feelings you'd rather not be feeling?

The truth is that there are a lot of things in life we can't control: from relationships to jobs to even how people see us. In the end, Sally's vulnerability is what makes her loveable, not whether or not she has her whole life figured out. If we rely on control for our happiness, we're bound to be let down. Instead, we have to change what we try to control, focusing on our feelings and our attitudes rather than the perfect diet or body.

When we control too much we not only stop being in a real relationship with ourselves, we no longer let others in the way we could. Learning to be with the soft edges and hunger of our bodies takes courage and opens us up to the world much more than fearful restriction. How can you let yourself feel your vulnerability, the truth of what you're experiencing? If you let go of control, what might show up in your life instead?

Getting Past the Weight Set Point

2011-05-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

So I'm at my doctor's office for my annual gynecology appointment--the one where I have to get on the scale (previously recounted in a blog entry in April of '09). This time, I'm sitting outside his office for the consultation part of my visit when I hear a woman checking in. She's terrified of getting on that scale. She says no matter what she does, her weight is always the same: "I do really well, I eat healthy for a few days and then I get on that scale and it says the same thing! It makes me feel like not even trying..."

As the conversation goes on, the nurse comes back to weigh her and the woman refuses. "I have to put something down," the nurse pleads. "Too much," is all the woman will offer up. She's become terrified of her own number: that indelible, unchanging weight.

It made me think about all those conversations about a 'weight set point' that seemed to be so popular a few years ago. The idea is that each of our bodies settle into a weight that seems normal to them and then that weight doesn't budge, no matter what we do. I've heard popular thinkers apply this concept to other set points too: those for happiness, prosperity, relationships. We get used to a certain standard and then--to preserve homeostasis--don't seem to stretch beyond it. We get stuck at our set points.

Listening to this woman and her battle with the scale, its unchanging number, I revisited the idea. It does seem to be true. Can you relate? You try and try, you think you're doing everything right: exercise, diet. And nothing changes. Your weight stays the same.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because when we accept the idea of a set point, we're not acknowledging our ability to influence or be a part of it. To her, it seems as though her body is being stubborn, unmoving. No matter what she does it stays the same. If she wanted her body to know that she'd prefer a different set point, how would she even begin? In her mind, she's already at odds with this thing (her body) that's not doing what she wants it to do, which is CHANGE.

Something begins to shift when we start seeing our bodies as something we can interact with: we allow that we might be able to start that dialogue, to have some influence on things like set-points and outcomes. This attitude certainly sets up a different way of relating to our body's behavior. Instead of believing our body boorishly wants to stay the way it is, we can start telling it what we'd prefer and see what happens. Allowed into the conversation, our bodies may have important feelings and information for us to take in as a result.

When I work with clients with this idea, it's sometimes surprising what happens. Being given the option of communicating with their bodies about what they'd prefer, rather than being at odds with them, they realize their bodies have something to say, and that together they might create positive change. One client who imagined what it would be like to feel lighter and more alive, shared that request with her body and found herself wanting to move and be more active. It was as if her body was saying, "Okay, yes...let's begin." Another client found herself drawn toward more energizing and alive foods. Both needed to make the request and then just listen.

More importantly, both clients began to feel themselves in partnership with their bodies by offering up their dreams to them, rather than seeing their bodies as stubborn objects resisting their desires. In partnership, many things become possible: even the changing of a set point. We have to believe that our bodies don't choose a set point out of defiance, they choose it for the same reason all of us choose the comfortable and familiar: it's easier. But that doesn't mean that given a request and a vision from someone we care about that we wouldn't be willing to step a little outside our comfort zone to try on something better for both of us.

I encourage you to be willing to give your body this chance. Try following this five-step process (also outlined more fully in my forthcoming book) to create positive change with your body:

1) Feel the way things are now--whatever it is that's difficult or challenging. Are you frustrated with your weight? How it feels to move? What your clothes feel like? Let yourself feel and acknowledge the feelings connected to the current situation.

2) Get a vision for how you'd like things to be instead. How would it feel if you could move the way you wanted to in your body? If you felt lighter or your clothing was looser? Let yourself fully experience what that would be like, as if it already existed. What do you see/feel? What are you doing? Surprisingly,when it comes down to it, your vision may not be as much about what you weigh as it is about actually feeling good and at ease with your body.

3) Imagine that you can communicate this to your body, showing it what you'd prefer instead. You might even say, 'This is what I'd like, what do you think?'

4) Next, be willing to see if you get a response. Is there some behavior or wish your body gives you back? Is your body on board with the new vision? Ask your body if there's anything you need to be doing to make it possible and see what kind of response you get. Sometimes clients get a vision of what they could be doing differently and can see themselves doing it. Sometimes it's literally a feeling in your body of restlessness, pent-up energy, a directive to move. How does your body tell you what it needs?

5) Make a commitment to keep checking in together and acting from a sense of the new vision. Get so clear on it that you can feel it in your skin and call it up at will. Use it as a place to come back to and touch base. Ask: does the behavior you're engaging in align with the vision you and your body now share of what you'd like? What would your body say?

When you really get that your communication with your body matters, you embrace both the positive and negative influence you're capable of having. What would you like your body to know about what you most want? How can you, by communicating that vision, go from stuck to transformed?

Try it. In the process, you just might find yourself changing the 'stuck' feelings about your body you didn't even know you had!

The Icing On the Cake

2011-04-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

Remember that trip I wrote about in the last blog, to see friends in Denver? I'm back and still have a warm feeling in my heart for one girlfriend who's found a beautiful house in an adorable neighborhood, where she lives with her funny and insightful partner. When in Los Angeles, she struggled to find the right pace for her life, often feeling stressed out and overworked. In Denver, she's like another person: settled into her house, finding the time and space to cook meals at home almost every day, and creatively blossoming into her work and her life.

She explained it to me as feeling so content that the rest of her life--whatever happens from here on out with her career, with her income, with the decision to have or not have kids--is 'icing on the cake.' There's no pressure really. She's already arrived where she wanted to go. Whatever happens from here is just fine.

It occurred to me as I went for a hike today that the same can be true of the home we have in our bodies. I take for granted now the ability to be in my body without judgment, to enjoy its company, to feel content and at ease in my own skin. Years ago if you had asked me if this would be true, I would never have guessed I could get here. But I have. And after all that struggle, feeling peace with my body gives me a similar sense of 'arrival.' Everything else from here--the way I experience and move forward with my life--is 'icing on the cake.'

In fact, when a feeling of contentment and peace can permeate the way we feel in our bodies--as it did today with the buttery sun starting to go down and the green hills lit up and basking in its glow--all IS well. When there's no war going on with our bodies, our senses get to take in everything else that's there. We receive that extra bit of blessing. We're able to be open to life in a different and more present way.

I suppose you could say that icing, per the expression, is the extra stuff. A cake would still be a cake without it. But icing also fills the layers, adds sweetness, makes a cake complete. It's okay to want our lives to have it, and to create a solid enough foundation of peace and goodness that we can let the extra stuff, the sweet and luxurious stuff, show up.

If you're struggling with your body, I encourage you to get the help that ends that war and lets you feel the safety and home you can feel in your own skin. Join a support group. Read a book that helps you reconnect. Join my ongoing teleclass for support--a weekly group to help you find your best relationship with your body. (Go to http://www.bodymindguide.com or http://www.annastookey.com and click on 'Love Your Body Teleclass' to find out more.)

Life is too short to be mired in the struggle. I guess I would say that even though we think of what comes after the struggle as the 'icing on the cake' we also deserve to have that 'icing' be an essential part of our lives. It's amazing how peaceful and complete you can feel once you have an ally in your body instead of one more challenge. Walking that trail today I was just one step closer to feeling the sunlight penetrate my being. I can still feel the way my cells light up in the presence of that beauty and my own movement. I'd like you to feel that too.

The Spoken Secret of Weight

2011-04-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm about to board a plane tomorrow for Denver to see a couple of college friends I haven't seen in awhile. One of them was at my wedding almost three years ago when I was at my skinniest by accident--wedding planning, excitement and constant activity had me practically forgetting to eat. The other knew me at a time in my life when I was eating pints of ice-cream just to prove I could, abandoning nutrition and any rules I'd ever made myself follow so that I could just stop being afraid of food all the time. I was puffy-faced and heavier, but working something important through.

As I think about my relationships with them--and how many phases of dieting and body size they've seen me through--I realize how much history I carry of different ways of seeing and being with my body. I have been afraid of it and in awe of it, disgusted by it and open to its soft rhythms. Sometimes I've weighed more and sometimes I've weighed less.

When we have friends over the years, family, loved ones, they see the fluctuations we wear. In fact, one thing about our bodies is that they broadcast to the world, whether we like it or not, a lot of what we're experiencing or going through on the inside. It can be humbling.

One friend I know almost decided not to go to a recent reunion of some of his army buddies because of his recent weight gain--he was afraid of what people would think, especially since they had known him as a free-wheeling, buff guy twenty years ago. He pushed himself to go anyway and had a great time. What would he have missed if he hadn't gone?

I wonder what we think our weight will say about us, and how we interpret it when we feel exposed to others in our lives. Does weight equal failure? Loss of control? Depression? Sometimes it also exposes our humanness, the crazy pace of our lives. For me, it often just means I'm going through a period where it's harder to listen and slow down. Eventually, a sense of heaviness and weight tells me I need to change what I'm doing and start attending to myself and my body more.

I guess if we're really in alignment with our bodies, that what they would say about how we are wouldn't be so different from the same truths we hold inside. What's so bad about that? The problem is when we split off, wish they said something different than they do, wish we could lie. Those who really care about us see what our bodies say, even if we'd rather pretend that everything is fine. But also, sometimes our bodies look 'fine' on the outside and don't reveal the part of us that is vulnerable, the part that is clutching desperately to a more controlled diet so that we don't have to feel feelings of fear or overwhelm.

What do you think your body says about you right now, and how do you feel about the world getting that message? Is your outside consistent with your insides, your feelings about your life? If not, why? Is there anything you're trying to hide that your body is saying for you instead?

Get curious about unpacking and deconstructing the stories that you, your body, and those around you might tell about you--are they consistent? If not, how might you make them more so, listening and catching up with your body's wisdom and feeling less shame about what it has to reveal? What are you hiding that your body and those close to you already know?

Reparenting Your Body

2011-04-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

Oftentimes, we treat our bodies the way we ourselves were treated in our families. We might, for example, tell them to be quiet, criticize or disparage them,care about how they perform rather than how they feel, or put them last on our list after everything else gets done. In our body relationships, we are often reenacting old familiar patterns of how we were taken care of or not taken care of as children. In fact, it might give you some compassion for yourself to consider that you may not have been taught any other way to be with your body than the ways you yourself grew up with!

When you were sad did you get held and heard or did you feel like your feelings were inconvenient? When you did something really great, did you get rewarded or simply feel like that's what was expected? One client shared the insight with me that growing up in her family there were simply certain unspoken goals, a certain level of perfection she was expected to achieve. Before she knew what had happened, she had applied that same thinking to her own body, making her a stern and unloving parent to her body's needs and feelings, always expecting more from it without really listening to it moment to moment.

This is one reason why the work of reconnecting with and learning to listen to our bodies can feel so deeply healing and corrective. We are literally reparenting ourselves, learning to listen to our most basic needs and feelings in ways we may never have experienced before in any other relationship, probably from early on in our lives. As we learn to do that for ourselves, of course, our other relationships change as well. We begin to expect and elicit a certain amount of care, attention and compassion from those around us as we learn to give it to ourselves.

Think about the kinds of relationship patterns you may be reenacting with your body. Are you capable of really listening to it? Caring for it? What old patterns might you be breaking within your own family in order to do that? Does that feel scary? Possible?

When we choose a different way of being with ourselves, we drop the conditioning we grew up with. Often, the clients I work with grew up in households that valued how they looked or performed over how they felt or what they needed. The work of reconnecting to their bodies is being willing to give up just judging their bodies by how they look and also beginning to consider how they feel, what they need. Learning when and how your body actually communicates hunger can be a huge step if you're used to ignoring it. Noticing where feelings get felt in your body and finding ways to be loving toward them is also huge.

What can you do today to care for yourself and your body as a good and loving parent? Forgive your parents for doing the best they could and truly consider whether or not you can break the spell of old relationship habits and make new ones in the way you will treat and be with your body. Choose one different behavior to work toward every day with your body: is it being more verbally appreciative and loving? Listening more closely to what it wants or needs? Spending time with it in kinder and more connected ways?

What would the little child inside of you have loved to get from her parents that you can now bring to this relationship with your body, healing the old longing? As you find ways to fill those needs with your body, you may watch the world change around you as well, into a place of greater openness, wonder and joy: a place where anything is possible, where YOU are possible.

Finding Our Inner Sexiness

2011-04-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article the other day in an old Psychology Today (Elton, June 2010). The topic? How women's sex lives are affected by their relationship to their bodies. It was educational and sobering at the same time.

One of the points it made? That problems with low sexual desire or arousal in women often have to do with our not being in touch with our bodies. "We are socialized to not pay attention..." one expert in the article says (Meston, pg. 77). When we are out of touch with our bodies, it's hard for us to give attention to our own arousal, thereby allowing it to grow. Instead, we're numbed out and disconnected.

Another issue? Our poor body self-esteem. Although many women put the emphasis on how their partner perceives them, apparently it's just as important that we have a healthy perception of our own bodies. When we don't feel sexy and alive, it's hard for us to go there. "Women have this sexual relationship with themselves that's integral to their sexual relationships, period," argues one expert (Meana, pg. 76)

We may put the blame on a non-sexy partner or say we need to be loved in a certain way in order to be aroused--and these are both important factors. But it's also interesting to consider how the way we're relating to our own bodies might be getting in the way. Are we capable of finding them sexy, feeling the sensations they bring us, noticing what we are aroused by?

It's true that as women we've often been told to tame this aspect of ourselves. Stereotypically men are supposed to be more interested in sex than we are. But when you look at the stereotype through the lens of body disconnection it becomes more interesting. What if we become less interested in sex because the objectification of our own bodies has made us less interested and connected to our own sexual response?

Part of taking back our bodies as our own and developing a healthier relationship with them is also empowering ourselves to feel our sexiness and beauty, regardless of whether or not we match some outside version of reality. It's sad to think that we might depriving ourselves of a rich sex life because we don't think we measure up, or because we're too disconnected from our physical cues to even experience them.

What would it take for you to let the feeling of sexiness back into your life right now? One of the exercises I often do with clients is to let them imagine the qualities they'd like to feel in their body no matter what their current shape or size. Try this on--how would you walk if you truly allowed yourself to feel sexy? What would you wear? How would you feel inside?

If you stopped waiting for things to fit some perfect picture on the outside, how might you allow yourself your own inner sexiness, your own intimate and respectful relationship to your own body right now? What if the future of your sex life depends on it?

Sensing Into Our Senses

2011-03-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

This week I want to get out of my head and truly into the body. I encourage you to do the same. Everywhere, all around you, spring is beginning to poke its head. Here in California, of course, things are beginning to bloom and there are smells in the air at night of jasmine and orange blossom. Today I went for a hike in the mountains and the hills radiated all shades of green: tall dark trees, bushy shrubs and moss.

Our senses long to be brought more fully into our lives, and slowing down enough to listen to the body helps us experience the world around us in a different way. Take some moments this week to step into that kind of slowed down sensuality. Try doing something you usually do but with greater attention to all of the details and to your own body. If you put lotion on every morning after you shower, try slowing it down just enough to really experience the touch and the feeling of it on your body.

Take five minutes to look out the window at the sky, or better yet, sit outside and let the air move against your skin as you take in everything around you. (I once went on a retreat and was amazed at my ability to stare at a tree for over a half hour, fascinated by the way its leaves moved in the wind.)

Similarly, when you eat, slow down enough to really taste the food, feeling it in your mouth and noticing when you start to get full. What does fullness feel like? Hunger? What's it like to be really satisfied by something you're eating? How often do you not even notice?

Our senses are our body's language of the world: they are how the body experiences everything around us. As we engage with them more fully, we're more connected not only to our bodies but to our lives. Too often we sacrifice this kind of connection for multi-tasking and doing, forgetting to really experience what it's like to 'be' fully in our own skin.

Try picking one moment in your day each day this week to become attuned to the senses, even if just for a moment. Check in with how your body feels, its muscles and movements. Listen to music. Get a massage.

It doesn't matter so much what we do as how we do it. Moving in our lives with attention and the intention to connect with and honor our bodies changes us. It allows us to receive our own lives in a more present way.

You don't have to go out of your way to find those moments, you just have to slow down with some consciousness to experience what's really happening right now. As you do, notice how your body responds to your awakening and listening in this way. You may feel it soften, open, relax. It may feel heard or valued in a different way simply by this shift in your awareness.

Opening to our senses allows our bodies to feel like they matter in our lives. Our senses are part of the body's gift to us, and they have tremendous value if we take them in. Despite our belief, we cannot live our lives completely from our heads. In order for life to catch up with us, we need to let it simmer and stir in our senses, in the quiet moments, and in the step into conscious awareness.

In what ways have you been depriving yourself of your senses and what does that do to the way your relate to your body? What would happen if you let your senses speak more fully in your life, guiding you to greater openness and joy?

NOW 2011 Love Your Body Poster Contest Winners

2011-03-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share with you all this inspiring and artful contest sponsored by the National Organization of Women--

Check it out!

xo,

Anna

NOW Foundation announces winners of 2011 Love Your Body poster contest

http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/posters/contest-2011/index.html

The Choice For Love

2011-03-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

Why is it often so terrifying to choose a better relationship with our bodies over one based on fear, criticism and judgment? So often, the idea of bringing connection, compassion and dialogue to the relationship we have with our bodies creates resistance and reaction. Some common questions:

1)But if I love my body now, how will it ever change?

2) I have to hate myself to feel motivated to do something different.

3) I have to do penance until I accomplish whatever external goal I have for myself.

Sound familiar?

And yet when we look at the body as something we're in relationship with, some interesting truths unfold. We all know what it's like to relate to other people, and we all know that negativity, constant nagging or criticism and a sense of never being able to please the other person make us, invariably, feel hopeless, shut down and--yes--less motivated to change. Usually there's a feeling of paralysis and despondency instead of inspiration. We feel that we'll never be enough. Why even bother?

It's interesting to consider if your body doesn't have the same response to a constant cycle of 'not-enoughness,' blame and disgust from you. If you checked in right now, you might be able to feel the difference in its physical response to words of kindness of encouragement versus words of disparagement and criticism.

As we learn more and more about how our words and thoughts create our world, it behooves us to apply the same insights to our thinking and speaking to our bodies. Does our negativity really accomplish--for us or our bodies--what we think it does? Why not dare to choose love instead?

Relationship experts tell us that change doesn't happen with nagging and criticism but more often through empathy, partnership and appreciation. When those qualities are present in a relationship, positive change is the end product of healthy collaboration, with each side having the other's best interests at heart.

What if it's possible that the old way of creating change hasn't actually been working for you at all? Would you be willing to give it up?

In the weeks and months ahead, consider what it might be like to practice being the best possible partner to your body right now. Think about these questions:

1)Even if you don't think you're satisfied, what CAN you appreciate about your body and all it does for you already?

2)If you stop blaming everything on your body, what can you begin to take responsibility for as an equal partner in the relationship?

3)How can you begin to think about the changes you want to create as a goal you share with your body, rather than one it's defying you by not accomplishing? And how does the process of working on the goal together teach you both and encourage you to grow?

Much like with our relationships, challenges can be met with stuckness and blame or with a cooperative team spirit, using them to teach both of us. Ask yourself if your first instinct is to be against your body rather than with it and whether or not this is the best stance for creating positive change. Our bodies are alive and waiting to work with us, rather than against us. They are containers for our thinking, waiting for us to choose love.

Fantasy or Reality? Food & the Body Relationship

2011-02-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were a kid and the best treat in the world was an ice-cream cone, or maybe a candy bar or even a Lifesaver? Sweets were often a reward for something. I remember a trip to the soda fountain following a particularly unpleasant trip to the doctor's office that involved a needle being stuck into my arm.

Those associations don't go away so easily. Tonight it's getting late, I'm home alone and I've spent the day catching up on things. I'm contemplating a trip to get some frozen yogurt.

Am I hungry? Not particularly. In fact, I'd say that my hunger on a scale of 1-10 is about a 1.5. But in my mind, the colors and flavors of that frozen yogurt seem bright and enticing. The whole thing seems to imply an escape, a trip somewhere, a sense of freedom--just like it did when I was a kid.

Recently I spoke with a colleague who also works with eating disorders about her love of the texture and warmth of oatmeal, how it says home to her and makes her feel like everything is going to be okay. She remembers her own mother serving it to her as a child. Now she sits in the kitchen in the morning, savoring a daily bowl of the gooey stuff, filled with oats and raisins and a bit of cinnamon, the steel cut oats thick and syrupy with heat.

Talking with her and reflecting on this tonight, I think about how much we imbue food with energy, with fantasy, with projection. It becomes so many things to us. It becomes whatever we want it to be, whatever we need it to be.

The problem, of course, comes when the fantasy food actually prevents us from facing what's happening in our lives; when the escape it provides means we're not listening to some inner stirring, restlessness or feeling trying to poke through into consciousness. A message from our bodies gets lost in translation: we're literally distracted from it by the compelling story we've created by food.

I wonder how our bodies feel about this: when food gets used to fill a need other than hunger, when the intellect or a knee-jerk need to flee from the present becomes the reason for a swirled cold cone or a piece of candy? My body probably tolerates it a bit, like any good partner would, the feeling of being ignored. But as this becomes habit, what happens next? Does the body shut down on us, feeling unheard? Does it scream louder, hoping we'll hear?

Perhaps this is what weight becomes: a message from our physical selves that our bodies are feeling ignored, that food is not being used to listen to and fuel our lives but to run away from them. Our bodies respond in kind with their own kind of distance: layers of flesh and softness that make us feel less alive in our own skin.

The next time you grab for that fantasy food, try checking in with the body and asking how it feels about going along for the ride. Is it willing to come? And if it's not, are you willing to put away the fantasy you believe that food will give you and sit with whatever feelings are really there right now, felt in your physical and emotional self?

Tonight for me there's a feeling of loneliness and quiet inside, the sense of wanting a break and a moment to breathe without pushing myself so hard. Sometimes for me that's the very function of the imagined food: it gives me a chance to slow down, to be out of my head and in my body. I have to ask myself, as we all do, if there are other ways to get there that still attend to what's happening in this moment, that don't ask my body to take on something it doesn't want.

That being said, there's a bath in the other room; there's a sky full of stars outside. There's music on the radio that might be calling us to dance. If you listened to your body and not your fantasy, what would might you reach for instead?