The Happiness Diet

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

(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

(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

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!)

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

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

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!