eating mindfully

geneen roth has changed my life through her books. i no longer mindlessly eat. i no longer binge. i no longer eat when i am not hungry. these are big changes for me. 

roth has 7 guidelines for eating. 

1. eat when you are hungry

2. eat sitting down in a calm environment. 

3. eat without distractions

4. eat what your body wants

5. eat until you are satisfied

6. eat (with the intention of) being in full view of others

7. eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure

that's it. 7 simple yet challenging guidelines for eating. it's not a diet. it's not a lifestyle change. it's a reframing of your relationship with food. 

the idea of eating what i want when i am hungry in full view of other people was the hardest thing i faced. i'm not supposed to eat chocolate or chips or candy. i'm not supposed to eat in front of people. fat women eating in public experience shame, either internally or by other people's looks or comments. so it was really hard ... is really hard to eat fully in view of others. 

another challenge is eating without distractions which includes tv, reading, music, and driving. we always eat in front of the tv. i find myself sitting alone at the table sometimes. and i'm okay with that now. 

another difficult change was eating until i was satisfied. for a couple of reasons. first of all, when you eat in front of the tv (or with other distractions) you don't recognize the signals that your body sends to tell you to stop eating. so i would finish what was on my plate without really noticing. second, i feel guilty throwing out food, so i would finish what was on my plate. 

i started to watch other people's eating habits and noticed that often people stop eating when they are satisfied and leave food on their plates. 

what?

people don't finish their food all the time. and that's okay. it's okay to throw out what you don't eat. (or put it away as leftovers)

if you have a difficult relationship with food, i suggest you read one or more of geneen roth's books. they really were life changing for me. 

http://geneenroth.com/books/

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

10 tips for happiness

the last few days have found me in a good mood. this is rare these days. i think that part of it is a new medication, but more importantly, i think that it has been examining how the positive and huge changes that i have made over the last few years. 

so while i am in this good mood, i wanted to share ten tips for being happy:

1. express gratitude. i keep a gratitude journal and every day i make a list of things that i am grateful for. it helps to have positive thoughts in your mind. 

2. set the bar high and expect the best out of life. thinking negative thoughts leads to negative feelings. turn your negative thoughts around and allow yourself to think positively. 

3. don't compare yourself to other people. you are a unique gift on this planet. you are no one else but you. as oscar wilde said: "be yourself everyone else is already taken."

4. forgive yourself. seriously. forgive yourself. you are human. life will be messy and filled with mistakes. and as it says in anne of green gables, "tomorrow is a fresh day with no mistakes in it." forgive forgive forgive your mistakes, your messiness, your imperfections. 

5. be kind to others. pay it forward. it makes you feel good. 

6. treat yourself the way you treat the people that you love (thanks geneen roth ... what a concept!) 

7. therapy. seriously. therapy. if you are chronically unhappy, there's a reason ... or reasons ... and having someone guide you on a healing journey is helpful. that sounded incredibly cheesy ... having someone to listen to you and talk out your issues is beneficial. 

8. see people. go out. see people. socialize. even if it's hard. do it anyway. keep contact with your friends. find a group to join. for me it's choir. i will admit that i have NOT been enjoying choir this semester. but i go every week anyway. it's my community. 

9. "be the lab scientist and not the rat."  http://www.purposefairy.com/ which means pay attention to your mind, to your reactions to situations, your reactions to things that people say. learn your triggers and find ways to cope. strategies for coping will help you reframe the situation.

10. this is the most challenging step (for me). be good to your body. feed it. feed it healthy and nutritious foods. feed it what tastes good to you. feed it what you LIKE. and move your body. even if that means simply going for a walk (yes, i DO listen to you nosy nora). 

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

being angry is a natural feeling and it's okay to feel angry and to talk through those feelings. nosy nora says it's even okay to be angry with people that you love. including your parents. yikes! but holding onto that anger for a long time and not doing anything with it hurts you more than it hurts the person that you are angry at. expressing that emotion in some way helps you to let it go. that doesn't mean you have to tell the person you are mad at. you can express your anger in many different healthy ways. that's a post for another day. 

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” 
― Dalai Lama XIV

i woke up feeling happy the last 2 days. but i cultivated that happiness by following the 10 steps above. by acknowledging that i have put in the work to change my life. (and possibly by upping my meds. just saying)

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” 
― Jonathan Safran Foer

one of the biggest lessons that i have learned through therapy and through facing my addiction is that when you numb yourself to the hard feelings, you numb yourself to the wonderful feelings as well. when you protect yourself from feeling, you don't get to experience the joys that life is filled with. 

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” 
― Ayn Rand

make yourself important. you matter. did you hear that? i'll say it louder ... YOUUUUUU MATTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

“All happiness depends on courage and work.” 
― Honoré de Balzac

you wont just BE happy without working on yourself. and that takes time and small changes that lead to bigger life-long change. (another gem from nosy nora)

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” 
― J.M. Barrie

i included that quote because i love the idea of fairies. and i love baby laughs. what brings more joy than a baby laughing!?!?!?!?!???

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” 
― Hunter S. Thompson

one of the first things i remember nosy nora saying to me when i started therapy a few years ago was that i seemed like i wasn't present in my life. i was on the shore merely existing. terrified of the potential storm out on the sea of life. i am trying really hard to be present. it's not easy. but i feel like i am more alive. like i am experiencing life instead of watching it pass me by. 

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” 
― Guillaume Apollinaire

pause and experience your happiness. there's no point in following my steps to happiness if you spend all your time focusing on trying to make yourself happy without enjoying the feeling of BEING happy. 

and MOST importantly, 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

dealing with anxiety

in the past, i have written about anxiety, worries, and being anxious. today i want to talk about ways to deal with anxiety. 

anxiety is a major part of my life. it has been for as long as i can remember. lately, i have been dealing with anxiety by grinding my teeth. i have only had one panic attack in the last month thankfully. but i still get a clenched belly and clenched jaw. 

so what is anxiety? it is defined as a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. or, as a disorder that causes nervousness, fear, apprehension and worrying. 

so what can you do about it? how can you live life when you are constantly in a state of worry and apprehension? 

learning relaxation techniques is important. whether that means something like meditation, or simply breathing exercises or muscle relaxation techniques. 

another step is to challenge your negative thinking. for me, one of my biggest worries is about my car. i am always sure it is going to blow up, or get a flat tire. so i talk myself through the scenario. will my car blow up? no. cars don't spontaneously explode. they just don't. will i get a flat tire? it could happen. will it kill me? no. i have CAA and can call someone to come and help me. it will suck, but i will be okay. and likely, i wont get a flat tire. 

limit your alcohol and caffeine intake. they can make your anxiety worse. (yes, DP, less coffee could be helpful)

get enough sleep. when you are sleep-deprived (as i often am) you are more prone to worry. and when you are in a state of anxiety, you need more rest. 

exercise is helpful ... (so i am told repeatedly by nosy nora). something as simple as going for walks can really help to manage your symptoms. 

eat foods high in anti-oxidants like blueberries. as well as almonds, dark chocolate, fish (eww), and pumpkin seeds. they supposedly lower the hormones responsible for stress. i don't know if this is true, but there are no negative effects to eating these things, so go for it. 

say no. seriously. 

say no. 

don't get overwhelmed by commitments. we lead such busy lives and we over-commit ourselves. you need to learn your limits and respect yourself enough to enforce them. this might mean staying home on a friday night when all your friends are out having fun. it's okay. you don't have to do everything. 

keep a journal that keeps track of when you are anxious and try to identify what you are feeling anxious about. as i type this, i am worrying about how it will be received and i am grinding my teeth. as you journal and discover what is causing your apprehension and fears, you can uncover the things that are within your control. then you can make changes to the situation 

there are situations beyond your control. but focus on the things that you CAN change. and then ... change them. 

set aside worry time. give yourself an hour each day where you are allowed to worry about everything. you are allowed to stress and freak out and run every situation over and over again in your head. and when the hour is up, you are done. finished. no more worrying allowed. turn it off. think about other things. 

another idea from nosy nora is to put in your earphones and listen to happy music, or music that makes you feel good, or music that has positive memories tied to it. and if you feel like it, dance along. it's almost impossible to feel anything but happy when you are dancing along to "sweet home alabama". check out this website on music and memory to further understand how music can connect you to happier and calmer feelings.  http://musicandmemory.org/

use positive thoughts to challenge the negative ones. "this is scary but i will be okay." or "this is awful, but i have some strategies to deal with it." i use geneen roth's suggestion of adding "the sky is blue" to my thoughts. it neutralizes the thought by attaching the statement to it. "my car is going to blow up the sky is blue." or "i am never going to get this right i am such an idiot the sky is blue."

there's always meditation and yoga. for those of us gently rounded people, yoga sounds terrifying. i am so anxious about yoga that i have to do it at home using youtube videos instead of going to a class. but it's better than not doing anything at all. 

most of all, if anxiety is running your life, seek support from friends and family, and potentially from a health care professional. living with anxiety is really challenging. trust me. it sucks. but there are ways to manage your anxiety and you don't have to do it alone. 

and as always, 
be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...

binge

i want to write about bingeing. i want to take away the secrecy and stop perpetuating the shame of it. 

i asked LES first if i should write about bingeing. it's a scary topic. she wrote to me and said, 

"i read your work because it normalizes it for me… helps me feel a wee bit less shame. I may not have the strength that you have in this moment to control it or frankly even notice it/that i was binging until reading your thing.. but yeah, it helps to remove shame by sharing our stories.. you may not be able to remove your own shame but by sharing you help remove a bit of mine"

i have been a binge-er since i was 13. 

and i now have gone months without bingeing and feel like i have that part of my life under some semblance of control (yes nosy nora, i will admit and take responsibility for SOME control in my life, for some things that i have control over ...). 

but as a child, i was a secret binge-er. i would sneak food and eat it super fast and hide the wrappers. i would eat nothing all day and then gorge myself on chocolate bars on the way home from school. i would snack on chips and cookies and crackers. 

i sent the above to LES and she wrote back: 

*she reads this with eyes wide open taking it all in as she binges on crackers, cookies and gold fish - not having eaten all day"

as i grew into an adult, the hiding became more intense and more important to the behaviour. 

what's it like to binge? it's the ultimate numbing experience. the food doesn't matter. it could be stale, hard, old ... it doesn't matter. because you don't taste the food. it's not about eating, it's about numbing. 

at my lowest point, i took a cake out of the garbage can and ate it. i ate a cake out of the garbage. i have also eaten cold french fries. out of a macdonalds bag. that was crumpled in the garbage can. 

geneen roth describes a binge as a way of eating, not an amount of food. she wrote that a binge can be 2 cookies. 

i have never eaten until i was sick. it is the intensity with which i find junk food and stuff it into me without tasting it. a binge can be on carrots. a binge is when you are eating instead of feeling your feelings. 

i often would binge because i didn't want to feel the emotions that come up - those difficult emotions that no one likes to feel: loneliness, fear, anger, sadness ... 

"if you don't allow feelings, if you push them away, they get bigger, become more threatening. feelings don't go away because you're afraid of them." - geneen roth

... i find myself now looking for food to binge on when i am feeling those emotions. but instead, i stop, i breathe, i sit down, and i ask myself what it is that i am feeling. what am i feeling and why? and i let the emotions pass through me. 

healing from bingeing (and purging) is hard work and there will always be relapses. 

geneen roth offers strategies for dealing with bingeing that include allowing yourself to binge and then being kind to yourself afterwards - incredibly kind and gentle. 

nosy nora suggested that i have a hole inside of me ... a hole that can't be filled, instead it needs to be mended. 

i like that image. 

i like the idea that i was using food to stuff myself to try to fill an endless pit. but an endless pit can't be filled. 

i have been working on sealing up the hole inside of me instead. through gentleness and inquiry. 

if you are struggling with bingeing, there are places that can help. i got help. i didn't solve this myself. email me and i will help you find support in your area. 


be kind to yourself, there's no other way to be

xoxo

...

keeping myself small

"why do we feel that we have to have small bodies to have big lives? what feels good about feeling bad? and where do we turn for nourishment when it's not in the places we thought it would be?" - Geneen Roth

i have kept myself small for many years. large in physique and small in my life. i have diminished my accomplishments so as not to make other people feel bad. i worry about how my accomplishments will make other people feel, so i diminish my achievements thinking that will make other people feel good. 

my parents had their problems; both in their relationship and in their own lives. and i learned that by being small, i could blend into the background. i didn't share my report cards. i didn't share my writing. i kept it all to myself. keeping my life small and meaningless. keeping myself from being the centre of attention. 

"we believe we are not enough, we also believe that if we had more or were different, we would feel nourished." - Geneen Roth

i have spent my small life believing that i am not enough, that i don't do enough, that i don't have enough. believing that if only i were thin, if only i were smart, if only i were ______ i would feel nourished and fulfilled. not knowing that what i need to be nourished has been right here inside of me all along. 

for years i turned to my addictions: food and pills. using both to try to fill the empty spaces inside of me. 

"what did i want that i could never have, which made me feel like an endless pit of need?" - Geneen Roth

what did i want? i wanted to fit in with the other kids. i wanted to feel part of a group. i wanted to feel belonging and connection. instead, i felt like "an endless pit of need." and i tried to fill that pit with food. 

but you cannot fill an endless pit. 

"when you hide [eating] you give yourself the message that who you are is not acceptable, and that you must pretend to be someone else to be loved." - Geneen Roth

i spend way too much of my life hiding my eating. i would sneak to the store, buy a chocolate bar, and eat it as fast as i could. when i was 9. 

and i continued to hide my eating well into my 30s. in public, eating "healthy" foods, in private consuming vast quantities of "unhealthy" foods. making myself bigger to keep my life small. 

"when you sneak food, you perpetuate the belief that you are too ugly, too needy, too intense to be seen and loved for who you are. the same is true when you sneak feelings." - Geneen Roth

sneaking food and sneaking feelings are one and the same in my life. afraid to tell people how i feel. afraid to show people what i eat. afraid to live a big and full life. afraid to show people who i really am. 

"there is no such thing as enough because we believe that our very being is not enough. [...] to have enough, we have to believe that we are enough." - Geneen Roth

believing that i am enough is the most difficult affirmation i have ever tried to tell myself. that and a line from an article by nosy nora, "i love and accept myself deeply and completely." ... i have that as the screen saver on my phone and though i see it a zillion times a day, i find it hard to believe. hard to accept as my truth. believing that i am enough means loving myself deeply and completely. believing that i am enough means accepting myself for who i am. believing that i am enough means sharing my feelings, sharing my eating, and letting people know me for who i really am. 

"wanting things that could easily be given, be gotten, rather than wanting what i knew i couldn't have from either of my parents: being seen, being met. being valued for the fullness i already embodied." - Geneen Roth

it was much easier ... is much easier ... to want to be thin, to want new shoes, to want the newest indigo girls album ... than it is to demand to be valued, to be seen, to be heard. it became easier to keep my life small than to accept that i wasn't being seen or heard. it became easier to make my body bigger, to protect myself. 

at 13, i became noticed for my body. and that noticing led to events that i would rather forget. some that i have forgotten. and at 13, i began to make myself small, to blend into the background, to not be noticed. at 13, i learned that to lead a small life meant to have a large body. 

this is all subconscious of course. i never set out to be fat. but i have kept myself fat for many years. keeping myself big as a way to protect myself from living a full life. 

i leave you with this thought ...

"the world will not fall apart if we let ourselves express our vastness. it is more likely the world will stop falling apart when we do." - Geneen Roth

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

eating mindfully

so ... many of you know that geneen roth is my guru. but you might not know why. i have been trying to follow her eating guidelines for almost a year now, but over the last month i have been following them more carefully and i have noticed a real difference. here guidelines are: 

• Eat when you are hungry.
• Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.
• Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.
• Eat what your body wants.
• Eat until you are satisfied.
• Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
• Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Eating-Guidelines-Women-Food-and-God

these are not easy things to do, as simple as they seem. but wow they make a difference in the way my body feels, and in my relationship to food. i have barely eaten any chocolate in a couple of months. and i LOVE chocolate. i was addicted to chocolate. i needed it every day. but when i slowed down, ate chocolate without distractions, and listened to what my body wanted, i discovered that i don't actually like the chocolate that i have been eating. so i don't crave it. and not craving it means not eating it. the same is true with chips. 

now, if i WANT chips, i eat them. but only if i feel hungry. and most of the time, after dinner i am not hungry. 

the other thing that i am doing is making sure that i am eating regularly throughout the day. eating what i want, trying to enjoy it, and stopping when i am satisfied (not full). 

these are things that might sound normal to some of you. but my relationship with food has never been healthy. which has made me unhealthy. 

by eating regularly, following geneen roth's guidelines, and allowing myself to enjoy eating, my relationship with food is changing. 

the fact is, diets don't work for me. for every diet there is an equal binge. by restricting, i end up desiring. craving. bingeing. 

diets work for me in the short term. i lose weight. but then i can't keep it off. because of my unhealthy relationship with food. so i yo yo. 

i am a textbook. 

at the beginning of july, i was the heaviest that i have ever been. which was 3 lbs heavier than i was the first time i did weight watchers and lost 40 lbs. i was miserable looking at the scale. i was miserable trying on clothes. 

over the last month, by eating regularly, eating whatever i want, listening to my body, and not restricting, i have actually lost 15 lbs. by NOT dieting. 

we shall see if this trend continues. but it is pretty amazing to me that eating makes me lose weight, and restricting makes me gain weight. it seems counter intuitive. 

i would love to lie and say that it doesn't matter whether or not i lose weight. but this body feels so full and heavy and it's hard to get up the energy to do physical activity. so i DO want to lose weight.  

i encourage you to try the eating guidelines and allow yourself to have a healthy relationship with food. and if you already have a healthy relationship with food, i feel happy for you and hope that i can one day feel as you do. in the meanwhile, i will struggle to learn not to hate eating, not to restrict my food, and not to hate food. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

body image

“In all the years I've been a therapist, I've yet to meet one girl who likes her body.”
― Mary Pipher

i am a woman who hates her body. i have spent years talking about body image, teaching young girls to love themselves, and yet, here i am, admitting to the world, that i hate hate hate my body. 

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” 
― Amy Bloom

intellectually i get that i am more than my body. intellectually i can understand that it is my mind, my personality, my love, that makes me who i am. but emotionally, i am my body. this body that doesn't move the way i want it to. 

“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.” 
― Geneen Roth

i am constantly trying to reinvent myself. and banging my head against the wall of shame. i am constantly judging myself and my body. holding up the image of myself against the thin bodies around me. 

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” 
― Simone de Beauvoir

my lack of confidence in my body and in myself is overwhelming at times. i want to hide away inside my house and never be seen. being seen is my worst fear. and i have to be seen every day, which really sucks to be honest. 

“A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience.” 
― Naomi Wolf

this post is about my journey from self-hatred. 

i wish i knew where the journey was going to ...

“Even the models we see in magazines wish they could look like their own images.” 
― Cheri K. Erdman

our ideal image of beauty is false. i get that. i don't want to look like pages from a magazine. but i do want to look like the thin women i see walking down the street. and i know that they want to look like someone else as well. we all have parts of us that we wish we could change.

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.” 
― Germaine Greer,

i have always wished to be beautiful AND smart. and if i had to choose, i think i would choose beautiful. which is sad. but it's the truth. 

“Weight (too much or too little) is a by-product. Weight is what happens when you use food to flatten your life. Even with aching joints, it's not about food. Even with arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure. It's about your desire to flatten your life. It's about the fact that you've given up without saying so. It's about your belief that it's not possible to live any other way -- and you're using food to act that out without ever having to admit it.” 
― Geneen Roth

i spent years flattening my life - using food to numb my feelings. over the last year i have been learning to feel my feelings and i am happy to say that i no longer turn to food. i eat when i am hungry. i eat meals. i eat snacks. and i don't binge. 

unfortunately, it's taking my body a long time to catch up with my actions. i feel like i am stuck in this body that no longer represents my behaviours.

“Every weight loss program, no matter how positively it’s packaged, whispers to you that you’re not right. You’re not good enough. You’re unacceptable and you need to be fixed.” 
― Kim Brittingham

i have dieted for years. lost weight, and then gained it back. because dieting didn't address my problem. dieting told me that i wasn't good enough - told me that i needed to be a better version of myself and that if i deprived myself i would get thin. and i was never thin enough. but i was deprived. and then i would "cheat" on my diet and feel like crap. and i would figure, well i screwed that up, i might as well keep eating. 

and eating. and eating. and numbing myself to all my emotions. 

“Eating – overeating – saved me. It comforted me when I was at the mercy of grown-ups who didn't know how to give what I needed. Food was something to which I had ready access, and with it I cleverly fashioned a survival mechanism that pulled me back from the edge of insanity. – a young MacGuyver of angst and junk food.” 
― Kim Brittingham

i learned from a young age that food would soothe me in the ways that the adults around me couldn't. and now i have unlearned to use food to soothe. 

but there is so much more to unlearn.

this is my journey, and welcome to it ...

“I have a body, 
but I am not my body.
I have a face, 
but I am not my face.” 
― Iyanla Vanzant

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

stillness

"Peace and contentment are feelings that take practice to achieve. They are not a consequence of being successful or being in love or being thin. They are, among other things, a consequence of stopping in the present moment and looking around." - Geneen Roth

i have been thinking about stillness. radical t sometimes asks me if i have tried being still. being still and listening. 

listening not to the sounds of the loud neighbours bbq, or the dog barking, or the tv blaring, or the ticking of the clock ... but listen to the voice inside of you. 

“Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.” ― David Foster Wallace

change within yourself isn't fast (unfortunately). it takes time. my friend D describes it like a swan ... on the surface there is calm and beauty, but under the surface the swan's feet are paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. 

taking the time for myself this year was the hardest and best thing i have ever done. putting oneself first isn't something that people are taught to do - especially women. so taking time off work and doing self-reflection and self-care was scary, difficult, and wonderful. 

“Being still does not mean don't move. It means move in peace.” ― E'yen A. Gardner

being still doesn't mean sitting cross-legged on the floor and meditating. being still means taking the time to listen to the voice inside of you; listen to what it has to say about your life, about what you are doing, about what you are thinking. being still means trusting yourself to tell yourself what you need - and what you need to know. 

“Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

there are times, however, when sitting cross-legged on the floor can be a good thing. meditation is a great way to be still. and yet, you can be still and listen inside without having to meditate. 

“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.” ― Eckhart Tolle

trust that you know yourself better than anyone else does. trust that you know both your mind and your body. trust that you are the expert on yourself and your life. and trust that, as nosy nora likes to tell me, you are the boss. you are the boss of yourself, of your life, and of your choices. 

“In the stillness the voice inside is louder, much louder, and cannot be ignored.” ― Diane Brown

taking the time to listen to yourself takes practice. and with practice comes the ability to hear yourself. that inner voice that is screaming to be heard becomes soft and calm and tells you what you are waiting to hear. for years, my inner voice screamed at me wanting so badly to be heard. the more is screamed, the louder it got, the harder it was for me to hear. inside was all noise and scrambled sounds. 

taking the time this year to be still has given me the ability to hear myself for the first time. and boy do i ever have a lot to say ...

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

let them eat cake ... the whole cake ...

the other night i was introduced to the idea that some people settle for crumbs instead of expecting and demanding the whole cake. 

when it comes to actual cake, eating the crumbs instead of the cake only leads to deprivation and later sneaking the cake. it leads to thinking about nothing BUT cake. and it leads to shame. 

“...compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. No matter what we weigh, those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all of this is by the simple act of bolting -- of leaving ourselves -- hundreds of times a day.” ― Geneen Roth

cake as a metaphor can allude to so many things.

relationships
settling for the crumbs means not expecting or demanding what you deserve from family, friends, or your partner. you deserve to be treated with respect. you deserve to be asked how you feel, how your day was, what you like, and what you want. you deserve to matter. you deserve to be in mutually respectful relationships in which you are equally important. you deserve to be compatible with the people you love. you deserve not to get text messages from your mother that say "you suck" or "you are a bad person." 



work
do you know how many times i have wanted to ask for more but was afraid to look like a jerk? i want better preps, i want better duties. i want less meetings and more of a break. i want a shorter lunch hour ... so many of us settle for the crumbs at work. not asking for a promotion. not sharing our ideas for fear of rejection. not demanding equal pay. work isn't just a place you go to get money. work often defines how we feel about ourselves. you are worth the whole cake at work too. 

sex
yeah ... i'm not going to write about sex. but RS wanted me to include it. when it comes to sex, many people settle for crumbs. you deserve a slice of cake. with layers. and lots of icing. and sprinkles. you get the point. 

food
when it comes to eating, too often i settle for the crumbs. literally. i starve myself until i am so hungry that i over-eat. because i don't think that i deserve to eat a slice of cake like everyone else. so alone and unobserved, i will eat my cake. but i will eat it like it is the last piece of cake i will ever have in my life. i don't taste it. and i don't enjoy it because i am being sneaky and don't think that i deserve to enjoy it. if i DO eat cake in front of people, i spend the entire time wondering what people are thinking about my cake eating. so i don't enjoy the cake at all. i barely taste it. 

so now what? i wish i had an answer for you. i wish i could tell you HOW to stop living on crumbs and to live a cake-filled life. but if i knew that, i would be living on cake myself. if i knew that, i wouldn't have a plate full of crumbs in front of me and i wouldn't feel guilty about even having that. i would ask for what i need, demand what i deserve, and seek out more cake varieties. 

so that is our homework ... choose one small area of your life where you accept crumbs, and look for a way to have a slice of cake. then email me or comment at the bottom of the post and tell me about it. i look forward to hearing about your accomplishments, and your struggles!

be kind to yourself, and go for the cake

xoxo

...

spring thoughts

my spring thoughts

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” ― Simone de Beauvoir

i wanted to spend a bit of time this weekend talking about the renewal of spring. now is the time when the days are longer, the evenings are brighter, the temperature is theoretically warmer ... the flowers are starting to make their way through the cold hard earth and blooming. 

it makes me think about all the changes that i am making in my life. 

and all the changes i hope that you are making too.

i have been thinking a lot about eating and my disordered eating. and about body image in general. 

“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.” 

― Marya Hornbacher,

where do our ideas and our ideals come from? before the diet industry, being plump meant being healthy because it meant that you had enough food to eat. 

it's time to start thinking about all the things that i am, instead of all the things that i am not. i am "not a problem to be solved." 

“You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.” 

― Geneen Roth

i am precious. i am worthy. i am enough. i am deserving ... if i tell myself those things over and over, maybe i will start to believe them. 

“What if I'm so broken I can never do something as basic as feed myself? Do you realize how twisted that is? It amazes me sometimes that humans still exist. We're just animals, after all. And how can an animal get so removed from nature that it loses the instinct to keep itself alive?” ― Amy Reed

disordered eating affects every part of my life. right now, for example, i KNOW that i am not hungry. that i can't possibly be hungry. that i have eaten more than enough food. and yet, all i want is to go into the kitchen and find something to eat. for no real reason other than i feel like something is missing. there are other times where i convince myself that i don't need to eat at all. that i can make it through the day on an apple and a lot of tea. it's very confusing to determine which kind of day it is. 

“A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience.” ― Naomi Wolf

growing up, i was encouraged to be thin. by my parents, by my extended family, by my dance teachers, by the media, by society ... being thin meant being successful and being enough. being thin meant being accepted. and as my medical conditions (PCOS and hypothyroidism) caused me to gain weight, i began to feel more and more anxious and less and less worthy. 

at age 3, i started ballet and i was taught to suck in my stomach. i haven't let it out since then. 

what screws us up most is what other people expect our life is supposed to be. especially our early childhood expectations. what we learn then is what sets us up for the rest of our lives. it is the unlearning that is most important. 

i don't want to regret not taking advantage of opportunities that life throws my way. as much as i want to continue the patterns that have served me well for so many years ... the familiar patterns that have plagued me for so many years ... it's time for a change. it's time for renewal, and rejuvenation. it is time to refresh my life. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

enoughness

"Most of us spend our lives protecting ourselves from losses that have already happened." 

— Geneen Roth

i have enough, but i am always looking for more. 

i do enough, but i am always thinking that i need to do more. 

i am enough, but i am always looking to be more. 

what is enoughness? well first, it's a word that i made up. and second, enoughness is living your life in the moment. it is living as if what you have, what you do, and what you are, are tantamount to enough. 

enoughness is accepting that this moment is the most important moment because it is now. enoughness means not waiting for the right time that will never come. 

i want to write about enoughness in relation to food and eating.


my parents grew up with very little. they didn't have enough; not enough food, not enough attention, not enough love. and so they passed on the legacy of not enough to me, even though in reality i have everything i need. 

i was given everything i could ever need or want. and i never asked for anything. i didn't need to. there was an abundance of food. it was readily available. i helped with the grocery shopping and got to choose what i wanted to eat. there was always enough. 

and yet, it never felt like enough. the not-enough legacy was passed on so that i felt the need to sneak food. to hide food and eat it later. when i tried to go into the kitchen to get food, i was always told "you're not hungry, you're bored." perhaps i was bored and not hungry, but that need wasn't met either. so i stopped looking for food publicly and ate in secret, trying to give myself enough. 

this feeling of looking for what i don't have, of wanting something that may not even exist, this feeling of never having enough is a legacy passed down to me from poverty. but it's more than that. i think that our society is obsessed with the idea of more. and more means never having enough. 

"...compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. No matter what we weigh, those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all of this is by the simple act of bolting -- of leaving ourselves -- hundreds of times a day." 

— Geneen Roth

anorexia of the soul ... starving your soul. not feeding your soul what it needs to thrive. the feeling of not BEING enough makes me eat foods that my body doesn't need, in amounts that my body doesn't need so that i can have a false sense of enoughness. i am feeding my need to fill myself without feeding my heart. enoughness means eating when you are hungry, stopping when you are full, and choosing foods that taste good to you. enoughness means feeding your heart and soul with music, friendship, reading good books, writing, walking, gardening, or whatever makes you feel content and enough. when the focus turns to food, the lack of enoughness causes you to overeat. 

"We keep wanting more because we don't let ourselves have what we already have" — Geneen Roth

let myself have what i already have ... i have been learning a great deal about kindness. i have been allowing myself to experience kindness without bolting, as well as asking for (demanding) kindness. and most importantly, i have been demanding that i treat mySelf with kindness. it is time to let myself have what i already have - to practice letting myself experience the joys in life that are right here and right now. 

"You will never stop wanting more until you allow yourself to have what you already have. To take it in. Savor it. Now is a good time to do that . . ." 

— Geneen Roth

taking the time to eat slowly ... to truly taste the foods you eat ... to feel the textures, to know what you like and what you don't like ... this is about allowing yourself to have what you already have. i bought a bag of chocolate easter eggs. i was excited. i peeled the pink shiny foil off the egg and smelled the chocolate. i popped it into my mouth and let the chocolate begin to dissolve. then i bit into the chocolate egg and began to chew ... at which point i discovered that i don't actually like chocolate easter eggs. they are waxy and way too sweet. normally i just pop them in my mouth, chew and swallow, and move onto the next one. enoughness means tasting what you eat and choosing to eat what tastes good. and it also means not wasting time eating things that you discover you don't even like. 

when it comes to the enoughness of life, i am working on allowing myself to be treated well. to savor feeling loved. to take in feeling cared about, cherished, treasured. allowing myself to have what is here. and rejecting what doesn't feel good. 

merriam webster defines "enough" as "occuring in such quantity, quality, or scope as to fully meet demands, needs, or expectations." the scope of your life, right now, as you are, is enough because it is what you are. 

some of you reading this are thinking that this doesn't apply to you because you don't have a job, or you hate your job, or you have an illness, or you are fighting cancer, or your marriage is ending, or you are thinking about moving, or or or ... but i promise you that you are enough, as you are. enoughness means looking past the events and looking into your heart. enoughness is practicing gratitude for the things that make you smile. 

right now, in this moment, i am in enoughness because i am writing and drinking a chai tea latte. i am savoring each word i write, and each sip of hot creamy spicy goodness. 

enoughness isn't about what you have. enoughness is about living each moment with gusto. 

i leave you with this thought: 

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...