What problem do you have regarding your body or habits these days?

• Is it the near-constant critical thoughts about your appearance?

• Is it the late-night eating that you can't seem to stop even though you are full?

• Or maybe it's the fear of eating certain foods that makes eating decisions so stressful?

Am I safe to assume that in general, you’d like to feel better?

You’re very human if you do. We are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain - it’s a basic survival instinct. Our brain associates pain with “danger”, and pleasure with “safety”. So it makes sense to want to “feel better”, it feels safer. 

Which is why you’ve invested so much time and energy into losing weight and “looking good. In our culture, it comes with a lot of pay-offs, such as:

Our bodies are with us our entire lives. When we are at war with it, it adds an unnecessary layer of burden and stress.

And one of the best ways I know to help alleviate that burden, is a daily meditation practice

Wait! Before you say "really? Meditation is your answer?" hear me out.

Gratitude lists are all the rage. And for good reason.

Our minds have a negativity bias. The primal brain's sole job is to keep us physically alive, and it does this by being on watch constantly for anything it could perceive as a potential threat to our safety (even if it's not actually a real threat - which is most things in our modern life!)

When I heard Byron Katie say "I am what you believe me to be" - it felt freeing.

Because I realized that I couldn't control someone else's perception of me.

Now that might seem like a scary idea when we feel we need someone to see us a certain way in order to feel ok. But when we don't need that, and we recognize that no matter how hard we try they are going to see us how they see us, we can become free.

So you decided to go on a weight loss journey. You committed yourself to your workout plan. Altered your diet to Keto or signed up to Noom, and after some time, it worked - like it said it would! The weight came off and the compliments came right alongside it.

Everyone is happy: you are happy, your friends are happy, your doctor is happy. You’re enjoying buying clothing in smaller sizes. You like how you have more energy. Your health markers are better. It’s a big WIN all around! You are at the beginning of the rest of your happily-ever-after life.

Fast forward a few years later…you’re several pounds heavier (or even heavier than when you started).

Have you ever felt that if you stopped trying to manage your weight you'd essentially be "giving up" on yourself?

I think the image that comes to mind for most people when they contemplate no longer caring about their weight, is of someone who eats copious amounts of "junk food", never works out, has low energy and no passion for life.

What an extreme image! But there's a reason for that.

I want to share with you what I believe is the single most important thing you need to know if you want to stop fighting your body and start accepting it.

Here it is: we are not our mind.

What the heck do I mean by that?

Let’s look at an example.

There’s an interesting pattern I notice: when I’m feeling good, happy, energized etc. I don’t really think that much about my body. However when I’m tired, stressed, fearful or anxious, I am more likely to fixate on or criticize my body.

I hate that I need to write “survive” and “swimsuit” in the same sentence. I’d much prefer we lived in a world where body judgement didn’t exist, and people never felt uncomfortable putting on a swimsuit and enjoying time at the beach or the pool. But this is not our world right now, and the fact is way too many of us feel like we need to “survive” the summer months where more revealing clothing like bathing suits are worn.

Change can be uncomfortable, especially when we are used to having control over our daily lives. The pandemic reminds us that change happens, and life is always in flux. The more we resist change that is out of our control, the more suffering we experience, and if there’s one area where there is strong resistance, it’s with our bodies.

I hesitated to write this post because Ayahuasca is still quite unknown (and illegal in most places), and with all things unknown, it can be quite misunderstood.

But my experience with ayahuasca (and the container wherein I experienced it), was so profound, safe, helpful, and insightful, that I didn’t want to hold back on sharing the realizations that came from it.

Question:

Were you "you" when you were 5 years old?

How about 10 years old? 20? 30? 40?

It seems like a silly question doesn't it? Of course it was "you" throughout all those years! But if someone were to look at you at each point in your life, you would look different every time.

Was it "you" running around doing cartwheels, playing sports, going to school, and working a job?

To begin with, it’s good to have an understanding of what “diet culture” actually is.

I like Christy Harrison’s definition which you can read here, though to summarize:

Diet culture is a set of beliefs held by the popular culture that…

• worships thinness

• equates health and moral virtue to one’s body size

• elevates (or demotes) one’s social status based on appearance

• demonizes certain ways of eating

• oppresses individuals in proportion to how far away they are from the cultural body “ideal”

I was sitting on the couch at midnight with friends, and almost immediately after the ball dropped a WW ad appeared on TV encouraging us to make this year the year we lose weight and keep it off! Well actually, they didn’t explicitly say “lose weight”  because they are now “WW” and no longer “Weight Watchers”, (which is laughable, because WW is still very much centered around weight loss).

And that’s a problem. 

What is weight stigma?

Weight stigma is comprised of the assumptions we have about a person based on their body size. It expresses itself in the way we treat people (and view and treat ourselves). It manifests in our culture through who gets access and who doesn’t, based on body size. 

I was riding home on the streetcar the other day and overheard a conversation between two grown men. The one was telling the other about his hiking trip abroad. They both clearly loved hiking, and were swapping stories about people they met on the trail, their blisters and aching feet, and the stunning scenery they encountered. It sounded to me like a full-out experience, and had me thinking about hiking abroad too someday.
Then it happened (like it does all too often) - the conversation turned to weight.

Body positivity has gone mainstream. It’s exciting, because it means more and more people will come across the message of accepting our bodies no matter what they look like, or are capable of doing. It’s a message that promotes caring for people and treating everyone with respect, without requiring that their bodies confirm to someone else’s (or a culture’s) expectation.

But like all things that go mainstream, the core purpose and message can get watered down by those who misunderstand it.

I tell all my coaching clients that they are courageous, strong, and have a lot of heart. I say this not just so that they feel good about themselves, I say it because it’s 100% true.

Here is a classic storyline:

A girl is an “ugly duckling”, she loses weight, puts on some makeup, a nice hairdo, and, let’s not forget, loses the glasses, and voila! She’s becomes “hot” and all the guys fall for her, and she lives happily ever after.