Stay

The following piece was written on November 7th, 2016 after the results of the U.S. presidential election were announced. The words remain relevant today.

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Every cell of my body is screaming “leave!” this morning. There is no where I want to be less than here.

But I stay.

When I heard the news I ran to the toilet to throw up. I sat on the floor of the bathroom rocking back and forth, trembling, breath shallow, wanting so intensely to leave this moment, this world.

But I stay.

My mind grips and grasps for me to run away to the future. To the what ifs. To the terror. To the tracing of all the steps in history that lead me and us to this moment. To the search for blame. To the desperation for salvation. My mind implores and beckons me to leave.

But I stay.

As a woman, my body has rarely felt like home. For too long I didn’t live here. Here was not a place to trust. Here was not a place that I thought I could handle with my eyes open. But I found my way back and I stay.

Today the invitation I have for you may not be easy: stay.

Stay in your body. Stay with the tremors and the shaking. Stay with the pit in your stomach. Stay even as you notice yourself bobbing in and out. These feelings. This trauma. This fear and anger and sadness and confusion and despair cannot kill us. In fact staying is our salvation.

Stay in your body. Just sidle up next to whatever sensation is coursing through your flesh. Feel the pain. Notice the quality of your breath. Are you hungry? Cold? Perhaps the best way to describe here is ‘numb’?

That’s all welcome. Stay.

The body knows and it has evolved over millennia to process trauma like many of us are experiencing. These processes require little effort on our part other than loving presence…other than staying with kindness.

Stay.

In staying we can receive our bodies wise requests. Is it aching for companionship? Asking for quiet? Nudging us to put away the screens or put on a sweater? Now is the time to heed our body’s requests. Now is the time to stay.

There may not yet be answers to the questions in our mind but we can answer the requests of the body.

There will be a time in the near future that we act boldly, consistently, together and with steadfast determination but right now the impact has just happened, the car has just rolled, the fire just ravaged through, leaving our skin raw and our being bewildered. So right now our best action is to simply stay.

Stay and tend. Stay and feel. Stay and listen.

Here is my call: let our response to this moment be deeper embodiment.

Why embodiment? What can embodiment do in the face such real-life practical threats? Embodied people are resourced. Embodied people are awake. Embodied people are rooted.

If there were ever a time for people to be resourced, awake, and rooted this is it.

Let our commitment be to stay and to feel and then to act on behalf of those whose bodies are most threatened. And it’s all a threat to bodies isn’t it?

Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights? Human bodies.

Racial justice? Bodies.

Reproductive rights? Bodies.

War? ISIS? Bodies.

Affordable and accessible healthcare? Bodies.

Responsible gun control? Bodies.

Immigration? Bodies.

The disembodied cannot support and protect the physically vulnerable nearly as effectively as an army of the deeply embodied.

Don’t move to Canada. Don’t disappear. Don’t check out. Don’t give up. Don’t turn to your escape of choice. Stay. Just here. Just now. In this hurting, reeling body.

All you need to is stay and when you leave, come back as soon as you are aware. Stay.

When all you want to do is leave. When hopelessness nips at your toes. When you don’t know where to go or what to think or how to proceed. Just stay here in your powerful, vulnerable, sacred flesh.

The way forward will be found here and together, in our bodies, we will rise.

Participation Optional

Even though we in the developed world are relatively free, we’re still socialized to go along with the crowd. Today’s reminder is that participation is optional. Today I invite you to opt out when you don’t want to do something.

Opt out of being weighed at the doctor’s office. Did you know it’s optional? You can simply say “I pass” and if they pressure you, and you don’t feel you have a choice, you can step on the scale backwards and say “I don’t want to know the number, it’s not useful to me.”

Opt out of allowing your child to have their BMI measured at school. Seriously. Let’s stop this early weight stigmatization and use of this most meaningless measurement.

Opt of out the pervasive “I’m so bad, I ate a piece of bread” conversations. If the people around you are gib gabbing about their latest diet, weight loss success or failure you can: change the topic, explain that you don’t partake in ‘diet culture’, or even say “You know how some people don’t talk about religion or politics because it causes conflict, well, I don’t talk dieting.” And leave it at that. You do not have to participate in or respond to every conversation you’re invited to.

Opt out of "Operation Get Bikini Body Ready". You already have a bikini body, whether you want to wear one or not. This summer is not something to dread. The beach is not something to starve or slave for. Opt out.

Opt out of the hysteria over eating clean and of the diet fad (aka “lifestyle change”) of the moment. Just because “all the cool kinds are doing it” doesn’t mean it’s good for you (or them) and you have every right to opt out without any guilt.

Opt out of any yoga or exercise class that doesn’t feel welcoming to you and your body. As a wise friend of mine once said about bad yoga classes: “Treat them like a bad movie and walk out.”

On that note, opt out of the "free" body fat scan that comes with your new gym membership. When it comes to movement, you and your body deserve to feel welcomed, accepted, and met. Anything less is a great opportunity to opt out.

Opt out of seeing any medical practitioner who brings weight stigma into their practice. Increasingly you have choice and more and more there are medical professionals who understand the harm of weight-stigma and scientific validity of the Health at Every Size paradigm. Don’t like your doctor? Afraid to go see them because of the weight shaming comments they've made? Opt out.

Opt out of television shows (I’m looking at you Biggest Loser), magazines (I’m looking at you Shape Magazine), and other media that leave you feeling less than. Turn them off, unsubscribe, and go enjoy entertainment that respect you and everyone.

Bottom line: you are free. You can say “No” and “No Thank You” and “No Fucking Way.”

Even if you feel like the odd one out, no one ever regrets doing what feels right and true to them.

Participation is truly optional.

Sola Dosis Facit Venenum

I love television.

That might be a bit taboo to say, but it’s true. I get an enormous amount of pleasure from watching my favorite shows.

And there is nothing wrong with loving television. It gives me a tremendous amount of joy, laughter, and relaxation. Put simply, it feeds me. Most of the time. I can also use TV as a tool for avoiding life when checking in, not out, is would serve me most. A while back I noticed my viewing habits detracting more than helping and no surprise my first thought was “I’m going to just give up TV. Go cold turkey. Block Netflix from my computer. Commit to reading a book a week....” Yes, my initial response was to go on a diet. But the problem for me in this case wasn’t television, but the amount and the way I was using television.

Sola dosis facit venenum.

This translates to: The dose makes the poison.

I learned of this principle in graduate school. We were taught that everything in the world is medicine and everything is poison, depending on the dose. This idea is a pretty radical in a world that loves to categorize most things into ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

Organic local apples = pure goodness.
Wonder Bread = bad, devoid of any value.

But it’s not that simple. It never is. You can eat enough apples to make you sick. You can enjoy a sandwich on Wonder Bread without any negative consequence. And this rule, "The dose makes the poison", extends beyond food to include everything we take in: relationships and people, music, television, movies, alone and social time, time in the sun, and so forth. With everything there is a tipping point where it goes from serving us to taking away from us. Herein lies the delicate balance of self-care. It’s easy to make blanket statements like “Get rest” or “Move your body” but at what point is sleep or physical activity no longer of service?

We can’t say, can we?
Or rather, we can’t say for anyone but ourselves in a given moment.

There are no rules here. There are no formulas. And what works for us at one point can change in a moment. We might have spent months exhaustively working on a fulfilling project and then run out of steam. So we turn to a period of restoration, but without mindfulness the even rest can turn excessive when it’s not longer what we need or what serves us. Oh how we love an all or nothing scenario though. Our black and white oriented brains get a hit of calm when we (attempt to) draw a hard line in the sand. This is the rush that comes with the start of a diet or a rigid commitment to be in bed by 10 pm, every single night. We love the boundary—until we don’t.

We spring back from the hard line, rebel against the confines of our tightrope-of-a-plan in part because the things that we think are poison, are also medicine when served up in a different dose.

A warm, carb-filled meal after a long day. An extra two hours of sleep. A marathon of our favorite television show when shutting the world out is sometimes, even often, just what’s called for. Nothing's all bad, or all good, as much as our reductionistic minds would like to make them out to be. There is a time and place for just about every thing. So what are we to do when the very same thing can turn from serving us to detracting from us in a day?

We forget perfection and stop chasing purity. Outside of a newborn baby, purity and perfection don’t exist. When we try too hard to eat perfect, look perfect, and be perfect we end up cutting ourselves off from life and from things that, in certain doses, are really do serve us.

We pay attention. Diets, even those that restrict television and not food, allow us to be on a sort of autopilot. When we’re on one we don’t have to think or feel, we just have to follow the rules. But, to live our lives free and well we have to pay attention and make choices.

We find the kind choice. If nothing is all good or all bad, we have to inquire moment-by-moment what the kind choice is. Sometimes not doing the thing is kind. Sometimes doing the thing is kind. By following kindness we find our way in a world where nothing is just black and white.

Lastly, we double check our knee-jerk reactions. Notice what you label as good or bad without question. What gets a knee-jerk green light from you? What gets a red light?

Sola dosis facit venenum.

Vanity's Other Name

A while back I went to meet my husband Justin for lunch at his office.

This particular day we met up during the peak of the lunchtime rush. After unsuccessfully scanning the cafeteria for an empty table Justin spotted a co-worker with two empty seats at his table. “Can we join you?” Justin said.

“Sure” the coworker replied moving two bowls of food out of the way. “It’s my dinner” he said referring to the two bowls, each topped with another bowl that served as a lid, “I have to eat before 6 pm.”

We nodded, not really listening, attempting a lunch date for two at this table for four.

I was able to get a few bites in before I noticed this co-worker take out a digital scale (You know, the kind a baker might use to measure flour). He then placed both of his dinner bowls on the scale, one at a time, and jotted down their weight in a small, spiral bound notebook.

We’ve got a dieter in our midst, I thought to myself.

I truly didn’t want to engage. I just wanted a nice lunch date with my guy. But, the co-worker asked me what I do (“I’m a life coach”) and then who I work with (“People, around hunger”) and we were off to the races before I knew it.

After hearing that I work in the realm of hungers he says “Sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m so hungry.”

“Yeah” I nod knowingly, having experienced the same thing when starved myself “the body prioritizes getting enough to eat over getting sleep.”

“My body just really likes to be *** pounds so I really have to starve myself to get it lower.”

“Why? Why do all this? What’s this about?” Justin inquires.

“Vanity” he chirps matter-of-factly back with a nervous smile.

No.  Nope, I think to myself, this isn’t a result of vanity.

This is a result of anxiety.

This is a result of not feeling like you’re enough, just as you are.

This is a result of a fractured relationship with your body.

Vanity is an easy scapegoat. Kind of like when we stay in bed all day and call ourselves “lazy” when what’s really going on is something much wiser, deeper, and nuanced.

Vanity is a scapegoat and I’d argue that it’s never once caused someone to go on a diet or fall prey to an eating disorder (a line this particular co-worker was teetering).

We use these behaviors to soothe our worrisome minds and to falsely bring us closer to feeling as though we are enough.

As lunch was winding down he said “I think I have that leptin disorder—the one where your brain doesn’t signal when you’re full. That's why I have to limit my intake.”

Not able to help myself I replied: “Well, it sounds like you have a history of overriding your body’s cues and keeping your weight below what your body prefers...”

“No, this diet is recent. Before this I was just paleo.” he innocently replies.

I sigh and think to myself, “What do you think eating paleo is if not a diet?”, but not wanting to engage any more I just said “Well, sounds like what you’re doing is working for you and you should probably get tested for that leptin thing” and we went on our way.

I’m sharing this story because I want to challenge you to think about how you might be mislabeling your behavior. Do you think of yourself as irresponsible with money? Materialistic or vain? What about lazy or undisciplined? Selfish? Wasteful?

Instead of so quickly dismissing your actions with these labels and instead of looking upon yourself with judgement, inquire about what’s really happening.

If you think you’re dieting because your vain, could it be that you’re anxious and dieting (or losing weight or being a certain size) is soothing? Could it be that you’re living in a world gone mad, one that tells you there is no fate worse than being fat, and you don't yet know how to be at home in your skin?

If you think that you’re careless with money, could it be that you’re afraid that you won’t have (or be) enough, and shopping (temporarily) alleviates that feeling of scarcity? or that you haven’t discovered a more soulful way of relating to your finances?

If you view yourself as lazy, could it be that you’re simply tired? or disconnected from your spark? or expecting yourself to be super-human?

Bottomline: In my experience, what we call vanity, is almost always just anxiety and the hunger to feel enough. We’re too quick to slap a one-word judgement on ourselves. In reality our behavior, when met with compassion, is rich with information about what we’re truly hungry for.

Sacred Ground

"...and your very flesh shall be a great poem..."

— Walt Whitman

Growing up just outside Washington, DC resulted in my childhood having it’s fair share of visits to historical sites, such as Civil War battlefields, like Gettysburg.

If you’ve ever been to a memorial site, especially one where great loss actually took place, you know that you can feel it. What you’re standing on at these places is sacred ground and each has a powerful energetic fingerprint. Perhaps you’ve felt it while visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, Auschwitz in Poland, or The Killing Fields Museum in Cambodia.

Sadly the world is full of sites where atrocities have left an imprint, physical or energetic.

In my early twenties as I was emerging victorious from my own battle with anorexia the only way I could relate to my body was as this sacred ground. While not visible to the eye, my body felt like modern day Gettysburg battlefield.

This flesh—my flesh—was where a war had been fought and won.

And what this meant to me was that anything less than sacred awe was not good enough.

In the years since then I have encountered in my life and in the lives of those I work with serious trauma. Childhood abuse. Sexual assault. Mental illness. Loss of parents and children. Battles with cancer. Amputation.

And it doesn’t take catastrophic incidents like these to leave trauma. Life is traumatic.

Life is traumatic and our bodies bare the brunt of it. They are our sensory input tool and they are where we experience (or repress) emotion. Our bodies are the tools or fight or flight...or freeze. Our bodies are the recipient of heinous cultural norms. Our bodies, depending on where we live in the world, aren’t even always considered our own.

Life is also miraculous. The ways in which our body heals, allows for connection, creates new life, and enables our lives is marvelous.

All this is to say: feel the sacred ground you are living in.

Feel that you are sacred in every cell of your body.

Stand in awe of not just what has happened on your ‘land’ but on what you have survived and created.

Stand tall.

Consider reverence as a new template for how you inhabit this flesh of yours.

Like Whitman says, your "flesh shall be a great poem".

The Five Languages of Body Love

Have you heard of The Five Love Languages?

I’m guessing yes given the best-seller status of the book, but if not, here’s the rundown.

Gary Chapman, the author, posits that there are five ways that we can show love to each other, and especially toward a romantic partner: through gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, act of service, and physical touch.

The idea is that each of us has a dominant love language, or way we are best able to receive love. If our partner shows their love in a language we don’t ‘speak’ well then we might end up feeling uncared for or unloved. The trick, Chapman argues, is to understand each others love language and do our best to communicate accordingly. Some people feel loved when they are given quality time while others interpret physical touch or gifts as an affirmative signs.

I think this theory has a lot of value AND I think we need to take it with a big grain of salt. I’m not sure that love can be simplified so easily, but it’s valuable to note that we all experience it uniquely.

Switching subjects for a minute, let's talk about our bodies and how we feel about them. It's a pretty body-unfriendly swamp that we're swimming in. Everywhere you look are shame-inducing messages, overt and subliminal, targeted at our natural and diverse forms.

As a life coach and woman who seeks to practice self-acceptance and respect, I know just how much our relationship with our body determines how fulfilling our life is overall. Seriously, what's possible for a woman who is body-respectful is two-fold to what's possible to those ensnared in body-loathing.

So what does body love and The Five Languages of Love have to do with each other?

A lot. I’ve noticed that there are periods when we either communicate with our body through only one language or not through the language our body is asking us to love it through. To explore this further, here are the questions I began to ask myself and that you might find useful.

Gifts

Do I give my body gifts? Do I find yourself making kind purchases with my body’s care in mind? What’s the last gift I gave my body?

Quality Time

Do I give my body my time? Do I leave space in my life for my body to be heard and cared for? When is the last time I spent quality time with my body?

Words of Affirmation

Do I speak kindly towards my body? Are the messages I surround my body with respectful and/or loving? What’s the last generous and sweet thing I said to my body?

Acts of Service

Do I consider myself my body’s advocate and caregiver? When was the last time I went out of my way to do something for my body?

Physical Touch

Do I lay my hands on my own flesh? Do I do so with love? Do I provide my body with opportunities for caring and loving touch from another? When was the last time my body felt that it had been touched “enough” or to the point of “fullness”?

This line of inquiry was powerful for me and it opened me up to all the ways I could expand my body-love practice. So interesting to see where we easily give love and where we have blind spots. If you want to communicate your body through a broader range of love languages, here are a few ideas:

Gifts

Purchase a foam roller and use it to loosen up with myofacial release.

Treat your body to a coveted care product, be it lotion, massage oil, or scented soap.

Offer your body clothing that makes you feel good, comfortable, and stylish.

Quality Time

Dedicate 10 minutes in the morning to scanning your body with presence and curiosity.

Allow your body to write you a letter in your journal.

Take a nap, regularly.

Words of Affirmation

Commit to one day of body-respectful talk towards yourself.

Put up affirming words on your walls, bathroom mirror, or refrigerator door.

Come up with a mantra to recite every time you are feeling anything less than loving towards your body.

Acts of Service

Advocate for your body to another. Make a request. Make your body’s desires known.

Cook for your body. Prepare food that delights all your senses and your belly.

Take your body to see the doctor or dentist for a routine check-up.

Physical Touch

Massage yourself with sesame oil after a shower.

Try out a new type of bodywork, such as craniosacral or Thai massage.

Make love to yourself or with a partner.

The trick here, if this inquiry interests you, is to explore what makes your body feel loved?

In Praise of Safety

Social media abounds with images of softly lit, sunrise horizons with the words "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone" emblazoned across the sky. Or perhaps it's a mountain peak behind text that says "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

I believe life begins inside of our comfort zones and only when we feel safe enough to stretch out does life (and our comfort zone) expand.

I am simply a huge fan of everyone feeling safe and I think safety has become linked up with weakness.

In contrast, I have seen how safety allows us to blossom. I believe that feeling safe is a prerequisite for connection, learning, relationship, growth, and for feeding our hungers. The only time I have ever been able to heal or grow is when I first felt safe. The only times I’ve been able to hear my own hungers calling for me is when I created a safe space for them. The only times when I’ve been able to ask another to feed me is when I feel safe with them.

It’s true that we often want or need to do things that aren’t safe or don’t feel safe. Taking the stage. Quitting the job. Asking someone out on a date. Trying something new and unknown. It’s my experience though, that we have to feel a level of safety first. It’s also my experience that many of us tolerate lives, situations, and relationships in which we are not safe to be who we are, want what we want, and say what we think and feel. This needs to change.

Needing safety does not a weak person make. It’s okay to value safety. In fact, it's imperative. It’s okay to ask someone to create a safer space for you. It’s okay to remove yourself when you don’t feel safe. When we feel safe enough, we can sail away from the harbor.

I'll leave you with a few questions for us to ponder:

Where in my life don’t I feel safe?

What factors create a sense of safety for me?

What would change if I felt a greater level of safety to be who I am, want what I want, and say what I think and feel?

Who don’t I feel safe around?

Who could I offer more safety to?

How could I offer myself more safety from which I could try new things?

Where am I pushing myself too far outside of my safety zone?

May we all be safe.

Meditations for Sunrise & Sunset

I used to teach a course called Ease Hunting: Six Weeks of Discovering Every Exhale. The program included lessons, live calls, an ease scavenger hunt, expert interviews, and two guided audio meditations all aimed at supporting the hunters in discovering an easeful way of being, no matter what life was throwing their way. It was truly beautiful. One participant described it as "A yoga class for your mind."

The Ease Hunting course isn't offered anymore but each of us continues to seek ease in our own ways. In support of your hunt I'm sharing the two Ease Hunting meditations. These recordings, one for morning and one for evening, are simple 10 minute opportunities to recenter and rest. They were among the Ease Hunters favorite parts of their experience. Here are a few of their words:

"I've been using the PM mediation every day, and I'm going to keep using it. I loved that I could download the meditations onto my phone. That made it easy to listen to them on the go and also as I was falling asleep. Doing 15 minutes every day has definitely impacted my ease levels."

"I liked having the meditations as a go-to if I needed them...when I did need them, they were both helpful and I'm grateful to have them as a tool in my toolbox. There was one morning in particular where I was fretting, and I said "ah, we have a tool for this: AM meditation." I did it, and the fretting subsided and made way for some ease."

If you're needing a little more ease in your life or a supportive, simple way to start and end your day, here is my gift to you.