Letting Go of What "They" Think

In the early months of anorexia the praise I received about my appearance and weight loss served as fuel for a dangerous fire.

“You look great!”
“What are you doing? You look awesome.”
“I wish I had your willpower.”
“Wow, you have a great body.”

Friends, strangers, and even my parents, in the early days, doled out praise for what appeared to be a newly discovered commitment to health and the smaller pants I could fit into. Approval was like a drug. It felt good, really good, when it started and it served as a motivation later on. When I didn’t want to go to the gym or I wanted to eat something beyond my ultra restricted diet all I did was think about what people would say if I gained weight and that was enough to keep me in line. In a lot of ways I was addicted to praise. The high I got from others celebrating my physical form (and how it conformed) was palpable. The panic I felt when (I projected that) others judged my body negatively was crushing. My colleague Tara Mohr is brilliant when it comes to the topic of unhooking from praise and criticism. Tara says that being hooked takes different forms, including:

1. Dependence on, or addiction to praise – causing us to do only those things that are likely to get us gold stars and others’ approval

2. Avoidance of praise – not wanting to stand out from the crowd – even for positive reasons, which causes us to self-sabotage, to not do our best work

3. Fear of criticism – which causes us to not innovate, share controversial ideas, pursue interests where we’ll be fumbling beginners or fail along the way, or do anything that makes us visible enough to be criticized!

She makes the astute suggestion to “always look at feedback as giving you information about the person or people giving the feedback, rather than information about yourself." Tara's writings explores this topic mostly in the context of our careers and I want to take it further and apply it to praise and criticism of our bodies and food choices.

And unhooking in this realm is not an easy thing to do because we all want to belong. We all want approval. When we are praised it feels great. When we are judged or rejected it can feel devastating. And yet, living at the mercy of the approval of others, striving to conform in our appearance or diets to what others or “society” deems good is the definition of disempowerment.

Being able to live our lives and make basic choices like what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat without factoring in what other people will think is essential if we are to feel free and unmasked. It’s essential if we are to stay connected to the immense wisdom of our bodies.

Feeding ourselves is one of the most basic acts of autonomy. No one else should have a say in what we put into our bodies and yet for too many women, with each bite, comes a cacophony of judgemental voices—some real, some projected. This happens when we get dressed too. Our minds run off with thoughts of "Does this make me look fat?" "Does this show my belly/thighs/arms/butt, etc?" "Will so and so think I’ve gained weight?" "Will they think I’ve given up?"

Too often we sit on the side lines, skip the party, or spend more than we can afford on clothing just to mitigate the judgement we fear others will have of how we look. But, as Tara so eloquently explains

“the goal...is not to become impervious to praise and criticism. That would be impossible. It would also be inhuman, and would force us to deny an important part of ourselves….The part of us that wants others to receive us with appreciation, with enthusiasm – the part that wants to be loved by those around us? I think that’s a very tender, real, part of us, a part to honor too. The point is not to become disconnected from feedback, to have such a thick skin that we can’t feel it or hear it, but rather, to become “unhooked” by it, to not be run by it. The point is to be run by our own wisdom...The goal is to not have others’ ideas about us distract us, silence us, or take us on an emotional roller coaster.”

I agree. In the end it comes down to what we each, as individuals, decide is important in a meaningful life. Unhooking from praise and criticism when it comes to our bodies and our food choices is a life long practice. Each of us has an ego that is ready and willing to lure us back to that to the roller coaster. Getting hooked isn't a failure.

So what does it look like when we’re unhooked from body praise and criticism? It looks like this:

• Eating what we want, not more or less based on what other people are eating or who we are eating with, or what social function we have coming up on our calendar.

• Allowing photos of us to be taken and seen, knowing that a single moment captured in 2-D doesn’t define us or tell our whole story.

• Not hiding in the ways we dress or hiding what we are choosing to eat.

• Letting someone else’s comments about our appearance be about them.

• Dressing and adorning ourselves for ourselves, with pride, and the body we have today.

• Observing the hurt or fear that comes from criticism and looking inward to where we may be holding self-judgement. After all, it’s much harder to be hurt by criticism we don’t agree with.

• Doing our best to practice non-judgement when it comes to other people’s eating and appearance.

• Sometimes consciously giving up the SHORT-TERM high we know we'd get if we went on a crash diet. We unhook when we choose long-term, internally-based sustainable happiness instead of short-term, external hits of power. This happens in small moments.

• When necessary, reminding other people that our body, appearance, and food choices are entirely our own domain—no outside contributions needed or welcome.

Unhooking is a practice, but remember, what I think of you, or she thinks of you, or he thinks of you, or your inner critic thinks of you doesn't much matter. You are in charge. Your body is yours. Your reasons behind your food choices are personal and multifaceted and no one's business.

Go to the party. Take the photograph. Put on whatever size clothing fits your body today and feels comfortable. Eat what you want, in public, in front of people who are still entranced by diet culture. Have no shame for struggling, getting hooked, bumbling toward finding your way, or being a human who feels deeply—this stuff isn't easy. Ultimately though, when you can, remember that what other people think about your body and food choices only has as much power as you give it.

Dieting is a Violent Act

I believe dieting is a violent act.

I don’t feel neutral, or calm, or indifferent about dieting. I feel quite clearly that dieting is a violent act that (predominantly) women are encouraged to perform against themselves.

I find diets to be physically violent, often leading to exhaustive cycles of weight loss and gain and sometimes insufficient calories (i.e. energy) and nutrition.

I find diets to be psychologically violent, often leading to mental obsession, increased stressed, shame, disempowerment, disembodiment, and a general sense of failure when the diet inevitably results not in weight loss, but weight gain.

I find diets spiritually violent, often severing the most sacred of ties between ourselves and the wisdom of our body. I can think of few things as holy as the act of feeding ourselves and this is exactly where diets wreak their havoc.

I have come to believe this about diets after my own stint on Weight Watchers (which fueled the start of my anorexia) at age 20 and a range of other diets in the years to follow. I have come to believe this about diets after a decade of thoroughly researching and formally studying the science and ineffectiveness of diets. Most of all though I have come to believe this after spending years on the frontline of healing women who arrive at my doorstep deeply wounded from years, often decades, spent dieting.

Dieting isn’t all that different than other forms of temporary soothing. Like eating, drinking, or shopping in order to numb out, for the person doing it, at first, it feels relaxing. It’s a bandaid solution that almost always leaves us feeling worse off.

Violence means destruction and that is what I know diets do. They destroy our natural ease with food. They destroy, albeit temporarily, our ability to listen to and honor our unique physical cues about what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. They destroy our sense that we are capable of feeding ourselves without external controls.

The majority of people in the western world, including most of our medical establishment, believe that diets are an obvious and even healthy response to overconsumption of food and possessing a body size above what is deemed acceptable.

It’s just not true though. In fact it’s bullshit. Diets don’t improve our health and they don’t result in weight loss (never mind that there is nothing inherently unhealthy or wrong with weighing more or having a larger body).

It’s understandable that a person would go on a diet, given the amount of money spent each year across various industries to sell us on the idea that we can’t be trusted around food and that we aren’t desirable unless we’re thinner. I understand this. I bought into it too long ago. Yet given what I know, I believe firmly that diets are a violent act.

A word, or two, on the experience of holding a radical point of view: it’s scary.

For women, historically, our very survival has depended on being likable. To feel disliked, judged, and rejected, to women…to me…can induce panic. It is for this reason many women default to silence when their voice, however necessary, might run against the status quo.

So I share this most radical of beliefs knowing that you might not only disagree, but that you might criticize, unfollow, and reject me as a valued voice in your life. I know that my beliefs about dieting are radical. I also know that a lot of normal ideas were at one time radical. I also know that it’s the truthful but less popular ideas that need champions.

As long as it takes I will tell my story, stand for the truth, and call for peace — the peace that diets rob us of. I’m happy to put in the time, however long, until we see a cultural sea change happen.

If you share my view on dieting but feel alone this is me reaching my hand out to join yours. We may be a minority but from what I can tell that is quickly changing and a new paradigm is emerging.

That said while there is a growing awakening happening, there remains a lot of work to do. Case in point: Oprah Winfrey and her investment in WW International (formerly Weight Watchers)

*deep sigh*

Have you heard the term “The Oprah Effect”?

This phrase was coined to describe the success that resulted for a person, product (especially books), or business from a single appearance on her television show. And even without her television show, it’s a common belief that Oprah remains the single most powerful woman in the world. And her success is deserving. Oprah, without question, has improved the lives of millions of people.

As a woman, a fellow human, I have a tremendous amount of compassion for her long struggle with food and body loathing. But as a public figure, I believe her endorsement of Weight Watchers, while being a prudent business move (netting her tens of millions on paper), is unethical. Simply put she has invested in and endorsed a product proven to fail in the long run.

If Oprah had come out endorsing the Volkswagon cars with faulty emissions readers we’d be up in arms. We’d be cross-eyed and confused.

“Why would anyone endorse a product that doesn’t deliver on its promises?!” we’d say.

“Why would anyone support a company that lies to it’s consumers?!” we’d exclaim.

When I learned that Oprah was coming out with a rousing endorsement of Weight Watchers I felt outraged, but more than that I felt and still feel utterly heartbroken by the incredible missed opportunity that Oprah represents. I’m pained by the incredible number of people who will, I believe, thanks to Oprah, feel a green light to diet.

If you feel drawn to dieting because you feel out of control with food and unhappy with your body please know there is another way. A more effective way. It’s entirely possible to make peace with food and your flesh without the “help” of rigid rules.

Dieting might be the only way you’ve ever known to relate to food and your body, but it’s a violent way and peace is available, this much I know.

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.

The Illusion of the Bottomless Pit

"I am never full."

"The pain will never stop."

"There isn’t ever enough love."

"I will never not want to eat the entire grocery store."

---

Many of us walk around with the sensation of deep emptiness.

With that sensation often comes a fierce belief that there will never be enough.

Be it food or love—too often we walk the earth feeling as though we are a bottomless pit.

One strategy we use is to try to fill it. With entire bags of chips. With another pair of shoes. With 5 o’clock bottles of wine.

On the flip side, we might attempt to cover the bottomless pit with the story that we have minimal needs. This where we tell ourselves we’re fine to subsist on crumbs—literal or metaphoric. We keep it together. We don’t need a partner, or attention, or carbs, we’re fine—or so we tell ourselves.

The sad part is the bottomless pit is an illusion. One that has us running in all directions for temporary salves that aren’t sustainable and never leave us feeling very satisfied.

Imagine this:

Your local child protective services agency has shown up at your doorstep with two foster children you are charged with taking care of for a year. They tell you that the children came from a home where there was barely anything to eat.

Over the first few days you notice that one of the children eats until they are sick. They eat quickly and with an anxiety that clearly belays their fear of there not being having enough.

The other child eats very little. Nibbling on this or that but not taking enough sustenance or enjoying the delicious food you have offered. This child is attempting to exert some control where they can. When they wasn’t enough in the past, they told themselves that they didn’t need it as a way to feel a level of control where none was.

And all of this makes sense.

Neither of them can be sure that there will be enough. They can’t yet trust that there will be more food anytime they want, and that they don’t have to eat until they're sick or continue to deny themselves nourishment.

What you find over the weeks to come though, as they learn that there is enough food and they can have as much as they want, when they want, in any quantity they want, is that they normalize. They are each able to eat with enjoyment, relaxation, and able to stop when they are physically sated.

Our lives are the home where there will always be enough food.

The question is whether we are willing to heal the trauma of our deprivation by ceasing to deny ourselves. It is we who too often deny ourselves the love we long for. It is we who too often deny ourselves the food or pleasure we hunger for.

The result is that we feel like a bottomless pit.

And all along we had our hand on our own spigot able to turn it on and let it flow.

The trick is to turn the spigot on and don’t turn it off until we’ve had enough. We can only find the point of ‘enough’ after a period of reconditioning ourselves to know that there will always be more.

We must let it flow long enough to teach the part of us that is traumatized from deprivation that there will always be enough. What we find when we do this is that that part of us relaxes.

What we find is that the bottomless pit, the one that never existed in the first place, disappears.

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?

Terms of Endearment

I want to show you something. There’s this amazing transformation I’ve been witness to. I wish I could show it to you. What I want to capture is what happens to a woman’s face, body, and whole being when I ask her to identify a meaningful and resonate term of endearment for herself.

As part of some retreats that I’ve lead, after delving into our inner critic, I have each woman identify and share a name for herself that elicits love, safety, and adoration.

First they journal to themselves, listing all the names that might be fit. Tossing out the ones that feel cloying or inauthentic. Considering the things only their inner circle calls them or perhaps a childhood nickname. They weigh “Lovely” with “Beloved” and “Sweetheart” with “Sweetness.”

They are looking for the moment their body says “Yes. that’s it. That’s us. Let’s curl up with that one.” Many of them know they’ve found their term of endearment when tears well in their eyes.

I’ve heard it all, from "My Love" to "Darling" or "Pumpkin." From "Cookie" to "Sarah-Loo" or "Babygirl."

There’s a name for everyone that calls us home.

Once they’ve got it, we go around the room and share. As we move from feeling our patterns of self-abuse to the healing that comes from self-kindness, the women I work with change right before my eyes. It’s a pretty remarkable thing to watch. They change and the room changes. What had been a circle of sadness, grief, and angst becomes one of delight, compassion, and understanding.

Having a name, rooted in love, to call ourselves gives us a foothold. When we’re in pain or feeling disconnected all we need to is reach for this name and it brings us back. It's a name that embraces us.

Having a term of endearment for ourselves helps to build safety and intimacy in the most important relationship we’ll ever have: us with ourselves. me with me. you with you.

If you want to experience the power of this practice, next time you catch yourself with a self-directed whip in your hand, next time you’re body is contracted from shame or insecurity, go find a mirror and greet yourself.

Look into your own eyes and call out the name that only means “I love you. Yes, you. I love you”

You're Not Needy, You're Starving

You are not needy. You are starving.

A while back I was working with a client and we began to talk about the prospect of her finding a post-divorce relationship.

She shared her fear that she’d be too needy.

I’ve heard this before. Many times.

And I say: NO. You are not needy, you’re starving.

This client had a 5 year old boy.

I explained it to her like this...

If her son skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then said “Mommy, I’m too needy for food.” I know she’d reply:

“No sweetheart, you aren’t needy at all, you’re very hungry. You haven't gotten what you need. Now let’s get you something delicious to eat.”

Something about this needy feeling has us feeling like it’s bottomless, insatiable. That no matter how much we “eat” we’ll never be fed.

Not so. I speak from experience. Mine and many of my clients.

Yes, it feels like we’ll never get enough.  Just like, when we are starving for food, at first, we think we really could eat the whole kitchen. Not so in either case.

We can find satiation. Here are just a few things I often hear women saying they are too needy for:

love, being seen (often confused with attention), touch (the way they uniquely like it), affection + adoration, being desired, a circle of women friends, companionship, being listened to + feeling understood, validation…

You’re not needy. You’re starving.

You certainly do not want for too much.

These are all entirely normal, natural, its-your-birth-right, your-parents-probably-didn’t-give-you-enough things.

So you’re starving.

That’s okay.

You can begin there. Begin bit by bit. or bite by bite.

Begin by renaming this 'neediness' with a more accurate term: hunger.

Begin by asking for what you want.

Begin by honoring your hunger and by feeding yourself.

Begin by receiving the cravings with kindness, instead of shame.

This hunger of yours. It’s so very wise.

You’re not needy. You’re simply starving.

Now darling, let’s get you something delicious to eat.

Note: I use the word ‘starving’ here to refer to often first-world emotional deprivation. Not to be confused with actual lack of nutrition needed for physical survival, which is a very real problem in our world.

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.

Emotional Auto-Immune Diseases

Allergies. Rheumatoid Arthritis. Lupus. Crohn’s Disease. Eczema. Type 1 Diabetes. Do you or someone you know have one of these conditions? Mostly likely yes. Those of us in the developed world are plagued by these and other autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases occur when our own immune system fails to recognize a part of our own tissues or cells as part of us, and instead sees it as a foreign enemy. Attacking. These are cases of mistaken identity. We become our own enemy when in reality, we’re not.

I wonder though why we don’t have a classification for emotional autoimmune disorders? I’ve rarely met a human being who didn’t suffer emotionally from confusing themselves with the enemy, and following suit with attack.

Both physical and emotional autoimmune diseases are equally misguided attempts to protect ourselves. Our immune system thinks it’s helping. Emotionally speaking, we so often think that if we shame ourselves, judge our hungers, and self-loathe that we’re making ourselves somehow better or safer. We speak to ourselves with disparagement because we want to be loved or just liked. We mistrust our hungers because we fear that feeding them will make us unlovable or judged by others. We all have our own best interest at heart it’s just that our emotional immune system too often gets confused and thinks that we are the enemy of our self. I may not be a doctor and I don’t know much about treating Lupus or Crohn’s Disease, but I do know a few tricks to get us on the road to recovery from an emotional autoimmune disease.

1. Practice seeing ourselves as an ally and not the enemy.

2. Know that any internal voice that is not kind, loving, or compassionate towards us is not speaking the truth.

3. Know that when we emotionally attack ourself our deeper intentions are good. We want the best for ourselves. We want to be safe and somewhere along the way various sorts of self-attacks appeared the path to get there. They aren’t.

4. Healing depends on our willingness to practice. We must notice our attacks, however subtle or seemingly harmless, and practice ending them without judgement. Notice. Let go. Make peace. Notice. Let go. Make peace. Mess-up. Start again. Notice. Let go. Make peace.

Cake for Breakfast

“Do you see a distinction between healthy hungers and unhealthy hungers?” a podcast host asked me years ago.

“Give me an example of an unhealthy hunger?” I said.

“Like, I’m hungry in the morning and so yes, I am going to have that cake, I want the whole thing!” she replied with a slightly giddy laugh at the thought of this devious act.

I smiled and said “I don’t think cake for breakfast is a bad thing. Are you connecting or disconnecting? Are you moving closer to your Self or farther away from your Self?"

That's the difference between a one hunger and another hunger: does it move you closer or further away from your Self? Does it connect you to your Self or disconnect you from your Self?”

It’s that simple. And, yes, it’s that complex...in that you can’t just follow prescribed rules of good foods and bad foods. Or good portion sizes and bad portion sizes. Or good times to eat and bad times to eat. Or good cooking methods and bad cooking methods. Or good food sources and bad food sources.

You have stay present. You have to listen inward. You have to remove judgement’s place at the table. Is this hunger moving me towards my Self or away? Listen. Ask. Allow. Allow. Allow. Feed yourself.

There is no reason that cake for breakfast can’t be the most nourishing act in the world.

This applies, of course, to hungers for things other than food. Hungers to quit your job. Hungers to buy something shiny and new. Hungers to be with friends. Hungers to be intimate. Hungers to wait. Hungers to go. Hungers to stay. Hungers to run away. or towards.

Which direction are you moving?