It may not seem like it but we've been given an opportunity.

When it comes to staying on our Plan this time of year it's difficult for even the most "successful" of us.  Holiday food is filled with sugar, flour, nuts, butter, chocolate, love, loneliness, anger, sadness, fear, guilt, pain, and shame.  With such a high voltage ingredient list is it any wonder we feel so drained and powerless when it comes to food?

So this holiday season I suggest we give ourselves the gift of opportunity.  Let's use our falls off of the wagon as an opportunity to get to know ourselves better.  Every time we look to feed an emotion rather than physical hunger let's ask questions like:

Why do I feel the need to eat right now? 

I'm not hungry so what am I trying to feed?

What just happened that triggered this feeling?

Has this food done for me what I had hoped it would?

When has food ever made the pain go away? 

A sad situation happy?  

Banish loneliness?

So let's get curious about who we are when we feel the need to medicate with food.  Let's begin to peel back the layers of our hungers and examine the emotions lying beneath them. Let's shine light, understanding and self-compassion on them. Let's not bury them with food but examine them, feel them and lovingly accept them as part of our story.  I don't think we can banish them but I do believe if we accept them their power over us will diminish. 

And please know this: when you examine and feel, and yes hurt, you are changing! When you question your emotional hunger it means you are changing and no longer willing to sit in your pain but choose to step into joy!

Is that true?

When it comes to weight loss, and life in general, we are all have a pre-existing condition.

We're always told to check with your doctor before starting any new health regiment to see if any pre-existing conditions need to be taken into account such as diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, pregnancy etc. It dawned on me the other day we're never asked about the stories we carrying around inside of us.  The stories that will have as much effect on our life (weight loss journey) as any physical condition; they are a pre-existing condition.  Because who we think we are and what we believe about ourselves affects everything we do in life including why we eat and how we eat. 

We need to take these stories into account because much of the relationship we now have with food was shaped by them.  The pain we feel that causes us to reach for food for comfort is directly related to what we believe about ourselves and that belief for many of us was created a long time ago.  

What do you believe about yourself?  I was struck by the heartfelt sharing by a member a few weeks back.  She was in pain about cruel remarks made by a co-worker about her weight, remarks that made her feel unworthy and even incapable of doing her job.  It dawned on me that her pain was caused not only by what her co-worker said but because she BELIEVED what her co-worker said was TRUE!  And she believed it because of the story of who she believes herself to be.  

My pre-existing condition (story) is one of fear.  I've mentioned before my feelings of unworthiness and being less than enough. I was/am always afraid I won't measure up, afraid that I'm not capable.  And these past two years have made me afraid I'm the reason I am alone and that I will always be alone.*  These are the thoughts I believe, and if I believe them, then they must be true.  Right???  

Wrong!  As humans we start developing ideas (our stories) of who we are from the moment we're capable of cognitive thought.  These ideas are then validated or refuted by the adults in our lives.  And that is when our story about who we are can shift in one of two directions.  If we are validated and nourished then our story becomes one of personal strength, growth and infinite possibility, so the world is ours.  But if our tiny spirits are ignored, dampened and invalidated then our story becomes one of never measuring up,  never feeling capable and diminished possibility, so the world is beyond us.  This is not to blame the adults in our lives but to help us understand how our stories were shaped. Most of them simply passed on the stories they believed to be true about themselves.  We all come from a long line of stories.

So, how do we change our story?  How do we change deep seeded beliefs about ourselves?  First we notice the thought and then by asking one simple question:  is that true?  I've used this question** many times over the past 2 years.  Every time I believed the thought I couldn't do something because I was afraid, not capable or strong enough I'd ask myself, "is that true?"  And the answer was usually no, it was not true.  I was/am strong and capable and quite fearless at times!  But if the answer was true, that I was not strong enough or capable to handle something, I WAS smart enough, and strong enough, to ask for help. 

To change our story we need to believe the facts, not the thoughts. So when your long standing story leads you to:

-believe you are not capable of not eating your way through a stressful situation; is that true? 

-believe the cruel remarks of others because you're not worthy so they must be right; is that true? 

-believe you are lazy and not capable of achieving anything; is that true?

-believe you don't deserve to be happy and live in joy; is that true?

-believe you are afraid of everything; is that true?

-believe you are not smart enough so your opinion is not valid; is that true?

-believe no one would ever love you if they really knew you; is that true?

-believe your happiness does not matter; is that true?

How will we know if a new belief is true?  There are no mistakes in nature, you are not a mistake.  We were all born with the ability for grace, joy and potential.  If a new belief opens the door to a moment of grace, allows you to get a glimmer of joy or a fleeting feeling of your own potential, then it is true.  If you keep thinking the old belief is true that means it's really dug it's heels in and may need a crowbar to pry it loose.  The question is the crowbar, keep asking it!

Everybody has got a story and here's the great thing about our story, it's ours!!  And we are the author.  Brene Brown said in her book "Rising Strong" and I'm para-phrasing, "We can either be a character in our life story, or we can be the author."  Be the author.

You can stop living the story someone else wrote for you and write your own story.  A story where who you are right now is deserving of love, joy, happiness, success and endless possibility!  Is that true?  If you believe it to be true, then it will be true.  And that is a fact.

May we all realize we are the adult in someone's life and it is in our power to help shape, or reshape, someone else's story. So let's validate, nourish, accept and cherish each other.  

*I put this line in, then took it out, then put it back in again, because I realized it was not true.

**Byron Katie, "Loving What Is."( **one of Bryon Katie's 4 questions, google it)

"Happiness is an inside job." William Arthur Ward

We're always saying, "I just want to be happy".  But what is happiness?  The dictionary defines it as a "state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy".  Contentment to intense joy?  Well, that's quite a leap! Between contentment and intense joy there are a whole host of amazing emotional states in which to live.  So why does it feel that happiness is always just out of reach?  We see it in others and yet it eludes us.  We have glimpses and rare moments but then it's gone.
  
Of course, when we feel unhappiness we can sit and stew in those juices all day!! Yup, guilty!  Don't we know as we stew away we're feeding the very feelings we hope to avoid? How?  Every time we wish something was different than it is we push happiness away and draw unhappiness closer.  Every time we relive the past we starve happiness and feed unhappiness.  Every time we think happiness will come once we're "fixed" we give unhappiness yet another foothold in our hearts.

Happiness eludes us because we don't nourish it and feed it when we Do feel it.  We don't enjoy it, revel in it or expect it. But most of all it eludes us because don't look for happiness where it lives, in everyday moments.  Every single solitary moment of each and every day presents us with a choice, the choice to find and feed the happiness and joy that particular moment has to offer or live yet another day of moments and never notice the possibility of happiness they might hold for us.

When I was little apparently I was a very dramatic child.  My Mother always told me I was " either flying high or in the depths of despair".  Seems about right.  She used to tell me that to be happy I had to "make the best of every moment and then I would have the very best that moment could give me."   At 6 years old I had no idea what she was talking about.

But now I get it.  The engineer of my happiness is me and I don't have to go looking for it.  It's an inside job that only requires that I pay attention to the bits and pieces of happiness and joy in my daily moments, feed them with my love and gratitude and then watch them flourish.

"Never underestimate the inclination to bolt." Pema Chodron

I've never though of myself as someone who bolts. In fact, I've always said my super power is that I never give up.  I now realize that is not true, I have been bolting my whole life.  When I was a child and hurting, I bolted from the pain using food and making up new stories in my brain.  I bolted from myself by creating a different world than the one in which I lived. I bolted from my present by dreaming about the future.  And then when I got to that future I bolted to the story of my next future.  You know, the future with no pain?  Sound familiar?

In "Women, Food and God" Geneen Roth writes, "if compulsive eating is anything, it's a way we leave ourselves when life gets hard.  We don't want to notice what is going on.  Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be."  Well, damn, ain't that the truth?  Think about it.  Every time we eat compulsively we are stepping out of our lives, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for hours, sometimes for years.

Just the other day I realized I was, no am, a bolter . (I just now realized as I wrote that last sentence that I only bolt on myself...I never bolt on other people, I don't give up on them, just me.  Sigh...that's a whole other blog topic.)  Back to my realization:  I know I'm a compulsive eater so after listening to Roth's book I decided to start listening to my body, noticing when I was truly hungry, when I just needed to eat a Butter Tart and notice the feelings that preceded the need for Tarts, notice how I felt after the devouring of said Tarts.  I was so proud of myself, "Yay me, this time I got it!".

And I did have it, until one morning as I was getting into the shower I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and the inclination to bolt took over.  My listening to my body had not resulted in weigh loss, panic set in and it was time to bolt! To bolt back to what I knew best: control and deprivation.  This time it would be different I thought, this time I will not succumb to Butter Tarts when I get upset, this time I will get it right, this time I will be perfect.  And that's when Pema's quote ran through my head and I realized I am someone who bolts on herself.  The shower is a good place for the tears that can come with realization.

So I got out of the shower and went for my walk, which meant I would be running late and have to shower again but I had no choice.  I needed to generate thoughts that would over-ride my thoughts to bolt. No, what I needed was to stop thinking and just allow myself to feel.  And what I felt was fear,  (of course, right??) fear of letting go of control and deprivation for they had never let me down, never ever failed me.  But is that true, I asked, is that really true?  Is it true that control and deprivation have never failed me?  If it were true, then I would never ever have given in to Butter Tarts.  I would never ever have had the need to eat a can Betty Crocker icing, eat an entire pan of Almond Rocca, an entire box of Turtles.  Is it true that if I bolt back, yet again, to deprivation and control they will, AGAIN, fail me?  Yes, it is true.  I stopped walking, went home, had another shower and went to work.

Is this you?  Have you ever left yourself when life got too hard, bolted?  Have you ever medicated with food? Or any other substance?  I have seen and heard many WW members say the plan is not working and they want to quit which means they would rather bolt back to what is familiar, painful though it may be, than face that things are not what they'd like them to be.  Is it time to stay?  Stay with yourself and notice what is really going on?

I'd like to end this with an absolute declaration that my days of bolting and leaving myself are over but I can't.  For much of my 57 years I've felt the need to fix myself with control and deprivation, it's going to take time to finally realize I don't need fixing because I'm not, and never have been, broken. And by the way, neither are you. 

Butter Tarts are not my enemy.

Enemy: a thing that harms. Butter Tarts are not my enemy, it's my thought that Butter Tarts will make me feel better or solve my problems that is the enemy.  

I've just finished listening to Geneen Roth's book, "Women, Food and God" and it makes so much sense to me!  Betty Anne lent me a copy of the book and here's my recent email to her:

"I've been meaning to get your book back to you.  I have never read it.  I tried several times during "My Year of Living Dangerously Close to Cracking Up" but have a difficult time staying focused on self help books.  Perhaps because every second paragraph sends my mind off down a corridor of self reflection and I forget to come back!

However, after reading just a few pages I knew deep down it was about me.  A few months ago I decided to put all the time I spend in my car to good use.  So, I bought books on CD. Two weeks ago I came across your copy of "Women, Food and God" and thought duh....so immediately ordered it.  I just finished it last night on my drive back from Denbigh.  To put it mildly Geneen's words have brought about a flood of emotions.  First, sadness for the young girl who so could have used that insight 47 years ago, then anger because I wish I had read it a year ago and then acceptance because I was not in the frame of mind to take it in a year ago, and now excitement because I finally see a way to change my relationship with food and yet still, some trepidation because I'm afraid to try to change my relationship with food and finally, hopeful possibility." 

Here are some of Geneen's word that have really resonated with me.  Perhaps you will see yourself in them too.

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

"We eat the way we eat because we are afraid to feel what we feel".

"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 you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive.  Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning and transformation."

"If you try to lose weight by shaming, depriving and fearing yourself, you will end up shamed, deprived and afraid.  Kindness comes first. Always."

"If you pay attention to when you are hungry, what your body wants, what you are eating, when you've had enough, you end the obsession because obsession and awareness cannot coexist."

It is possible a Butter Tart is just a Butter Tart and has no healing properties.

Food is not the enemy, our thoughts about food are the enemy.

It is possible to change our thoughts.

Lasting joy comes from being grateful for that which we cannot change.

Being grateful for the wonderful things in our life is easy, but I've learned lasting joy comes from being grateful for that which we cannot change.  I've found that being selective in my gratitude comes at a price and that price is joy.  During tough times I would often sit and list all the great things in my life and was instantly buoyed up but since those things are only part of my life I'd often slipped back into unhappiness.  It wasn't until I decided to start being grateful for all, that's right, the good, the bad and the ugly, that I felt a shift in my joy.  

Now if I deem something in my life not worthy of my gratitude I will ask myself, "Do you, or can you, change and/or stop it?"  If the answer is no, for whatever reason, then it's reasonable there must be some redeeming quality about it, so I try and find my way to gratitude. 

It's tough when it's a life altering situation, especially one you would not have chosen. Like most people there are events that have happened in my life that I'm anything but grateful for, but it is those exact events that are stealing my joy, or rather I am allowing, to steal my joy.  Last night I arrived home to find a piece of mail that I've known was coming and kept telling myself that I would be okay with it when it did.  Well, I wasn't.  Feelings of sadness and failure came rushing up and I was very grateful I had no chips or ice cream in the house.  I decided to just let the feelings flow through me and trust that gratitude would come.  I had a fitful sleep last night and a heavy hearted morning.  And did not have time to walk this morning and wow, did my brain need it!

On my way to WW today I played a new CD I had bought last week by Wayne Dyer called, "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life" and one of the verses he quoted from Tao Te Ching was "Amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings, I observe how all endings become beginnings."  I hit repeat, and again, and again, and again....and there, on the 401, I was able to find a small path to gratitude.  Finding the gratitude doesn't have to mean that we're glad things happened, finding the gratitude helps us release the pain of what has happened and allow us to find joy.  The joy of what is possible in a new beginning.

Maybe we should think of it as taking our brain for a walk instead of our butt.

Like so many of you I started exercising so many moons ago to lose weight.  Honestly my reason for doing so many things in my life have been to lose weight. That's a sad thought and a whole other blog topic!

One thing I have noticed over the years is how much better I felt about myself after a walk or work-out.  However, getting my butt in gear and out the door is often a challenge.  I used to have a dog which got me out walking every day but since moving into a condo I have not had my 4-legged personal trainer for almost a year and have not walked regularly for almost a year.  Until a few weeks ago when it became a possibility.  If you were in any of my WW meetings you might have noticed how pumped with possibility I was after that walk!  All those thoughts coincided with my new endeavor to not hang on to my history at the expense of my future.  I really want to stop wasting so much precious time dwelling on the past. Right??

These days what's getting me out the door in not the thought of losing weight but the thought of not losing my mind.  As I continue to tread through my life's circumstances I find I have more than the occasional moment of sadness and loneliness which I realize is a part of the grieving process.  It's a part that really sucks! Fortunately I've found that walking alleviates the sucking.  Walking makes me want to state what is possible which now easily turns into an attitude of gratitude.  I return home with any negative thoughts of my history firmly behind me.

As Weight Watchers has changed to WW, Wellness that Works, so too have I changed.  Yes, I still want to lose/manage my weight but now more than ever I want to do so with a healthy and happy mind, free of my history.  For many of us our weight loss journey has become a journey of self-discovery: the ultimate mind game.  Fortunately at WW this game not does have to be played alone and for that I am profoundly grateful every single day......yes, I'm crying right now...haha...

"Where the head goes the body follows."  Ryan Holiday

So, if you're like me and need a reason other than weight loss to get your activity in, use your mental health as your reason, you'll be so glad you did, plus your butt is going to follow anyway!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I bared my arms in public and did not die.

Once while I was out walking, in my fun state of what could be possible, I found myself feeling courageous and brave. I felt it so deeply that as I was striding along I blurted out, thankfully just in my head,  "Today it is possible that I will bare my arms in public!"...and ZAP...all my new-found feelings of courage and bravery immediately slunk back into the shadows.  So I said it again, and again, and until I was tired of myself and took off my hoodie and slung it over my shoulders.  Whew, I was actually walking out in public, arms bared for all to see and much to my surprise I did not die, I survived.
 
Today I was out walking and I met 2 older men walking along the boardwalk, one about 80 and the other one 90.  We exchanged good mornings and the 90 year old asked me how I was and I asked in return how they were and he looked at me, smiled and said, "We are surviving."  As continued my walk I realized that's exactly how I feel, I am surviving and although sometimes just surviving is us doing our very best, I don't want to live my life in survival mode anymore.  I want to thrive!  As we grow up we're taught by the adults in our lives the basic skills needed to survive but how many of us were taught how to thrive?  Most of who we are emotionally was planted by someone else and, for better or worse, people plant what they know.  Now it's up to us to decide if we want to thrive or merely survive.

"When you hold on to your history, you do so at the expense of your future."  
Bishop T.D. Jakes

In order for us to thrive we have to let go of the past and the negative emotions we've attached to it.  I've been in therapy for these past two years and one of the most valuable lessons I've learned was that by trying NOT to feel my feelings of fear, sadness and unworthiness I was actually giving them more power.  So much power that they filled my entire being, leaving no room for hope, joy or self-love.  My therapist asked me to try letting the feelings surface, allow myself to feel them and just observe, and much to my surprise I observed that I did not die, I survived!  And another surprise?  As I brought them into the light, bit by bit,  they started to melt away and lose their power.

Now I have room for gratitude, hope, joy, acceptance and self-love. I don't think we ever get rid of all of our negative emotions because they're part of the fabric of who we are. But now when the old emotions come up I have cultivated powerful new ones to help soothe them away. I am gratefully and joyfully planting the seeds of possibility for my future and they are thriving!  Most days. :)

Some days possibilities seem impossible

Last Saturday I woke up feeling guilty and selfish.  I was to go to my parents to help out with my Mom who has Alzheimer's and I didn't not want to go.  I just wanted to stay home for one weekend and do a whole lot of nothing, in my house, in my cookie and dumpling free, air conditioned house, with my comfy bed waiting for me at the end of the day.  

So I went for my walk anxious to state my possibilities for the day, then feel the shame I felt melt away.  That did not happen.  Time after time I stated, "Today it is possible that..." and nothing. I tried "Today it is possible I will give my Dad a much needed break", " Today it is possible that I will put the needs of my parents before my own".  Still nothing.  No uplifted feeling or renewed sense of purpose.  I still did not want to go.

And then that voice in my head said, "It's okay to not want to go." Then the possibilities started:

"Today it is possible I will do the things I don't want to do."

"Today it is possible I will accept feeling selfish and guilty as part of being human." 

"Today it is possible to accept that life is not turning out the way I had planned."

"Today it is possible I will show up anyway for those who need me."

"Today it is possible I will feel gratitude for my good, my bad and my ugly."
"Today it is possible my ugly will lead me closer to living in grace."

It was a shorter walk that day and I'd be lying if I said I arrived home with the same feelings of calm and hopefulness that I felt last week.  But I did feel at peace.  By stating my truth in the form of possibility I was relieved of the idea that giving loving care to others requires total selflessness. It doesn't, it requires you show up and do your best.

And as I walked into my parents house that day I realized that these weekly visits have given me the gift I have been waiting for my whole life.  I guess I didn't notice the gift sooner because it wasn't "packaged" the way I had always dreamed it would be.  I had always dreamed I would be told how good I was and that I had done well by the one person I have butted heads with for as long as I can remember. Instead the person that I had always put on a pedestal, constantly seeking out his approval, told me he needed me and thanked God every day for me and my brother.  His approval was packaged in gratitude.
That day my Dad looked at me with his 85 year old eyes and said, "I've already plugged in the fridge in the garage so the beer will be cold."

Today it is possible that....

This is my first post (well, the first one that I've published) since October 6th, 2016.  But today it is possible.

First a wee bit of background to catch you up on what I've been up to during that time.  In a chronological nutshell, my friend died suddenly, my son's father died suddenly, an old friend committed suicide, my husband of 17 years decided he didn't love me anymore and left, I witnessed the death of one of my dearest friends, I sold my house, I moved to Cobourg, my Mom's Alzheimer's is breaking my Dad's heart which in turn breaks mine.  Yup, that pretty much covers it.  Everybody has their stuff to go through and that's okay.

Fast forward to this morning.  At this time of year in my WW meetings we've been talking about setting our Fall goals which for many of us seem to include getting back on track after the summer!  No surprise there.  We've talked about setting goals to start tracking again, start exercising again, start drinking more water again, start cooking and freezing in portions again etc, etc. etc....you get the idea, the things we always seem to be "getting back to" as WW's.

It's not been lost on me that as a WW Leader I should be setting an example and nailing at least a few of those but, other than drinking lots of Perrier, I'm not.  And, like so many of you, even though I've always been a goal setter I'm finding it difficult to put those goals into action right now.  

So I'm starting with the baby steps we so often talk about.  As one WW member said when it came to getting back to tracking, "I just do it, it's not perfect and sometimes not accurate, but I just had to start the process."  Genius!  We just have to start the process!  I think often we don't start because we project onto ourselves the need to be perfect, and who can be perfect?  No one.

This morning as I sat down at my computer to check my email my inner voice said, "Today it is possible that I could go for a walk".  Ummm, that's interesting but was possible and so I went.  And the moment I started walking down the street my mind started churning out possibilities:

Today it is possible that I will walk farther than I walked yesterday.
Today it is possible that I will say "Hello" to another walker.
Today it is possible that I will feel like part of the community simply by walking in it.
Today it is possible that I will forgive.
Today it is possible that I will feel joy.
Today it is possible that food will not rule my day.
Today it is possible that I will meet a kindred spirit.
Today it is possible that I will set boundaries that take into account my comfort and happiness too.
Today it is possible that I will not eat through a stressful or sad moment.
Today it is possible that I will do something to make someone happy.
Today it is possible that someone will do something to make me happy.
Today it is possible that I will hear a particular song and not want to cry.
Today it is possible that memories will not make me feel sad but grateful to have made them.
Today it is possible that I will feel gratitude for everything that has happened in my life...everything.
Today it is possible that time does indeed heal all wounds.
Today it is possible that I will write a blog entry for the first time in almost 2 years.

Honestly there are too many to list, it was a long walk! Some were poignant, others were fun and but all sounded like goals, or to be precise, gentle goals.  Then I got excited because I thought of my people and our goal setting strategies!

What if listing possibilities is a gentle way of putting our goals into action?  Saying what is possible is not demanding and doesn't threaten us with failure.  I found just reciting the words, "Today it is possible that..." made me feel calm, peaceful and hopeful.  Many of us are afraid to set goals because we're afraid of failure. Afraid that by saying a goal out loud, or even to ourselves, that if we don't follow through we'll have to admit that we've failed...once again.  It dawned on me as I was walking and stating possibilities that failure did not even enter my mind, that I didn't feel the threat of failure looming as it so often does. I felt as if they were already happening; "what you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine you create."   



I choose to also dwell in possibility.  How about you?