No more crumbs!

As part of my endeavor to evolve into my best self, I have decided to not accept any more crumbs.

There is a person who was in my life and for the past 2 years has thrown me crumbs of attention and validation.  And like the absolutely insecure person I am/was?? I lapped them up and was so grateful.  My gut was telling me otherwise but I didn't listen.  And never once did I think "What?? Are you freakin' kidding me??"  I guess I felt that was all I deserved so was grateful to get any little bit.

Just before Christmas there were crumbs coming my way and I was happy and then they stopped coming.  My stomach was tied in knots and my negative thoughts took over.  On Dec. 21st I remember sitting waiting for my turn for an oil change and I thought I was going to be sick.  It was a very familiar sick feeling that this person had caused before and I couldn't believe I had fallen for it again.

That night I went to bed and was once again plagued with tortuous dreams and when I woke up I had one thought, "No more crumbs!"  I got up, turned on the coffee, found a large post-it and put that on my fridge to remind me that I am worth more than the measly crumbs being tossed my way from this person or anyone else!  Of course I realized my part in my suffering: I allowed and accepted the crumbs and told myself that was enough.  I guess I needed to learn that lesson in order to evolve.  Evolving comes through a series of lessons and some of them are painful.  

What about you?  Who tosses you crumbs of attention, affection, validation, praise, love, or acknowledgement that you lap up and are grateful for not even realizing you deserve so much more?  Crumbs that if they don't come your way cause you to suffer and feel crushed?  Crumbs that are sometimes given and taken away just as fast?  If this is you too, time to say NO MORE CRUMBS! 

Time to start loving, praising and acknowledging yourself and then if a crumb is tossed your way it has no power over you because you are already full.  You can choose to accept it or brush it off onto the floor.

"Settling for crumbs doesn't keep you fed, 

it keeps you starving."

Unknown

My "why" is "Haven't you suffered enough?"

Nothing is ever simple with me and my "why" is no exception.  I believe that may be the case for many of you too.

There is someone in my life who has caused me great pain and suffering, no actually there are two people and one of them is me.  While it is true he brought me to the brink of collapse, it is also true by not accepting my situation I continue my suffering every day.

I was listening to Oprah's Super Soul podcast with Eckhart Tolle last week while driving and they were discussing how all pain and suffering is caused by our resistance to accepting reality. I knew immediately what I'm resisting but it wasn't until Oprah asked Eckhart why some of us resist acceptance and he said perhaps it is because we haven't suffered enough yet.  What??

I started crying right then and there driving down the 401. By refusing to accept my present situation, no matter how I got here or why it happened, it is me and me alone who is creating my suffering over and over again, day after day....me and no one else! That was a lot to take in, plus I had to concentrate on seeing through my tears to get home, so I dismissed the thought.

That night I tossed and turned, as I usually do when I can't quite wrap my mind around something.  It's an annoying but usually necessary exercise my mind must perform in order to simplify the always hectic collision of emotions and thoughts that rule my being.  As usual I had dreams filled with past pain which I continue to bring into my present but this time when I woke up I had one sentence in my head, "Haven't you suffered enough?".  Yes, I do believe I have.

I would love to say that by merely realizing that I am the cause of my continued suffering that I suffer no more but that's not the case.  Resistance is a Ninja that moves in and through our thoughts placing up emotional road blocks and brick walls and we're not even aware it's happening.  Road blocks like going over and over a situation in our mind and wishing it was different.  And brick walls like believing if we had been better or different none of this would have happened.  But it's not different, and it did happen, and only by accepting that reality can our suffering be lifted. And because acceptance does not come naturally to us we must practice.  So now every time I have a painful thought I ask myself, "Haven't you suffered enough?".  

This is the long way around to my "why" but in my quest to evolve into my best self I have to learn to stop being the cause of my own suffering.  And I bring it about in so many ways! My best self will never emerge if I continue to resist accepting that my thoughts and feelings of self-doubt, unworthiness and imperfection are not true!  Only then will my suffering truly end and that is "why" I must continue to question, "Haven't you suffered enough?".  Yes, I do believe I have.

So, haven't you suffered enough? Yes?? Then question yourself:  How do you bring about your own suffering?  Do you wish things were different than they are?  Do you resist accepting what you need to do in order to evolve into your best self?  Lose weight?  Maintain your weight? Get healthier?  Do you resist accepting that in order to lose weight you have to track your food, move your butt and shift your less-than-self-compassionate mind-set?  

What is your "why"?  If it's anything like mine it's multi-layered and painful to accept but acceptance can bring you peace and end your suffering.  Question your resistance and let your "why" lead the way.

Evolution not resolution!

 After a season of being merry and bright, many of us now feel bloated and blue!  I've talked with many WW members in the past week and we already feel our very sincere New Year's resolution to get right back on track waning.  But let's not forget when we likely made that resolution: either just before we were about to stretch the meaning of over-indulgence to the max "just one more time" OR the morning after when we felt sick with a nasty combination of shame, sugar and salt. 

I don't believe I have ever once stuck to a New Year's resolution so wisdom this year told me to not torture myself with the notion.  So I have decided this will be a year of evolution not resolution! Just as stating a possibility rather than a hard core goal has allowed me to gently work toward my objectives without the fear of failure I believe seeing my food journey as part of my evolution into my best self will also help release me from that same fear. 

For me "evolution: the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form" , sounds much more inviting than "resolution: a firm decision to do or not do something."  And the idea of embracing the complexities of my emotional and physical relationship with food while learning to understand them rather than resolving to banish them does not raise a hint of fear of failing in me.  In fact it's very freeing.

And when I think back to my time with WW evolving is exactly what I've been doing.  That's not to say evolution is without challenges.  But synonyms like development, advancement, growth, rise, progress and expansion encourage us to acknowledge and build on what we've already accomplished and that feels good and brings on the joy!  And if something bring us joy we want to do it more.  Right?

So what about you?  Ready to evolve into your best self?  I have witnessed the evolution of so many of you, sometimes even when you yourself are not aware you are!  Every time you make a decision that is in your own best interest you are taking another step in your evolution. Remember, all the seemingly small healthy choices you make add up, they really do!

Is 2019 the year you will choose to lovingly help yourself 
evolve into your best self?

I hope so because each and everyone of us deserves the joy being our best selves will bring!

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!!