Put Your Hunger on the Scale

Posted on by
1

Are you clueless about when you are hungry and when you are full? Do you wonder how much you should eat, finding yourself looking at what others eat as a way to judge what is right for you?

If you struggle with food and body image issues, you may not know when you are truly hungry, unless you are so super hungry you have no energy for even standing. Or perhaps you never let yourself experience hunger and know only super fullness; the kind of full that causes the pants to be unbuttoned and, again, you can’t even stand.

Perhaps you have no idea how much food is right for you? You compare your plate of food with those around you, wondering if you have too much or too little. Even your fear of what others think about what is on your plate brings doubt and self-loathing.

Yikes!

You want out of this cycle of uncertainty but have no idea how.

This video will help! I teach this step in my teleseminar program. Watch it for tips on how to listening to your body and to learn when to eat and when to stop eating. Your body knows exactly what is right for you. Learning to listen to it will help you end your worries about food for a healthy relationship with food.

Choose Another Measure of Success

Posted on by
1

One of my clients is struggling at the gym. She isn’t struggling to go to the gym. She isn’t struggling to complete her workouts. What she is struggling with are the trainers at the gym.

They are insisting that she be weighed and measured, despite her protests!

She doesn’t want to be measured and weighed. She knows this will just increase the noise of the eating disorder voice and may even cause a binge and/or purge. She has been diligently attempting to stand up for herself and say no. They don’t want to listen.

I feel her pain!

I wish she didn’t have to fight with them. I wish they would listen to her.

Yet I suspect they don’t because they are so caught up in believing that their measurements of success are the only ones. They probably believe to the depth of their bones that weighing and measuring is the only way to know if your workout is successful, if your goals of health are being reached, if they are doing their job. They probably believe their measurements of success are helping their clients.

Unfortunately, they aren’t.

Not only do so many of their members probably have body image challenges (because it is just too common in our culture not to) but they are exasperating the beliefs that how you look is a measurement of your health. When this is the case, how you look starts to determine how you feel about yourself. It leads to body image challenges and eating disorder behaviors.

Yet how you look is not a measure of your health. Take for instance the client that walks into the gym after a full day of eating only 500 calories. Sure, she might lose weight or measure less (at least temporarily) but she isn’t healthier because of this practice. And that is just one example…

You might feel similarly as these trainers. You might be measuring your own success based on the number on the scale or the measurement of your waist. If so, you are contributing to the negative, critical voice that keeps your eating disorder behaviors going.

If you truly want to be healthy and decrease the critical voice, focusing on your body’s weight and measurement won’t get you there.

Instead, focus on how you feel. Listen to your body and your body will communicate its health with you.

For example, do you feel more energy from your chosen activity (notice I did not call it “exercise”)? Do you feel more endurance as you carry those groceries up the stairs? Do you feel greater strength when you pick up those boxes at work? Do you feel less stress and tension in your neck and shoulders? Do you sleep better at night? Do you have a greater quality of life?

Those are true measurements of success and health.

However, if your focus is on weight or measurement, then the simple act of weighing or measuring yourself can change how you feel about yourself in an instant…despite any other evidence you have.

This is an example of how that happened for me: I went to the doctor one day. This was long before I stopped weighing myself or being weighed. I walked into the office feeling pretty good about myself. It was a good day. Until…I got on that scale! Suddenly, I felt fat and gross and terrible about myself! I felt ugly and unlovable. A good day was ruined and hate for myself turned my day into criticism and self-judgment that lasted for days. If only I hadn’t gotten on that scale.

Now that my weight is no longer a measurement of my success or health for that matter, I can be free to pay attention to what really matters.

This week, pay attention to your measures of health. If you focus on weight or measurements, try shifting your focus to communicating with your body. Check your energy levels, your endurance, your stress, your sleep, your quality of life. Appreciate yourself for all your successes and your failures (those are the ones that you really learn from anyway.)

If you are also being weighed or measured at the gym or by your doctor or anyone else, tell them no. it is your body and you decide what happens to it! If they still don’t listen to you, tell them to give me a call. :)

Revolutions Not Resolutions

Posted on by
4

The turn of the calendar into a New Year occurs again. I admit it; January is my favorite month of the year. Not because it’s a time to renew my resolution and finally get the body I have always wanted. Not because I get to start over once again with this-diet-will-work- this-time resolution. Not because I get to start over and swear to meet all my goals and dreams in one short year.

It’s probably because January is my birthday month! And, well, I like the name January better than the name of any other month. (Maybe this is still because it is my birthday month…)

Either way, I like January and the New Year.

But this New Year I am mad. I am tired. I am frustrated. And it is time to speak out!

All year long, I hear people tell me that losing weight is healthy. My clients tell me, my doctor tells me, my family tells me, my friends tell me, my colleagues tell me, books tell me, magazines tell me, commercials tell me, news articles tell me, and on and on. They think it is fact. But it is not a fact!

This is the accumulated belief system of a culture obsessed with weight and thinness. It is a culture that discriminates against those who are fat. It is a culture that is so biased that you can’t help but grow up believing all the lies you are told about weight and health.

It is a lie that you need to lose weight or be a certain weight to be healthy! I know… your doctor tells you this so it must be true. Right? Wrong. Your doctor gets the same information as you. She gets information from studies that are weight biased. Heck your doctor might even be weight biased herself. Studies show that many are. So just because your doctor tells you to lose weight to be healthy, doesn’t mean it is true.

It is a lie that being fat causes health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, etc! Thin people get these diseases too and many fat people don’t. These are very complex health concerns and many many factors contribute. Boiling it down to weight is biased and unhelpful at best – and can even be harmful.

It is a lie that thin people are healthy and fat people are not! Many thin people are unhealthy and many fat people are not. Think of your thin friend who eats nothing but processed junk food and never exercises but still looks thin. Is she healthy just because she is thin?

What is true is that losing weight and then gaining it back again is unhealthy! And as you probably know, you can’t diet and lose weight and maintain that weight loss. So you are being unhealthy by trying over and over again to diet and lose weight. You would be much healthier if you stopped dieting.

What is true is you can be healthy at any size! It’s true. There is tons of evidence about this… you just need to look for it. The diet industry puts out a lot of money to keep this hidden from you and our cultural bias allows them to get away with it. But the information and proof is out there! See below for help in getting started in finding it.

Of course, this doesn’t even touch the concept of the unhealthiness of your mental and emotional health when it comes to dieting, losing weight, gaining it back again, restricting foods that lead you to bingeing and feeling bad and worse about yourself. Remember that your mental health is at least half of your physical health. For example, stress can cause a number of physical health concerns. Therefore, if your emotional health is intact, you can be physically healthy, no matter what your size. This includes the stress of dieting.

What is true is that exercise is much more an indicator of health than your weight! Many studies show this and it makes sense, doesn’t it. Your body loves to move. It adores exercise and thrives when it gets it (although you can give it too much).

So this year, don’t bother with a New Year’s Resolution to diet and lose weight. Instead, be a part of a Revolution to never diet again, to learn about Health at Every Size, to become a Fat Activist, to ask your doctor why he would prescribe something that fails 95% or more of the time (I am talking about diets here), to challenge your beliefs and society’s beliefs that thin equals healthy. There is already a Revolution, all you need to do is join. Empower yourself! This is a huge step toward working on your own body image and your relationship with food!

I want to help you get started. Below is a list of resources that will help you do your own research into this Revolution of Health at Every Size. Learn about it for yourself. Decide for yourself what you believe. Spend the year learning more and more, delving further and further and you too can break the bonds of the shame and bias and beliefs that tie weight to health.

I used to have this bias too. I was biased against fat people. I thought that it was healthier to be thin. I also used to obsess about food and my body and feel bad about myself when I ate chocolate. But no more! I changed my relationship with food and my body but my weight bias was still intact. Until I found my first book that changed all of that: Fat?So! by Marilyn Wann. I highly recommend it and all the other books and resources on the list below. Pick one and get started right now!

Telesummit
A very special Telesummit will take place beginning the end of January. The panel on this telesummit is amazing and should not be missed! If you only do one thing this year to challenge your beliefs, listen to this free Telesummit!
http://www.bodyloverevolution.com

Books:
Fat?So! by Marilyn Wann
Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon

Websites:
http://www.bodylovewellness.com (fat acceptance coach)
http://www.lindabacon.org/ (author of Health at Every Size)
http://www.haescommunity.org/ (join the Health at Every Size Community)
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/ (critical examinations about health and weight)
http://fatso.com/ (Marilyn Wann’s website)

Articles:
The Fat Trap (talks about how our bodies are programmed to gain back lost weight): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=2&ref=health

The Holidays from your Inner Child’s Perspective

Posted on by
3

Do you ever feel like a child? Do you ever want to just throw yourself on the floor and kick and scream? Do you ever want to start bawling when someone hurts you? Do you ever want to yell “go away!” in your most child like voice?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are identifying your inner child.

Your inner child comes from your childhood. It is the part of you that was traumatized, hurt, told to stop crying, etc. It doesn’t have to have been a major trauma, just some time when you didn’t get your needs met or your emotions validated. When you went through these situations as a child, you weren’t able to grow up emotionally. Therefore that child part of you gets stuck there. So when you face a situation that brings up similar feelings (i.e. you get triggered), that child part of you is the one to respond.

We all have an inner child. One big difference between someone who is “healthy” and someone who isn’t is about how they treat their inner child. In other words, healing it is about loving that child part of you and embracing all of her emotions, rather than telling her to shut up.

Therefore, each of us has a child part and an adult part. You probably wish you were in the adult part 100% of the time and could just get rid of the crying, sniveling child part of you. Please don’t. All you will accomplish is to invalidate yourself and will need to continue using food to stuff those feelings down.

Your critical voice is the adult part of you being mean and critical toward that child part. It is no different than when your parents criticized you (even out of love). To a child, it feels really bad and is the same as saying to a child “you are bad and wrong and what you are feeling needs to stop.” This is no way to get a child to behave and neither does it work for you when you talk to yourself (your child part) this way.

A smaller part of the adult voice is the nurturing side. This is the voice that says “it is okay to feel that / it is okay to eat ice cream / it is okay to want to rest / etc.” It is likely that your critical voice is much bigger and therefore much louder than this accepting nurturing voice. Therefore, the goal is to increase the nurturing which will decrease the critical. Doing so creates acceptance and kindness toward the child part of you – the part that feels all that shame for being who she is.

The holidays can be a very difficult time of year for many. Even if it isn’t difficult for you, you may just not love it the way you used to. One reason for this is that the holidays as well as spending time with family can trigger a lot of old feelings. This is the equivalent of the child part of you having all the same feelings she had as a child. After all, that is where she came from.

So you could go through your holidays beating her up for being afraid, sad, mad, and ashamed. Yet, these are all natural feelings to have and are likely to intensify when around your family or around the holidays. It’s normal. To criticize the child part of you for having them will likely leave you feeling worse about the holidays, your family, and yourself.

Instead, try something new. Be nurturing and understanding. Validate the child part of you.

One way to do this is to imagine that child part of you as a separate person and then talk to her.

If you are a visually oriented person, close your eyes and imagine her sitting across from you. See how she looks, how old she is, her position and posture, what she is wearing, the expression on her face. As you look at her, what would you say to her? What would she respond? Listen to whatever she says. She will tell you a lot about how she feels and will feel very grateful for your understanding. Continue this dialogue until you feel done.

If you are not a visual person, pick up a stuffed animal or anything you want to represent the child part of you. Now close your eyes (closing your eyes helps you to block out distractions and get more into this exercise) and “feel” that stuffed animal as being the child part of you. Ask her what she feels / what she wants to say and then listen with your full heart. Continue this dialogue until you feel done.

You can do this exercise again, whenever you want. Often. Regularly. I highly recommend it.

When you do this exercise, don’t be surprised if you feel a lot of negative feelings toward the child part of you. Let yourself feel that and even express it to her. It is perfectly normal to feel that way, the important part is to expresses it. Doing so will allow it to shift. So no matter what you feel, say it to her (as though you are talking directly to her) and then allow her to respond. As you do this, your love and acceptance of her will grow.

Now, take the hand of the child part of you and take her to that holiday party, holiday event, holiday/family gathering. She will so appreciate your care and attention that she might actually even enjoy the holiday season. Even if she doesn’t, she will at least feel heard and understood and loved.

For an added bonus, after the difficult feelings have been expressed, ask the child part of you what she likes about the holidays and about family and about her life. She will be more in touch with this and feelings of gratitude and understanding will flourish.

Eat What You Want Without Guilt! It is Possible and it Works!

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago, I hosted a free teleseminar about the most important step to changing your relationship with food. If you haven’t already, listen to the teleseminar recording by clicking here.

This teleseminar addressed the step of eating whatever you want and letting go of the concept that food is good or bad. This step is the most important because it will single handedly allow you to feel peace and freedom around food. It will also limit the control of the binge part of you. It is an amazing and powerful step!

You may not believe me. You may agree with my arguments for why this step is important to take but you may not really allow yourself to take it. In fact, it is likely you will sabotage it in some way. So allow some of the experiences of my clients help you out.

We had a great discussion about this during the Step-by-Step Healing the Obsession Teleseminar Program. The program members talked about their challenges and successes with this step.

One member talked about how she didn’t really believe this would work but after trying it found herself staying away from the Halloween candy bowl for the first time. She reported trusting herself more too!

Another member said she started allowing more and more food into the house and now it stays in her cupboard without any need to eat it. She admitted to struggling with one aspect of it, however. She wasn’t totally trusting it was okay to eat the food. She was still feeling guilty about it later. When she began consciously reminding herself that she could eat it whenever she wanted, later today or tomorrow or whenever, she actually started to believe it and to trust it. She reported finally feeling freedom and peace with food!

Another client reported a decrease in criticism. She finally gave her body the food it craved and the intense craving for it disappeared. Now she eats what she wants and experiences no judgment of herself for it.

This will happen for you too! It really works! And it works best if you go for it all the way! So choose the best way for you to really allow yourself to eat what you want; to change good food/bad food thinking into “I am listening to my body and eating what it wants.” Do this with one food or one day during the week or whatever way you can without any back talk from the critical or disbelieving voice. I promise you will see results. It is powerful stuff!

Now, I didn’t say it would be easy. Although it totally can be, so don’t be surprised if it is. Doing this step is likely to bring up feelings of fear.  You may also notice feeling excited (at the same time) because that part of you that wants the food will finally get to have it!

You have been taught since you started choosing your own food that certain foods are bad and will make you fat (which is the equivalent to being bad). Allowing yourself to feel that fear is a part of the path to healing your disordered eating. So feel the fear! I talked about this a lot more in the teleseminar so don’t hesitate to listen to the recording. You too can feel freedom from food! Go for it!

If you have any questions or would like to share your successes, please post a comment below! I want to support you in healing your relationship with food.

Self Criticism: The Very Loud Killer of Human Souls, Part 2

Posted on by
2

A few weeks ago I wrote about your critical voice. I talked about how it is probably the most harmful little voice you have in your head. Yup, it’s true. Despite what you have been told, being critical and hard on yourself does not motivate you; it harms you. It keeps you down. It keeps you feeling bad. It destroys you.

So if being hard on yourself doesn’t motivate you to change, which I know you very much want to do, then what does?

Change happens when the pain of staying in the same place outweighs the perceived pain of changing.

Huh?

Change is scary. It can feel like taking a step off a cliff. You have no idea what might happen. Will things be harder? Will you feel worse? There is no real way of knowing. It is a risk and risks are scary.

Therefore, your desire to take the step off the cliff must feel safer and easier (even if only by a fraction) than staying on the edge of the cliff. In other words, the pain of staying on the edge is greater than the pain of stepping off the edge into the unknown.

Imagine someone is poking you. Poke. Poke. Poke. They are poking you in the same spot, over and over again. It may not hurt at first. In fact, you might even like the fact that at least they are paying attention to you and touching you. However, after each poke, the pain grows. A bruise forms. It starts to really hurt where they are poking you and you start to get annoyed. You want this to change!

Yet if you move away or tell them to stop, they might go away. You no longer will have the attention you crave or the touch you need. “So what if it hurts a little,” you reason. You are still gaining from this interaction. The poking continues and your bruise grows.

Stay in the poker’s reach long enough and you are going to get pretty tired of being poked. Now it really hurts and any satisfaction you gained from it is gone. But moving away is still scary! What if no one ever touches you again? What if you are alone forever, not even someone there to poke you when you need it? Yet, this hurts and you want it to stop.

Are you ready to change? Is the pain of being poked greater than the fear of being alone? If so, you will probably take a step away from the poker. If you aren’t sure, you will probably stay. But continue getting poked and you will eventually bypass the change/stay-the-same line. You will choose change no matter how scary it is.

Now notice that the poker is your eating disorder. You know it hurts. Like the pokes, the amount of pain you are experiencing may increase the longer you have had it. However, it does provide something for you. If it didn’t, you would change. Like the poker, it gives you safety, comfort, something to turn to when you feel alone (or feel anything for that matter.)

The way to change is not to hate yourself for engaging in the eating disorder but to feel how much it hurts. Feel it poking you over and over again. Feel the pain of it. Feel the way it hurts your relationships. Feel how much you hate yourself. Feel the pain of how much time and energy you spend on it. Try not to be critical. There is a big difference between criticizing yourself for it and just feeling the pain of it. Criticism takes you away from the pain into a focus on how bad you are. If you stay focused on the pain, you will probably cry, just like you would if you really felt the pain of someone poking you over and over again.

Allowing yourself to really feel the pain of your eating disorder will help you increase the pain of having it so that this pain bypasses the perceived pain of changing.

What do you mean by perceived pain?
I’m glad you asked.

That cliff you step off probably isn’t a cliff at all. You have been told it is and you can’t see what is there so you believe it is a cliff and one step will make you fall to your death or at the very least acquire major injury. After all, that is what you have been told all your life.

This is one reason change feels so scary. I hear a lot about fear from clients and I have certainly experienced that fear myself. However, usually the fear is just fear. It isn’t the reality you will experience. Trusting this isn’t easy, however, so be easy on yourself with it. Just know that your greatest fear is very important to recognize and acknowledge but that it probably will not actually come true. It is your overgrown, overloud fear voice that is trying to protect you. When you take your risk, I am confident that you will find out that what you feared would happen won’t.

Also, it is not important to take a huge step (i.e. a huge risk). Take small, baby steps. This helps your fear voice calm a bit and helps you to realize that change can be easier than you think.

And get support! Support is the best thing you can have when you take the steps to change. You don’t have to be alone. Change is easier and more fun with someone else.

Exercise: Think about a time when you made a significant change in your life. Perhaps you moved or ended a relationship. Recall the fear you had around it. Did your worst fear come true? Recall the pain you were in just before you made the decision to change. Was it greater than the perceived fear of the change?

Do this as a writing exercise if you wish or just take several minutes to reflect. Giving yourself evidence that you can change, have changed, and did survive big changes will help you make more. And remember, change takes time. No big changes ever happen overnight; nor should they.

Stop the Binge

Link

Reply

I am so excited to announce my first video “Stop the Binge”! This is the first in a line of videos I will be making to help you end the cycle of bingeing and dieting.

This first video talks about why you binge and what you can do to end the cycle. I hope you enjoy it and receive some insight and guidance. If you do, please pass it on.

After you watch it, I would love to hear your comments. Also, if there is a topic that interests you, please let me know.

Click here to check out the Stop The Binge video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S30Bef7RtIU&feature=youtu.be

BMI is Not a Measure of Health

Posted on by
1

I remember being given body fat tests in highschool.  What a horrible experience!  These test were just slightly worse than the Presidential Fitness Tests they would give… how many pull ups, laps, etc. can you do… tested in front of all your classmates.  No wonder I wanted to starve myself back then!

I suppose the body fat test was intended to tell the nurse if I was healthy or not. Fortunately, I have come to realize that the BMI charts are BS.  The below article, which someone pointed me toward, tells more about why. My message about BMI… don’t pay any attention to it!  But, you decide for yourself…

Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus, by Keith Devlin (article found on npr.org)

Americans keep putting on the pounds — at least according to a report released this week from the Trust for America’s Health. The study found that nearly two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.But you may want to take those findings — and your next meal — with a grain of salt, because they’re based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI.As the Weekend Edition math guy, I spoke to Scott Simon and told him the body mass index fails on 10 grounds:

1. The person who dreamed up the BMI said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual.

The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.

2. It is scientifically nonsensical.

There is no physiological reason to square a person’s height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can’t fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.

3. It is physiologically wrong.

It makes no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI. Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves classified as overweight or even obese.

4. It gets the logic wrong.

The CDC says on its Web site that “the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people.” This is a fundamental error of logic. For example, if I tell you my birthday present is a bicycle, you can conclude that my present has wheels. That’s correct logic. But it does not work the other way round. If I tell you my birthday present has wheels, you cannot conclude I got a bicycle. I could have received a car. Because of how Quetelet came up with it, if a person is fat or obese, he or she will have a high BMI. But as with my birthday present, it doesn’t work the other way round. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat.

5. It’s bad statistics.

Because the majority of people today (and in Quetelet’s time) lead fairly sedentary lives and are not particularly active, the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population, namely the lean, fit and healthy. Quetelet is also the person who came up with the idea of “the average man.” That’s a useful concept, but if you try to apply it to any one person, you come up with the absurdity of a person with 2.4 children. Averages measure entire populations and often don’t apply to individuals.

6. It is lying by scientific authority.
Because the BMI is a single number between 1 and 100 (like a percentage) that comes from a mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. But it is mathematical snake oil.

7. It suggests there are distinct categories of underweight, ideal, overweight and obese, with sharp boundaries that hinge on a decimal place.

That’s total nonsense.

8. It makes the more cynical members of society suspect that the medical insurance industry lobbies for the continued use of the BMI to keep their profits high.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

9. Continued reliance on the BMI means doctors don’t feel the need to use one of the more scientifically sound methods that are available to measure obesity levels.

Those alternatives cost a little bit more, but they give far more reliable results.

10. It embarrasses the U.S.
It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then.

What You Resist Persists

Posted on by
4

Imagine a bowl full of water. Inside the bowl, on top of the water is a cork. When you press on the cork, it is pushed under the water. When you let it go, it bobs up and down on the surface for a bit and then is motionless again on top of the water.

If you decide you don’t want the cork to float – it just bugs you being on the surface like that and you want it to sink, to go away, then you have to continuously push it down. As soon as you let go, it will bob to the surface again. It persists in being at the top of the water and your resistance to it surfacing forces you to keep pushing it down.

It is a never ending battle between you and the cork. Sound exhausting? It is.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the cork is your emotions, which you are continuously trying to push down. When you stop pushing, they bob up to the surface. It is exhausting to keep continuously pushing those emotions down.

Yet, just like the cork, if you let them surface, they will bob for a bit and eventually the cork will be still again. Push them down and it starts to get very tiring and becomes very distracting and eventually will get in the way of you living your life. Imagine trying to live your life while constantly carrying around a bowl full of water and a cork you need to push down every second of the day!

As well, that cork starts to soak up the water and gets heavier. It takes more energy to push it down, more effort. Imagine additional corks in the water. How can you keep pushing all of them down at once? You only have so many fingers, so much strength, so much perseverance, so much energy and attention. Putting all that energy into pushing that cork and the other corks in the water down will also leave you feeling tired, exhausted, and worn out both physically and mentally.

What you resist persists.

Resisting your emotions doesn’t make them go away; it makes them stronger, heavier. It makes you more tired and it makes the feelings more persistent!

Emotions don’t like to be pushed down. They are a part of you, a natural part of you. If you keep pushing them down, they get pretty upset and they will start to demand your attention.

Ever wonder why you are so tired all the time? It might be because you are expending a lot of energy pushing down your feelings! Ever wonder why you have panic attacks? Perhaps it is your emotions demanding your attention. After all panic sure makes them harder to ignore. Ever wondered why you are depressed? Depression is the result of depressing your emotions until you feel numb.

What you resist persists works with all things that you resist.

Trying really hard not to eat “bad” foods will lead you to binge. Trying really hard to be perfect all the time will keep your focus on all the imperfections you have. Trying really hard not to think about something just keeps that thought right there.

This week notice all the places you are resisting something. You will notice it by hearing yourself say words such as: I should, I shouldn’t, I am trying not to, I don’t want to, I can’t stop, I am trying to stop, etc.

When you hear yourself say these resistant words, remind yourself: “What I resist persists.” Now be very curious about yourself. What might you be resisting? You don’t have to completely let go of the cork so don’t worry about that yet. Just wonder, like an outsider looking into you… “What might I be resisting?” You don’t even need to be right about it, just curious.

So what are you resisting? Hint: it is probably an emotion. Are you resisting feeling fear? Anger? Sadness? Hurt? Joy? Success? Failure? Love? If so, just acknowledge it. For example, say to yourself (out loud is a great idea, if you want), “I am feeling ______ (fill in feeling word)” Now take a breath and let that be okay. Let it be okay that that feeling is there. So what? It is just a feeling. You have them all the time.

Great. When you do this, you have let the cork come up. Just a little bit at a time is perfect! You got a rest from constantly pushing it down. You might even feel some relief, some energy return. Imagine if you really let the cork come up for a minute, or 5 minutes. You would feel even more relief and energy.

Of course, pushing down that cork for so long makes it seem really scary to let it up. That’s okay. Try to let that be okay too. You let go of the cork each time you just let who you are and how you feel be okay. After all, it is okay. You are okay; even if you don’t believe it quite yet, it is true.