Aging, Injuries, and Healing with Mindfulness

Getting older is a fine balance between the wisdom that can only come from experience and the frustration of not remembering what I was about to say or do a moment ago.

Going slowly and being fully in my body, moment by moment, have been among the greatest gifts of aging. I am still working on both of these practices, and I get distracted by busy-ness more than I would like. But the more I stop, and breathe, and feel, the easier it gets - mostly because it feels good.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) - which I mentioned a couple posts ago - has become an invaluable tool for settling in and noticing subtle energies and staying with them, just noticing and nothing more, as they transform just through the process of attending and watching.

Sadness becomes relief, then anger, then power, then excitement, then joy.

Fatigue becomes grounding, then settling, then calm, then alertness, then presence.

This may sound like meditation, but it's more than I've ever learned in meditation classes. There is no effort to stop thinking. Thoughts happen. There is no concentration on a meditative object. Sensation is the meditative object. And maybe that just works really well for me because I am at the super far end of the kinesthetic spectrum.

One of the main reasons I decided to learn SE was to see if it would help reduce physical pain, which I've long suspected my body holds as "emotional trauma in suspended form." In several of my SE experiences, I've noticed the feeling of my shoulders and back melting - as if old armor is gently falling away. It's a delicious feeling, and one that I hope will eventually become a new normal for me. What I didn't expect, is that SE would follow me out of the classroom, and out of my therapy office into my daily life. Specifically, it has shown up in my footsteps.

In March, I twisted my left knee, and it's felt twinge-y and wonky ever since - not painful, but not quite right. I don't think it's a coincidence that I also have bunion on my left big toe, and that my left foot has been growing progressively weaker over the last few years. So I did what we all seem to do these days; I scoured Google for everything ever written about knee injuries and bunions and muscle imbalances. Several articles recommended walking barefoot.

Then, in June, I ran into a friend who was wearing Vibram FiveFingers on her feet. I had a pair once. I got them right after reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. But I was much younger then (only 44). And I had only just begun learning about slow and gentle living. I didn't know that in my mid-forties, my body would begin to rebel against being pushed to hard. I didn't know the wear and tear that my earlier traumas, and the resulting tendency to dismiss and deny my body's pain and fatigue signals, was catching up to me. So I put on my new barefoot "shoes," and went for a run, giving myself a muscle spasm (in my left calf, of course) that lasted a month. I blamed the shoes, cursed the book, and went back to supportive, orthotically correct footwear. And I watched my bunion grow. And I felt my foot continue to weaken.

Fast forward to June. Now at the wise and sage age of 49 1/2, I listen to my friend describe the slow, gentle process of moving from shod feet to bare feet. She wore her FiveFingers an hour a day at first, only at home after work. Then on little trips, grocery shopping. Then, adding more time as her body grew accustomed, she eventually started wearing them all day, just walking, sitting, driving. Now, she says, she is "addicted to them."

There is no definitive information about whether barefoot living will fix my knee or my foot. Anecdotal evidence points both ways - it really helps or it really hurts. Though in scouring blogs and message boards, there is one theme that recurs over and over. If you transition to barefoot, go very, very slowly.

Yesterday my new (and surprisingly cute compared to the last pair) FiveFingers arrived. I wore them for two hours, mostly sitting. Today I wore them for three hours, sitting, sweeping the floor and taking a short trip to the store. When I took them off, the angle of my bunion-y toe was less pronounced. My knee is still wonky, but it also feels like the muscles of my foot, calf and thigh are more activated and more stabilizing.

What's really wonderful though is the mindfulness of each step. As I walk, I am keenly aware of the sensations in my feet and legs and knees and hips and back. I am feeling my gait from inside. I have no idea what this will lead to, if anything. And the blessing of SE and of getting older is that it's soooo okay with me not to know. I am happy watching, waiting, trusting my body's signals and discovering what the next step feels like, and then the next one, and the next.

And I am relishing the loving feelings that come with all of this self-care. The armor continues melting, and as it does, the love and joy that is my birthright (and yours too) grows full and bright, a little sun rising in my chest.

Weight Loss Advice - Who to Trust

My local Borders is closing (I guess they all are). So I stopped by to pick up some bargains. Books that support the non-diet approach always catch my eye, so I picked up a book called Full: A Life Without Dieting. And just as my mother told me, you can't judge a book by it's cover, or title. The book starts out interestingly, explaining the biology of fullness and confirming what real* non-diet practitioners know. Hunger and fullness are signaled by a complex system of chemical reactions in the body. Our chemistry is dictated in large part by our DNA. And then environmental factors like stress, overwork and emotional disconnect can make it hard to pay attention to our hunger and fullness signals.

Where the book loses me is at the moment when Dr. Snyder begins talking about what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. Excuse me, but isn't that... a diet? And then, the doctor begins contradicting himself. Early in the book, he notes that the top 10% of the stomach is where the nerves that signal fullness are located. And he recommends eating enough to activate those nerves, noting that diets are doomed to failure, in part, because they leave people hungry. But then later in the book, he advocates eating less in order to shrink the stomach.

In his "troubleshooting" section, he briefly mentions emotional eating and recommends that you let go of stress. Really? Like the complex system that governs appetite, there is another complex system that governs our emotional states. If we could let go of stress by simply deciding to do so, guess what? We all would!

So, once again, we have an "expert" telling us what to do. Another expert is recommending a diet, and then saying he doesn't believe in diets. And yet there are a few gems among the dross of this book. I'll sum it up for you and save you the time and expense of buying and reading the book.

1. Your stomach has fullness sensors that get activated when you've eaten enough. However, they can get short-circuited by emotional distress, preoccupation, or the smell of freshly baked cookies.

2. If you are eating beyond fullness, it may be helpful to practice mindfulness. If mindfulness is not helping (I know I'm full, but I feel compelled to eat anyway), then you may be hungry for something else.

Here's why expert advice doesn't work. YOU are the only expert on you. You are the one receiving those signals. So only you can know when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. If you are an emotional eater, you may need help differentiating emotional hunger signals from food hunger signals and then learning how to respond to both with care and self love.

So let's talk about mindful eating. Turn off the TV. Eat alone if possible. Eat slowly and really enjoy your food. After each bite, pause and notice how your body is responding. If you are feeling pleasure, revel in that pleasure. Notice flavors, textures, temperature. Notice belly feelings. Is there relief as you move from hunger to fullness. Your job is to increase your awareness of the physical signals your body is sending you about the experience of eating. That's all. If you find yourself worrying about food "rules" or feeling fear/shame about your body while you're eating, ask the part that is worried if it can move aside temporarily so you can listen to your body. If the worried part can't let go, you might find it easier to start with the emotional stuff.

Food is soothing. Food is distracting. Even worrying about your weight or your health can provide a great distraction from other feelings that are harder to face. This is why real non-diet followers abstain from all forms of food restriction. We know that dieting, just like overeating, is a distraction from difficult feelings.

Feelings 101:
With rare exception, we are all born with the need and capacity to feel a range of emotions at a range of intensity. Our emotions are like the dials on the dashboard of a car. They tell us when things are going well. And they tell us when we need to make adjustments. We are also born with the need and capacity to bond. Bonding with our parents keeps us safe, comforted, and connected.

Our ability to feel a full range of emotions without getting distressed or overwhelmed DEPENDS on the quality of our bonding experiences. If our parents made us feel safe, soothed and valued as children, regardless of our emotional expression, then we learned that our emotions are fine. We can bring them to others and receive care. And when others are not available, we can draw on the care we received as kids and self-soothe.

Many overeaters have less-than-optimal bonding. Parents may have been abusive/scary, preoccupied/distant, or intrusive/needy. Because bonding is essential to our survival, we will shut down any feelings that threaten our bond. This can be obvious. For example, I've worked with clients who had abusive parents and don't feel safe in relationships. When they feel lonely or upset, they turn to food because it calms them. And food won't yell at them (though they often yell at themselves later for eating).

Sometimes the bonding problem is a little obscured. Another client had a hard time receiving compliments. Whenever someone acknowledged her skill or strengths, she would change the subject and brush off the kind words, not really believing them. It turns out her mother criticized everything she did. As a kid, she longed to have her mom beam at her with pride. Instead, when she had an accomplishment, it was dismissed, creating deep shame. In therapy, she was able to start taking in positive feedback. And in the process, she was able to notice hunger and fullness more easily.

Figuring this stuff out is hard. Most of us need a healthy adult bond where we can explore all of our feelings with another person, and have our feelings/our truest selves be accepted and held with respect and regard. Attuning to our feelings and welcoming the messages they carry is in direct parallel with attuning to our appetites and welcoming the messages of hunger and fullness. This is why diets don't work (even when you call them something different).

*Real non-diet practitioners trust that our bodies know when they are hungry and full. They trust that when emotions are nurtured, emotional eating falls away. They trust that each body has a size and shape encoded into its DNA. That size and shape may not fit cultural ideals. But instead of pushing and punishing bodies into unrealistic sizes and shapes, real non-diet practitioners advocate for self-acceptance, health at every size, and activism that challenges the shaming and devaluing cultural beliefs about size and weight.