My friend and mentor Robyn Posin (forthelittleonesinside.com) often says that setting goals rather than forming open-ended intentions can lead to problems. Because we don't have the ability to predict the future, we can't know what will be right for us tomorrow.
Today though, you may have an idea that losing weight will make you happy in the future. Today, as the new year approaches, you may be setting a resolution to diet harder, to eat less, to exercise more, to get thinner.
I want to invite you to think about the last time you lost weight (and the time before that, and the time before that). Did you feel an initial rush of excitement as you fit into smaller clothes? Did your self-esteem go up as the number on the scale went down? Was there another feeling alongside or just under the excitement? Was there fear or worry, maybe even dread that you would not be able to sustain the behavior required to keep losing weight?
This is the conundrum that 95% of dieters face. Most of us can restrict our eating and up our exercise on January 1. Many of us can continue our “lifestyle changes” through January, even February. By March though, a lot of us are selling our exercise equipment on eBay. By April, we are in therapy wondering why we have failed again.
If this is you, please listen. You are not a failure. Diets have failed you. If you are an emotional eater, no diet will ever be able to address the underlying reasons why you reach for food to change your mood.
In 2012, you have an opportunity to look at your relationship with food and your body in a whole new way. Instead of viewing food or fat as an enemy to be conquered, what would it be like to open your heart in compassion and curiosity? What would it be like to feel a craving, but instead of fighting with yourself, to be a loving ally who asks, what am I really hungry for?
A few days ago, I was talking with my friend, Nadine, about how she quit smoking. She talked about having to let go of all the ideas in her head about quitting, and how even the word “quitting” was getting in the way for her. Instead she found the word “finished” as in, “Am I finished with smoking yet?”
I wonder if Nadine's discovery might be helpful in your process as well? When you feel a craving, what might happen if you ask yourself, “Am I finished feeding my emotions with food?”
If you choose to play with this language, please don't make being finished right and not being finished wrong. There is no right or wrong here. Maybe an even better question would be, "Am I ready to feed my emotions with love instead of food?"
However you phrase it, the question should help you get close to the part of you that has relied on food to feel okay, close enough to really feel into the need. Is the timing right to feel your emotions? Is the timing right to make a loving space for your needs? If the timing is right, then you might be finished feeding your emotions with food. And if the timing is not right, can you have your own tender and gentle permission to not be ready yet?
At the heart of these questions lies a fundamental stance, that you never deserve your own scorn, that anger and disgust will never motivate you, at least not for long, and that you always deserve your own lovingkindness, gentleness and support without any conditions.
Is 2012 the year you set an intention for radical self-love instead of making resolutions?
