Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much (20 page)

If you want to share in someone's fear or anger, empathizing with that person so that he feels heard, you will still have that choice—but you can make that choice consciously. The question is how attached you are to the drama. Can you imagine what your relationships would be like if you
sympathized
with others, expressing compassion toward them instead of taking on the weight of their emotions? Most of us don't take the time to think about what our lives might be like if we followed through and enacted the changes we say we'd like to make. Take a little time to do the next exercise and explore how different your life could be.

WHAT MY LIFE WOULD BE

Imagine that you were to change your whole life, not just your body. What would be the quality of your relationships? If you were to stop becoming enmeshed with people, immersing yourself in their dramas, what would your life be like? Take some time to answer these and the following questions. You might want to do more than one session, writing in your journal for up to a half hour at a time.

• If you could clear away and unplug from any and all unwanted or burdensome energy, what would that feel like?

Go back and review your nighttime notes. Make a list summarizing everything you have done well since you began this program. Pay special attention to anything you've done that has served your higher good. Read the list. Write about how you feel.

• How do you feel about continuing the program?

• What are you afraid of?

• What would it look like if you didn't hold on to that fear?

• Can you love yourself enough, and trust in a higher power to love you when you can't?

• Imagine yourself sitting in the hand of your higher power, surrounded by unconditional love. Now how do you feel?

Once you've reclaimed your power, that old feeling of “Where do I end and you begin?” fades. You have a stronger sense of yourself as an individual with choices, so you can stop yourself when you feel you're becoming engulfed in a wave of someone else's emotions. Reconnecting with others is a less frightening prospect. What's more, now that you know practical ways to deal with your painful emotions, it becomes easier to reconnect with your body, thoughts, and feelings. You don't have to isolate or insulate yourself with excess weight that keeps people away. You can start to look into the mirror and see your whole body, instead of keeping your gaze at neck level or above, and you can reconnect with your spirituality in a way that feels right to you. Other people's disapproval or anger doesn't have to permeate your energy field. It's going to get easier and easier to avoid the noisy foods that falsely promise, “Eat me and you'll feel better!” I hope you're already feeling freer and lighter as we go into Step Four: Reconnect Without Losing Yourself.

DAILY JOURNALING FOR STEP THREE: RECLAIM YOUR POWER TO CHOOSE

Write the answers to the following questions in your journal. Allow at least 20 minutes for this process each day for 7 days, and answer about two questions a day.

1. What would your life look like if you released the weight of the world?

2. What would your life look like if you didn't rush in to save other people from the consequences of their actions? What would it look like to let others make mistakes without you trying to intervene?

3. Who you might be if you weren't taking responsibility for other people's emotions? What would you do with all that time you would free up, time you currently spend worrying about others?

4. What would you like to do that you never seem to have time for? What would it look like if you did have time for it?

5. What would your relationships look like if you set healthy boundaries and said no to people who want to dump their garbage on you? What would their initial response be? What would happen if you stood your ground?

6. Do you think you have to take on responsibility for other people and their feelings in order to be a good and lovable person? If so, why?

7. What would your life look like if you were a good and lovable person with healthy boundaries in your relationships?

8. What are you afraid of?

9. What do you want to create for yourself?

10. What emotions would you like to experience regularly?

11. What would your life look like if you gave up your anger and resentment? Would you still be a good, caring person?

12. What would your life look like if you forgave yourself for your failures, and the people you care about for hurting you?

13. What would happen if you found space on your to-do list for self-nurturing? What would your days look like?

14. What are you holding on to? What would it feel like to let it go? What would it feel like once it was gone from your life?

15. How does your oversensitivity manifest in your life? How would you like it to manifest in your life? In other words, if oversensitivity and an ability to be deeply empathetic were a gift and never a burden, what would your life look like?

KEEP IN MIND …

• When overwhelmed by emotions, don't focus on everyone and anything. Get in touch with what's really bothering you and put the problems that aren't a priority into the Sacred Box, trusting that Spirit will take care of them while you address your own emotional storm.

• Don't “bond over bitching.” Don't share garbage with others by venting. Share solutions and emotional support.

• Create an Bxperience Board to begin imagining the emotional experiences you'd like to have.

• Exercise your power of choice. Be compassionate toward those who are uncomfortable with your new choices, but don't give your power of choice to them. Let them learn to adjust to your new way of operating.

• Assert yourself, without apologies or justifications and explanations. Practice letting go of the need to imagine,
What is that person going to think of me?
and taking on his or her emotions.

• Start to think about what you want to bring into your life to replace your old patterns of enmeshing with others and detouring away from your discomfort. Actually picture yourself filling a shopping cart with the emotional experiences you'd prefer to have.

• Don't fill your cart with drama. Remember, you have the choice about what you want to bring into your life. You don't
have
to choose to bring in drama that stimulates you and churns up your emotions, distracts you, and drives you to detour away from healthy eating.

• Keep it light. Learn to laugh at the everyday things that would otherwise frustrate you.

• Continue to use the IN-Vizion Process and explore your inner emotional landscape as an observer who can make choices. The more you do this, the easier it will be to avoid reactivity and avoid detouring into caregiving for others, practically or emotionally.

7

Step Four: Reconnect Without Losing Yourself (“I don't have to leave the party after all!”)

Are you successfully managing your porous boundaries much of the time? If you start to feel overwhelmed by a tangle of emotions twisting and turning inside of you, and you are tempted to ground yourself with food, now you know what to do besides open the pantry or refrigerator.

It's easier now for you to look honestly at the choices you have been making; your self-compassion muscle has been toned and you know that your weight issues aren't just about food. When you began this program, you probably would have instantly launched into a tirade against yourself if you had overeaten, but you don't do that anymore—or if you do, you cut yourself off very quickly. Remember, it's possible that once in a while you'll have a moment when you fall back into the old, reactive behavior; but now that your self-worth is greater and your habits are different, you have reclaimed the power of choice.

I shared with you my moments of struggle that I still have, but one thing is certain: loving yourself, accepting yourself, having self-esteem, feeling safe inside your own skin is worth more than a number on the scale. And, the longer you practice this program, the easier it will be to drop the excess weight and be in the world without being consumed and overwhelmed by it.

Take a moment and think about how much progress you have made. If you feel you've gotten stuck, and can't move forward because you're resisting the program, don't quit! Keep using the techniques you've learned, and you will prime yourself to recognize what's holding you back and what you need to do for yourself.

As you begin this final step of the program, you have come to claim your power to create neutrality and nonreactivity. Part of your consciousness is able to separate out from what you are craving and feeling, which allows your rational mind to think about what choices you want to make. Mindless, disordered eating is no longer the norm. Now it's time to reconnect—to your body, your feelings, your beliefs, and even to other people. Neutrality and nonreactivity make it much easier to let go of the old detouring behaviors of isolation and enmeshment and to build healthy relationships and boundaries. You don't have to be afraid of feeling overwhelmed and powerless anymore. Whatever you find or experience when reconnecting, you can handle it now. What a relief that is!

Often, we people who feel too much isolate ourselves, not just by avoiding other people but also by disconnecting our mind from our emotions, or ignoring our body's needs. We become easily overwhelmed by how we feel, and by our thoughts, so we cut off the part that's hurting—the body that needs movement and good food, the emotions that need expressing, the thoughts that might cause us discomfort. Mind, body, and spirit can come together now as you unite all the pieces of yourself—no more being the highly successful, ever efficient businessperson who secretly bingers and purges, or the compassionate counselor who flies into rages and then feels guilty. You are going to own all the parts of yourself, even the ones you'd like to deny, and you will incorporate them into the beautiful, complex person that is you.

Let's look at the pieces of yourself that you have compartmentalized so that you could ignore them when your feelings were too intense, and see how you can integrate them into who you are now.

RECONNECTING TO YOUR BODY

When I was younger, I had completely unrealistic and limited ideas about what my body should look like. I hated that I couldn't get my body to conform to the shape I wanted it to be. Even when I was at my slimmest, my frame still had a stocky quality—big boobs, short waist, long yet thick legs. We used to joke that I got the hearty Polish and Yugoslavian genes and my lean teeny sister got the aristocratic French genes. Until the age of 14, I was a tomboy, athletic, and not particularly pretty, until I blossomed at 15. I never saw myself reflected in any magazine photos while growing up. All the women who were presented as beauty to aspire to were models obviously out of reach for me. Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, and Marilyn Monroe were my favorites, but then they quickly faded into the distance and I had Twiggy and Veruschka to look at in magazines in the '60s, then gorgeous, thin, long-haired hippy girls in the '70s. I felt I had to look like the perky Charlie's Angels, especially Farrah Fawcett, who was blond and slender, while I could boast of neither attribute. So growing up, I never could see how I could fit in—at least, in the beauty department. I wish the Kardashian girls had been born thirty years earlier, as it would have made my life a lot easier if they were my TV or magazine models. Love 'em or hate 'em, their curvy bodaciousness sure makes me happy, given that I have a similar look.

Nowadays, software makes it so easy to retouch photographs and video, to such an extreme that even fashion models don't look like their pictures do. It's becoming harder and harder to remember the difference between what a real body and face look like compared to the highly altered images we see around us constantly. I feel for the young women—and men—who grow up thinking that their bodies are supposed to resemble these highly altered images. And it's not just the fashion models who are ultra-thin—now, actresses, actors, and models in health magazines also present body images that few people can attain.

LOVE YOUR AGING BODY

Several years ago, I was at my most toned and trimmed because I was managing my emotions, eating well, and working out with a personal trainer five days a week. Well, I was 42 years old back then, and now I am twelve years older and things have changed—my lifestyle, menopause, and so much more. As I'm aging, I'm learning to love my changing body just as it is each day, and I've made a conscious decision not to go back to such intense physical exercise. I train just three times a week and do light cardio the rest of the time. At this point in my life—most of the time—I am happy with how I look because I'm happy overall.

Have I thrown out those skintight jeans I wore ten years ago? Okay, I am not perfect. If I'm really going to let it all hang out for you all, I will admit that I keep a secret stash in my closet of my favorite skinny clothes, which says more about my squirreling habits than anything else! But I will say, wholeheartedly, that I am free of the obsession over my body and my weight. Other than the occasional episode, which only comes on when I don't practice what I preach, I am light-years away from that 219-pound young woman shrieking in the bathroom because she didn't recognize the image of the naked fat girl in the mirror coming out of the shower!

My good spirits show in my face and in how I carry myself. Twelve years ago, it took an enormous amount of effort to maintain that weight and muscle tone, and I don't want to spend all my time sculpting my body anymore. Health and stamina are very important to me, but I have a lot to do, and heavy exercise is too intense for my aging body and its joints. I don't want to get injured or exhaust myself pushing my body the way I used to. Whenever I do feel that sense of dread in trying on clothes or being around some of my naturally thin-bodied friends, it lasts seconds, if it happens at all. I remind myself how far I've come and how who I am really has nothing to do with what my body looks like in comparison to others.

I have a menopausal tummy, which is actually pretty flat—just wider. I work out and eat cleanly, and I accept and love my belly as it is today because it's a part of who I am and it serves me well. One of my class participants wrote a letter to her belly telling it how fabulous it is. In fact, if you're menopausal, you may not realize that your belly is helping you. As Julia Ross says in her book
The Diet Cure,
“Muscle burns fat for a living; it uses fat as fuel for its activity. But we put on menopausal fat for an excellent reason: we need it so that we can feed our adrenals the special fat-storage estrogen, called estrone, that helps them replace the estrogen that used to come from our ovaries.” So every morning, I stroke my favorite orange-scented cream from The Body Shop all over my menopausal belly and tell “her” how beautiful she is, thanking her for doing her job.

NO MORE OBSESSING OVER IMPERFECTIONS

If you are still struggling with body image, don't underestimate how much you're being affected by doctored media images and unrealistic expectations about looking like a still-growing adolescent when you're well past that age. Avoid false media images as much as possible, and try to spend some time around people your age who are not covering up their bodies—at the beach, at a dance class, a pool, or health club. If you go to these places, you are probably used to looking at the toned, ultra-thin bodies and ignoring how many bodies look like yours. It's important to remember how easily our perceptions can become distorted; check yourself when you start obsessing about how your body isn't perfect. Ah, there goes that perfectionism again!

The Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much program is designed to free you from your obsessions about your body and weight. Liberation comes from radical self-acceptance. When you let go of the weight of self-judgment or self-hatred, you make it easier for your body to also let go of the physical weight you are carrying. And your body will know where it wants to be! Your body is wise and you must trust it! I couldn't lose an ounce until I began loving myself and my body when I was at my heaviest. While I was afraid of it and hated it the worse it got, the more the weight stuck to me like glue. Dieting never worked. Self-acceptance, self-love, setting healthy boundaries, and eating for health were what did it.

How do you feel about your body? Can you imagine loving it as it is right now? Are you starting to give up the battle to bully it into being something it can't be, into a shape and size you can't obtain, because of your age and your genetics? If not, take a look at some photographs of your relatives, particularly pictures from the past, or even photographs of people of your age who are in your ethnic group. Your genes have a strong influence on whether you are short and stocky, tall and big boned, or petite and round. When you look at people who share DNA with you, you realize why that youthful dream of a bubble butt or perfect abs was always unrealistic, given your body type. That doesn't mean you can't love your body exactly as it is right now.

Even if you have health problems that frustrate you because they cause you pain or fatigue, or limit you in some way, you have to learn to love your body as it is in any moment. Self-compassion means embracing your physique now, not as it once was, not as you hope it will be someday.

When you catch yourself saying cruel things to yourself about your shape, your face, or your body, stop, take a deep breath, and say some affirmations about how strong, wonderful, loving, and beautiful your body is. The following exercise will drive the point home because you do it while you are caressing your body.

I LOVE MY BODY!

After a salt bath, dry off, and while your body is still warm and moist, take some moisturizer and begin to rub it into your body, slowly. Imagine yourself as a sensual goddess, poised next to a beautiful fountain or lagoon, the warm breeze gently rippling over you as you sit nude, the picture of perfection. Say to yourself:

I am a work of art, a beautiful physical creation. I love myself. I love my body.

I love my skin, my beautiful skin that keeps me healthy, protecting me. I love my hands, and all they do to serve me. They allow me to reach for what I want. I love my feet, which hold me up.

Continue naming the parts of you as you rub the moisturizer into them, naming what they do for you. End with:

My body is healthy and strong. My blood moves easily and effortlessly through my body. I draw in breath, deeply, nourishing my body, giving life to every cell.

My heart beats, keeping me alive and in this beautiful, wonderful, healthy body.

My body is a gift. My body is a divine expression of life.

I am beautiful.

One thing I've noticed is that we obsess about our weight and bodies because we are detouring away from some other difficult emotion. If you feel taken advantage of at work, or your romantic partner isn't treating you right, do you start picking on yourself about your weight? My girlfriend Sally, who is an actress, says when she is upset about something she automatically starts talking about her weight. When she met a guy on a blind date and he was just not a nice person, she obsessed over the experience. “He talked about himself the whole time and had a really mean kind of personality! Do you think it's because he thinks I am fat?” As she fretted about getting a callback for a voiceover commercial, she began talking about how fat she is and worried how she might not get the job. I reminded her that it was a
voice
over, not a
body
over commercial!

For years, my default setting was obsession about my body. It took a long time to realize that putting all my focus on my weight distracted me from dealing with other issues in my life. If you do the same, be aware of it. When you're on a rant about the size of your body parts, you need to stop and get in touch with what you're really upset about. I wonder, sometimes, if the reason so many of us who have gained weight and lost it have trouble maintaining the weight loss is that we don't truly accept ourselves, and we don't feel deserving of our new bodies. What would happen if, instead of hating ourselves, we practiced radical self-compassion?

MOVEMENT: WHERE THE HECK IS THAT PART OF MY BODY?

All living creatures need to move to keep themselves healthy. Our bodies are mostly made up of fluids that have to flow through our systems. Letting your blood and lymph fluids stagnate and pool is not good for you. Also, movement prevents and limits depression, prevents panic attacks, and builds up your body's immunity, as well as your muscle strength and flexibility so that you don't strain muscles or tear ligaments when you're doing everyday activities.