Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much (30 page)

And be aware, too, that if you're very sensitive, you are likely to avoid the discomfort of acknowledging that something is wrong with the picture. If you stay on top of your emotions and manage your empathy, you can acknowledge problems early on in a situation and deal with them before the situation becomes completely unworkable and you're left angry, frustrated, and disappointed, with the decision taken out of your hands.

WHEN YOU ARE ILL

When you're not managing your porous boundaries very well, you're more likely to be stressed out; and as you learned in the section on your adrenal glands, your body responds to stress by lowering your immune response. This can create a vicious cycle: you're feeling upset, anxious, irritated, or depressed; you get sick; then you're upset, anxious, irritated, or depressed because you're sick.

Being sick stinks, and emotional drama just makes me want to eat! Feed a cold, feed a fever—I want to feed it all to comfort myself!

Eating well and getting enough sleep boost your immunity and will bring you back to health more quickly, but worrying about how long it will be before you get better and indulging in comfort foods are just going to make matters worse. Do the Slowing Down Time exercise (see previous section) if you feel yourself getting anxious, and use affirmations such as, “Even though I am achy, tired, and coughing, I still deeply love and accept myself” when taking your salt baths. Stay hydrated: drink plenty of liquids to help your body wash out the germs and toxins. Take this time to be good to yourself and to get in touch with any “emotional toxins” you are holding on to that could be contributing to your illness or fatigue. Do the Cord Unplugging exercise in Chapter 6 to see whether you are holding on to any emotions or energy that belongs to someone else, and cut the cords.

Don't pressure yourself to do a lot of exercise when you're sick. Get outside and walk if the weather is nice, but go for a shorter time and don't feel you have to get a workout. It's more important to keep the fluids in your body moving, stretch your muscles a bit, and use gentle exercise to manage your moods than to get your heart pumping. Don't weigh yourself because you might start to obsess about how you aren't burning calories. Think of this time as a temporary respite from all the stressors in your life, and as an opportunity to nurture yourself body, mind, and spirit. Okay, you can watch a little junk TV too, but rest and take care of your body and emotions.

LIFE CHANGES AND HORMONAL SHIFTS

For women, the hormonal shifts that happen during their menstrual cycle, in adolescence, and during perimenopause can make it especially difficult to manage emotions and empathy. A woman who has never experienced the mood shifts of PMS may be in for a shock when her estrogen levels drop in her late forties, or after surgery that sends her into early menopause. But it's not just women who experience hormonal shifts that affect their moods. Men's sex hormones are at high levels in adolescence, then drop in midlife. They can experience irritability and depression during these shifts just as women can, but it's harder for them to talk about.

Men get the message loud and clear: be strong at all times, and don't show emotions because that's “weak.” In fact, depression in men often manifests as anger, which feels like a powerful emotion because it makes people tiptoe around them when they express that anger; but of course, being angry all the time and not being able to control your rage is not powerful at all. A grouchy man in his 40s, 50s, and 60s who is overeating and gaining weight might be dealing with a hormonal shift, among other things (from feeling sad about growing older in a youth-oriented culture to regretting the mistakes of his youth that led to his current situation).

If you're in one of these stages of life when hormones shifts and life changes are normal, and you're noticing that you're more moody, sensitive, or angry, or less emotionally resilient, talk to your doctor about having your hormones tested. Hormone levels can be influenced by medications, but also by food, food supplements, exercise or movement, and other natural means. Don't underestimate the potential emotional stress that comes when your body and your life are changing at the same time that your hormone levels are shifting.

Then, too, women's hormone levels change dramatically in the hours and days after childbirth, which is why some women suffer from postpartum depression. It's also one of the reasons some women not only hold on to the baby weight but also have a much harder time losing weight than in the past. Becoming a parent is a huge life change, too. It's very easy for a woman to start neglecting herself so as to take care of the baby, to become emotionally overwhelmed by the challenge, and to detour into disordered eating, which doesn't exactly help with losing the weight. If you recently gave birth and are trying to lose weight, work the People Who Feel Too Much program, but check your hormones as well. Thyroid problems, which affect metabolism, often show up during these times of hormonal shifts, so I'll say it again: check your hormone levels, as it's likely they have changed and you're having new symptoms and more difficulty managing your emotions and your weight.

In adolescence, we detach from parents to form new, individual identities outside of the family. If you're very empathetic, this separation process is difficult because you are so intertwined with the emotions of your parents and siblings, but also those of your peers. Your best friend from childhood suddenly is interested in the opposite sex, not the games you two played together, and the rejection is excruciating. If you're empathetic, you're not only feeling your grief at the loss of a friendship, and maybe some embarrassment at being “immature” in her eyes, you're also taking on her discomfort with you and her resentment that you want her to go back to who she was last year.

When I was a young teenager, I had a very strong sense of being off-kilter. People told me I was oversensitive. In response, I decided to show everyone how tough I was, so I became rebellious. Then I had to deal with my burgeoning sexuality and with boys being attracted to me, which totally freaked me out. My desire for emotional intimacy was overwhelming, and I detoured away from it by engaging in casual sex.

At the same time, I was developing bulimia. The effects of the manic binge would be erased by the conscientious purge—or at least, that's how it felt. It was frightening and exhilarating to engage in this secret behavior. The message I received was clear: fashionable, desirable girls were thin. I must have stepped on the scale twenty times a day, terrified that the needle might budge—and it did. No matter how much I threw up, I still gained weight and my curves still developed.

After I gained 20 pounds in one year, with no increase in height, I started on my first diet, which as I recall featured a lot of grapefruit. Then I went on a new diet every month, losing and gaining weight like a yo-yo. I hated my body and the pressure to control it was too much for me to bear. Drinking became a form of self-medication, and I started to identify with the wild, crazy, party girl persona I had created to disguise my deep discomfort with myself and my connections with other people and my body.

Teenagers who feel too much may not detour away from their feelings by using alcohol and drugs and acting out sexually, but they may start abusing themselves—cutting, embedding, and so on. These behaviors create a sense of being able to control intense feelings. Teens can also become very controlling and anxious. If their parents and the people around them give them good support and guidance, it can help them navigate these dangerous waters. If not, addictions may take hold and unhealthy detours can become coping mechanisms that then cause problems throughout adulthood. Did any of your addictions or detours start in your teen years? Are they affecting your son or daughter?

Many adults experience a midlife hormonal shift right when their kids are going through their own hormonal changes at adolescence. Just recognizing this and being willing to laugh about the challenge will help, but be aware of how using this program, and being on top of your hormone levels, can help you to help your kids manage puberty better. You might do some exercising together, or have media-free, stimulation-free times in the household, which will benefit everyone. Pay attention to what everyone's eating, and cook together so no one's tempted to escape to the fast-food joint for an emotional respite and some salty, fatty treats. Encourage your teens to use the techniques you're learning for managing porous boundaries. The daughter of one of my clients started doing Himalayan salt baths, and she found that they helped her shed the emotional detritus she picked up each day in junior high school, and helped clear up her skin as well.

In ancient times, stories about the transition from maiden to mother to crone, or warrior (young man) to father to sage, helped people understand just how profound our life changes are and how challenging they can be. If you have a spiritual or religious tradition that marks these transitions, that's wonderful. Work with them! If you don't, you might want to create some rituals around them to help you, and the people you love, to experience just how big these shifts are and to honor them. Even if a woman or man doesn't become a literal mother or father, we enter into a stage where are our bodies are fertile and we are expected to be mature role models for others, which we might not be emotionally prepared for, given where we are in our personal growth. Instead of retreating into denial and sensing shame about how we don't feel prepared to step into a new stage of life, we can find ways to honor it and ourselves, and make the change more easily.

Also in midlife, we often end up caring for elderly parents or family members, which can lead to adrenal burnout, as you learned about earlier. If you're in the sandwich generation, helping out your aging mom and dad while raising kids, maybe even teenagers, while you're in midlife—you've got quite a full plate! Be good to yourself.

CHANGES IN THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD, AND LIGHT DEPRIVATION

As I mentioned earlier, we are all connected energetically to the energy fields around us, including the electromagnetic field (EMF) of the earth. If you're very sensitive, you might be picking up on the many changes within the larger electromagnetic field and experiencing changes in your emotions. It wasn't so long ago in human history that no one had electric lighting, much less computers and electronic devices, radio waves, and technologies that affect the EMF. Now, you can't go anywhere without someone using an electronic device near you. Our bodies and our energy fields have had little time to adjust to the alterations to the energy fields that surround us.

Using the salt baths, and keeping salt water and salt lamps in areas where you have electronic equipment, will help balance the electromagnetic field by releasing negative ions (remember: negative ions good, positive ions bad). But it's also important to reduce the amount of energy disturbance you expose yourself to. I know that I am much more emotionally sensitive and empathetic when I feel overwhelmed by the “buzz” in the electromagnetic field created by all our technologies. This happens frequently when I'm in cities or crowded spaces. If you have to be around a lot of electronic equipment, make sure to take breaks and to use your techniques for managing your porous boundaries. I'm not saying that the crowd of people at the airport using their cell phones and computers are making you fat, but they are affecting you energetically—even more than they would in a previous generation, when people in public spaces had to communicate with the office by dropping a coin into a pay phone.

If you think about it, we lead very unnatural lives, and we may be grossly underestimating how much our energy fields are being affected. For example, we have exposure to light all hours of the day, but it's often not natural lighting. The spectrum of a fluorescent or even an incandescent light bulb is limited, so the light is very different from sunlight.

If you live in a part of the country where the natural light is low much of the year—for example, if you're very far north or south of the Equator—you aren't getting much vitamin D from sunlight. The same is true if you rarely get out into natural sunlight, or only do so during certain times of the year. Low levels of vitamin D are associated with depression and a host of physical problems, from fatigue to cognitive impairment to diabetes and cancer. Also, when we spend more time in sunlight, particularly on bright sunny days, we have higher levels of serotonin, a “feel-good” neurotransmitter that our brain needs to regulate mood.

The solution is to get out into the sunshine, and if you are especially sensitive to low levels of natural light, consider buying a light box and natural-spectrum lights to use in your home or office. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a very real phenomenon that affects people who do not get exposed to enough natural light, influencing their moods; it seems to be very common among people who feel too much. If you get more depressed and lethargic on dull winter days, or during the rainy season in your area, learn more about SAD and get some sun! It will help you to avoid unnecessary sadness that can cause you to detour away from healthy eating and emotional management.

NATURE DEPRIVATION

Just five minutes spent in nature can improve a people's mood, according to research; and there's growing evidence that exercising in nature instead of indoors provides extra benefits for mood. If you're like many people, you spend a lot of time inside. Do you find you only know what the weather is if you go to your iCal or check a website, because you're too far away from a door to step outside and find out for yourself how cold, sunny, rainy, or windy it is? We've become so detached from nature!

Getting outside and into nature is important. If you hate the cold or you have trouble handling it because of an underlying condition, bundle up with lots of layers of clothing and forget about how unfashionable you look. If you can't stand getting wet or feeling the wind against your bare skin, find clothing that works for you. If you're afraid you'll ruin your hairstyle in the wind or rain, find a way around it so you can get the sunlight and the time around trees, sky, creeks, dirt, and animals that your spirit, mind, and body need. Check into whether there are indoor gardens in your area that you could visit, too. Why not take a few spins around the botanical gardens or enjoy the miniature desert under the skylights? Maybe there's a public aquarium nearby where you can spend some time sitting on a bench, watching the fish and the seahorses. It can really make a difference in your mood and sense of calm.
Many
of the participants in my workshops for People Who Feel Too Much have reported that getting in touch with nature regularly is incredibly effective for managing their porous boundaries. So, don't let the weather stand in your way. Bring nature indoors, too, with plants, fountains, pets, and windows to the outdoors.