How Can I Have a Relationship with Something I Want to Change?

Welcome to the second day of the body theme in Spiral 2. 

Over the next two weeks, I will share some of the messages we receive that keep us out of our bodies. And tips on how to rebuild a relationship with our bodies,

How can I have a relationship with something I want to change? This question is at the root of valuing our body. 

If you are anything like my Coach in Your Pocket clients or you are anything like me... I bet that you live your life from the head up - not valuing your body and its magnificence." "The default for people with HFA is not having self-loyalty to our bodies."

Anxiety is expressed through our bodies. The goal is to close the gap between when we notice our anxiety and when we take action—so having a relationship with our bodies is a key step in closing that gap. 

My body has always been a touchy subject. One of the messages drilled into my head when I was growing up was worthiness=not being overweight. My parents spent a lot of time labeling people as either having a  "good" body or a "bad" body size and constantly analyzing good foods vs. bad foods. I wasn't an overweight child, and I spent most of my 20s making sure I stayed worthy in my parents' eyes by being militant about food and exercise. My Monger was a constant voice reminding me at every meal, party, or gathering what I should and should not eat. To put it mildly, I never loved and appreciated my body. 

Throughout my 30s and 40s, my Monger encouraged me to "work out more—you only worked out four days this week! You should go for a run!" and then my BFF (the voice of false self-compassion) would step in to say "Good grief, this is ridiculous you work out all the time. Relax, let's order pizza tonight. You burned a lot of calories this week. Let's order something fun!" Notice how much my BFF loves to engage in Chasing Happy, as we talked about last week. Food is one of my favorite chasing happy ideas. 

This dynamic led me to jump wildly between eating whatever I wanted and heavily restricting myself. 

When I hit 45,  I was tired of shaming myself into eating the 'right' foods and weighing the 'right' amount. I was done thinking about food and diets.

Around this time, I was also trying to hear from my Biggest Fan. I kept coming back to the question I mentioned at the start of this lesson, How can I have a relationship with something I want to change? I knew appreciating my body was important, but I had been trained my whole life to hate my body. 

But that is what I love about self-loyalty. I don't have to accept my body or fall in love with my body. All I have to do is be loyal to it. This is the vessel that is taking me through life. It isn't just a machine designed to burn (or not burn) calories. The body is truly amazing when you think about it. 

Self-loyalty starts with being kind. But Being kind to myself and being loyal to my body is foreign and strange. 

Step one is noticing it is happening.

Noticing when I was pushing my body beyond its comfort level. When I overate or overdid. It doesn’t necessarily involve immediately changing the behavior. Raising awareness of my Monger's voice about my body and step 2  challenging myself to practice A.S.K. (Spell out) to Forgiving myself when I overdid or overate. 

One night, I ate a whole bag of Reese's cups and felt so sick I couldn't look at another Reese's cup for months. 

A. Acknowledge my feelings: I feel regretful, uncomfortable, apologetic, unworthy, mortified, uneasy, lost, and unwanted.

S. Slow Down and Get into My Body—even though I felt disgusting, I stood up, wiggled my body, and felt my muscles and bones moving. 

K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture—My Biggest Fan said, yep, eating that whole bad of Reese cups was not a good idea. Yep, you probably ate them instead of acknowledging your feelings. Yep, you are an emotional eater. That's ok. You are a work in progress and next time, let's do a few more check-ins when you are eating sugary foods because you love them, and they make you sick.

Building a relationship with my body has been key to quieting my high-functioning anxiety, and it is very much a work in progress. The messages of unworthiness and good and bad bodies are hard-wired, but self-loyalty in baby steps has made a big difference in my life—a bigger difference than my cynical self thought it would. So over the next few days, we will continue to discuss building a relationship with your body.