What You Can Learn From Two Bites of Chocolate

First off, I need to apologize for being so out of touch. There are many things going on in my life right now and I'm having trouble keeping up with the writing. I recently started reporting for The Examiner on their health channel and it is a very different kind of writing than I'm used to doing in my blog and newsletters. I really took on a lot this fall and now I'm struggling to keep up with everything and getting really cranky because my writing is one of the things that brings me the most joy. So in an attempt to reconnect with that part of myself I'm going to talk a little bit about the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshop I just did at Westchester Jewish Services.

I had a much larger group than I used to getting (it turned out to be 18 women) so I was a little nervous about that because I always have a lot of group participation and interaction and with that many people, I was nervous about keeping it on track. But it turned out great. Everyone who had something to say got to say it and I covered all the info that I wanted to. I have to say that this particular group of women really were smart and had really thought-provoking comments.

One of the exercises that I do in the workshop is to give each person a piece of chocolate and have them write down what's going on inside their head at the thought of consuming what's in front of them. After that, I have them unwrap the chocolate and take one bite. They then write down what they experience and what their thoughts are about eating the chocolate. They are then free to take the next bite, or not and they write down why they made the choice they did.

The exercise is a deliberate slowing down of a process for overeaters that usually takes a nanosecond. And when you slow things down, it gives you a chance to pay attention and notice things that you otherwise wouldn't.

What's revealed during this exercise is always surprising to me and to the participants. One woman made the decision not to eat the chocolate because she had taken the time to check in with herself and realized that she really didn't want it as opposed to following her usual reflex which is to see the chocolate and eat it. She really felt empowered about making that decision and not just blindly doing what she had always done. it was gratifying to see how good she felt about the decision that she made and how good she felt about doing it differently this time.

It doesn't matter whether you eat the chocolate or don't, the purpose of the exercise is to have some awareness about what you're doing and to make a conscious decision about what you will do.

The other comment I got came from a woman who said she was able to really enjoy the chocolate because she knew there was no danger of eating the whole bag. That just confirmed for me what I've been saying for years which is that we overeat not because we lack discipline, but because we put a "charge"on foods by making them forbidden, by telling ourselves that we can't be trusted around them, and by blocking our enjoyment in the first place because we're telling ourselves we shouldn't be eating whatever it is we're eating at the time. When you're somewhere and a really special dessert is being served that's something that you love but never get to eat--you should eat it! One of my catchphrases in my workshop is: If you're going to eat something, then LET YOURSELF HAVE IT! In other words, don't block the experience of pleasure by making yourself feel guilty about what you're eating. There's no point to that; it just makes you feel bad and that just makes you want to eat more. Also, if you were eating the food for the sake of pleasure and you were blocking the pleasure by telling yourself how weak willed you are and that you shouldn't be eating it, then you actually miss the experience that you went to the food for and you've ingested the calories but you missed the fun part.

So it was the idea of savoring and allowing yourself pleasure while you ingest the chocolate that was the other point of the exercise. Many of the women were surprised to find that after eating the chocolate they realized that they were actually satisfied and that one was enough. One woman said that she actually ate slowly enough to realize that the chocolate didn't even taste good and she wondered why she had eaten those candy bars her whole life. How's that for a great realization? To come to the place where you don't even like it.

I thank you, ladies at the WJCS for attending the workshop and for all of your wonderful participation. I hope that after taking it, all of you will see things a little differently and do things a little differently. And when you're about to dive in to that next piece of chocolate or that pint of ice cream stop and slow down and make the decision to let yourself have it, because if you're going to eat it anyway, you may as well enjoy what you're eating.

The Luxury of Arrival or The Thing Under the "Thing"

We’re all working so hard to “get somewhere.” Whether it’s a better job, a loving relationship, a livelihood as an artist, a successful business, financial security, or to be acknowledged for who we are and what we’re trying to put out in the world, everyone has a different “thing” that they’re after, and they believe once they get the “thing,” they’ll finally be happy. My “thing” is to present my workshops around the country and have a coaching practice with more clients than I can handle into eternity.

So what’s your “thing?” Once you have that answer ask yourself: what feeling or state of mind will having that “thing” give me? How will I feel once I arrive at my destination? For me the first emotion that comes to mind once I get my “thing” is relief....and then a deep peace.

What’s the thing under the "thing" for you? What feeling will you have once you get that relationship, job, promotion, role, or recognition? Is it completion, self-acceptance, feeling seen, heard, or loved; relief, security, safety? Really take a moment to make contact with what that feeling is for you once you have arrived at your destination.

I have a surprise for you. You can have the thing under the "thing" anytime you choose. Believe it or not, the thing under the "thing" is not attached to the "thing!" Crazy sounding I know, but absolutely true. We make the emotional connections to the "thing"--we project our emotional needs on the “thing.” The “thing” itself doesn’t give us anything--we choose the feelings we have once we get the “thing.”

You can actively choose to have the thing under the "thing" in your life right now, by itself--even if you don’t have the “thing.”

So if it’s security, peace, approval, arrival, or just needing to exhale because you’re finally there--you can do it right now. Take a couple of minutes each day to get a mental picture of the feelings that you want to have and walk into them face first. Stay there for as long as you can. Bathe in them and when you’ve had enough then get on with the rest of your day. I guarantee that doing this will not only change the shape and feel of your deepest desires but will give your more tranquility on a daily basis.

The luxury of arrival is this: there’s nothing better than operating from an emotional place where you already have everything that you want. The more at ease that you feel about where you are now allows more of the same to enter. When you are tense, grasping or unhappy you block the flow of good things into your life. Don’t miss the opportunities that exist everyday to start putting those good things there yourself while you’re waiting for the “thing” to show up. Things can take time, but you can experience the luxury of arrival right now. You can give yourself the thing under the “thing” anytime you want.

P.S. I have found this to be a very powerful practice. Try it for a week straight and let me know what happens.

New Beginnings

Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start.

I love this quote and I never get tired of reading it. At any moment we can make the decision that our past experiences will not determine our future. We can decide that we're going to see things differently and do things differently. We can step out of our old patterns and go about things in a new way. It's never too late to change the way we habitually do things or view our circumstances.

Sometimes I like to follow the Heyoka* and do the exact opposite of what I would normally do in a given situation. The Heyoka were the shamans of the Lakota tribe and they did things like put their clothes on inside out, walk backwards and dance backwards, and show emotions opposite to the expected ones in an effort to shake up the accustomed and accepted and to oppose the status quo. The did this precisely to push the fold of accepted reality, and sound a wake up call.

So here's what I would like to propose as we embark on a new season: I am going to use this moment as a fresh start and do like the Heyoka. Everyone who knows me knows that I dread and despise the cold weather; so much so that I start freaking out as soon as the fall weather hits. So I have decided that instead of dreading it and being miserable and unhappy when it starts to get cold, I will do exactly the opposite. I will look forward to the winter the way I look forward to and relish the spring and summer. I will celebrate each cold day and the colder it gets the happier and more excited I will get.

I know what being miserable in the winter gets me and I've finally come to realize that what Eckhart Tolle says is true: The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it. So I'm willing to try something different and extreme in the hopes of shifting a pattern that has only added negativity to my life. I'll be reporting back on my experiment.

*The Heyoka were part of the Lakota Indian tribes. They were known as the "sacred clowns" and were considered shamans. The Heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame--they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness.

Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body

My next workshop is Saturday, October 3rd at Oasis Day Spa in Dobbs Ferry.

Tired of struggling with your eating?
Would you like to have a peaceful relationship with food?

In this workshop you will learn what really drives your eating and how to stop using food for comfort, nurturing, and stress relief.

It takes a lifetime to build our eating habits. Changing this dynamic requires time, patience, and a willingness to do things differently.

You can have a relaxed relationship with food and a healthy fit body.

It's possible.

This is not a weight loss program; it is a system of self-care that will assist you in making real and long lasting positive changes in the way that you deal with your body and food issues.

Time: 9:30 am - 12 noon
Cost: $45
Advance payment required. Click here.

What's the Real Secret Tracy?

This is a letter to Tracy Anderson (trainer to Madonna and Gwenyth Paltrow)

Hi Tracy,
Well congratulations on hooking a nice guy. What’s your gain is Madonna’s loss but doesn’t she have more than enough of everything already? She’ll find someone else to run the Raising Malawi Charity but she’s convinced that she’ll never find another you. From what I read in Page Six in the New York Post on Monday you live with her wherever she goes in the world so that she never misses a workout. Now that’s dedication. It’s also called, I’ve got nothing else to do with myself but obsess about what I look like all day long. I know the disease. I used to have it.

They also said in Page Six that you revealed your secrets on how “Madonna molds her astonishing body.” You said: "We train for two hours six days a week. We do 45 minutes of dance aerobics, followed by work on muscle tone, flexibility and definition.”

Wow, Tracy what a reveal! You gave away your big training secret! Do you also have them cut their carbs and not eat sugar because I don’t know if anyone told you but that’s also a way to lose weight.

So working out six days a week for two hours really does the trick? Who’d a thunk it. I had no idea. Thanks for the tip Tracy. I’m going to get right on it but before I do, can you tell me the secret behind the secret? How anyone over 30 can stand to do that much exercise that often without dropping dead from exhaustion? Will you tell us that secret??? Do you put amphetamines into their water bottles? Or is there some other trick that you use? I’d love to know Tracy because right now, if I can get through 15 minutes of cardio I consider it a really good day.

Well, good luck with your job of making skinny people even skinnier and I’ll let you know how it goes--you know, using your “secret” for weight loss.

Your Friend,
Cathy

A Remembrance of Bathing Suits Past

It was the Friday of the 4th of July weekend and I decided to stop into Old Navy to return a pair of size 8 shorts that were too small. Now most women will understand that there was not an option to just go in and buy the larger size—that was Old Navy’s problem. How dare they change the sizing I thought. They have some nerve--they just lost a customer. As I continue my walk through the cavernous space and I come across a hot pink bikini that catches my eye and something about the cut of it makes me think, “maybe there’s a chance I can get away with it.” Red Flag #1 – if you’re contemplating wearing a bikini and the phrase “get away with it” comes into your mind at any point during said contemplation you need to put the thing down and walk away. You don’t get away with a bikini, you can either wear it or you can’t.

And yet, there I was in the Old Navy at Herald Square contemplating buying a hot pink bikini. I could feel that old denial that used to operate when I was much heavier rearing it’s head and convincing me, it will be OK this could look OK.

I quickly walk to the counter to make the exchange.

It is at this point that I would like to introduce you to Anthony. Anthony was the poor, unfortunate, employee that happened to be working the register that fateful Friday who also made the mistake of saying to me when I put the bathing suit on the counter: “will that be all?” When it comes to my body issues I have struggled with a kind of turrets my whole life. It’s something I definitely have in check but every once in a while it gets the best of me and when I answered Anthony, I couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Yes, that will be all and can you believe that I actually think that my fat ass is going to fit into this bathing suit?” Anthony tries to hide his surprise but letting out a chuckle and then says “Oh, no I’m sure it’s going to look great, Anthony knows.” What he doesn’t know is not to challenge the angry monster. “Really, I said? Then can you give me your cell phone number so that when I try it on at home and it looks terrible I can call you and scream?” I knew that I crossed the line with that one. Anthony laughs again and responds with: I’m sure it’s going to look great.” I realized that if I pushed the conversation any further, I’d find myself being escorted out of the store by security so I just said, “make sure you give me the receipt and don’t put it in the bag. I want to be able to return this when it doesn’t fit.” I had to have the last word.

I left the store, bathing suit in hand and went to meet up with my friend Genie. Genie is 5’8” and weighs about 115lbs. but she watches every morsel that she puts in her mouth and obsesses over gaining an ounce. It was good that I was meeting with her and not another friend who would try to take Anthony’s side in this. I wanted someone who would really get it and validate me. I didn’t want to hear another version of Anthony’s lies.

After I told her the story she gave me the following suggestion: after you paid for the suit, you should have gone into the dressing room and tried it on. Then you could have walked out onto the sales floor and screamed over to him “hey Anthony, the bathing suit doesn’t look so great does it?” Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it Anthony? Right? Look at me Anthony, the shit doesn’t fit. No this is not what looking good looks like Anthony. I told you, didn’t I?”

Genie and I were both roaring in the restaurant thinking of this scenario and I kept thinking, if only I had the nerve.

I went home after that and shoved the bathing suit into a drawer for four weeks because I really, really wanted Anthony to be right. So who do you think was right in the end? Anthony or Me? The answer is: I was! OK, maybe each of us was a little right. The top looked fine, but below the waist not so good. What Anthony needs to know but doesn’t is that I wore that bikini anyway with my sarong and yes, I looked pretty good.

Surrender Dorothy

The truth is, I became a life coach because I am passionate about helping people to get out of their own way and get what they want in their lives whether it’s a different career, relationship, or to stop torturing themselves about not having the body they want.

Before life coaching I did marketing and public relations for 8 years. I couldn’t be happier about getting out of that field. By the time I started my coaching education, I wanted nothing to do with marketing and PR and yet, here I am one year into my business desperately reading through marketing coaching blogs in an effort to learn how to build my platform, drive traffic to my website and blog, increase my google ranking, etc. This could not be more uninspiring. Why am I so pissed off and depressed lately? I'm not doing what I want to do--I spend most of my day engaging in boring admin all day. Exactly what I was trying to get away from by getting out of marketing!

But I guess the really disturbing stuff is that all of this bullshit admin is interfering with my writing which I like to think is sometimes helpful and/or inspiring to the readers of my blog. And also I do not have the time to practice the energetic techniques that I give to my clients to help them to manifest the things that they want in their lives. To do the work that I do, I need to spend a certain amount of time inside my own head where I receive inspiration and epiphany and when I’m making lists of keywords for my website, I’m not in my happy place.

And then there’s the helping others aspect of the equation which is, for me, the most important part. If I’m so wrapped up in promoting my business/workshops then when do I have the time available to be there for my friends and family members who are struggling? Although right now, I am struggling. Struggling with finding the time and inspiration to keep writing, struggling with the learning curve on building my own website and figuring out how to drive traffic to it, and how to make facebook really work for my business instead of it being the useless time-waster that it’s been since I signed up for it, and a myriad of other things that ultimately I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST IN.

I am an intuitive and spiritual life coach that helps people to manifest their dreams, not an internet marketer and I totally didn’t sign on for this.

And in the midst of the frustration and anger comes a voice: “Within everything that is difficult lies an opportunity.” Of course I know that but ranting about how unhappy I am about it is so much more alluring. But when the truth makes an appearance, it always breaks me out of my trance. And if that wasn’t enough there were the words of my wise friend Julie: “This is the part of any business that is necessary but hard. This is why a lot of small businesses fail. People can’t deal with doing the marketing work to get themselves or their product out there.”

If I’m helping people to launch their businesses then having experienced the rough parts myself can only help me in the work that I do. Oh, that’s right, this is the human experiment part. This isn’t the first time I’ve been a participant in that.

And then like a gift from above I find the wisdom of Mark Silver. I know that this like every other trial I have been through exists to bring me to a deeper place in myself that maybe I would not have been able to get to any other way. It was so random how I found him but I think somehow like all of those important messages we get in life, he found me. www.heartofbusiness.com
here’s what I was reading from his blog that made me know that in fact, I’m in exactly the right place doing exactly the right thing and getting exactly the right results:

When you don’t know what to do, instead of trying to force your way past your ignorance, trying to desperately figure out the solution as the deadline looms closer and closer, realize that you’ve reached the Divine fence of ignorance.

You have a choice: you can either push, claw, dig, or climb your way past that fence out into traffic, or you can return to Love.

Often when we’re asking for guidance, we’re asking for what to do, how to do it, and when. These are not useful questions for guidance.

Love and connection are about relationship. Instead of asking what to do about choosing your web design, for instance, trying asking in your heart:

“What would a healthy relationship with my web design feel like?”

For instance, perhaps your relationship with web design is needing more patience. Or more love. Or more compassion. See what your heart shows you. And what actions naturally arise out of that healthier relationship.

So there’s nothing left to do really but surrender as I ask myself the question, what would a healthy relationship with my marketing efforts for my business feel like?

I’ll answer that in private and get back to you.

Thank you Mark Silver for your compassion and your genius. You saved my day.

And Now for the Uphill Portion of the Journey

Sometimes I find myself holding onto this book for dear life and reading the passages over and over again. It’s become my personal bible. And it’s times like right now that I am so grateful to Steve Young for writing this book.

There comes a time in life’s journey when you’re trying to manifest something/build a business/advance your career/make art/write a book/raise a decent kid/be a good partner and all of a sudden you find yourself at what I like to refer to as “the uphill portion of the journey.” Here are a few observations I’ve made about the uphill:

1. It sucks. Plain and simple. There’s nothing fun about it.

2. It’s rough terrain and you’re probably not wearing the right shoes so you continually feel as though you’re going to fall into the abyss.

3. You will need the emotional endurance of a team of sled dogs to get through it.

4. You will need faith: in yourself and your vision.

5. There will be crying. Lots of it.

Unfortunately, many people misinterpret the uphill as failure and give up too soon.

If you are toying with giving up I urge you to read Great Failures of the Extremely Successful.

Thank you Steve, for letting us in on the struggles behind the success and for telling the world that there’s no such thing as an overnight sensation.

Treats! The non-food kind

I’ve not been posting very frequently because I kind of got into the pattern of writing about pretty intense stuff on my blog and I need to realize that --it’s just a blog and it can be about day to day non-earth shattering realizations once in a while.

So here we are, it’s Friday, August 28th and it’s raining here in NY.
Kind of a drag that’s it’s raining but in a way I’m relieved. Since I don’t have a lap top I’m often confined to my home office in front of my mac staring out the window wondering when I can be done with it so that I can just get out and feel the sun and the air and smell the flowers. So on nice days, I feel a lot of pressure to get finished with my work so that I can get outside. I was supposed to go for training to build my new website today and the class was cancelled which left me with a big block of unscheduled time and I couldn’t be happier.

In my Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshops one of the exercises we do is to make a treat list--things that just thinking about doing them makes you smile. The purpose of this is to identify and/or get back in touch with the things that we used to do for fun and the things we’d like to do to relax if we only had the time. We’re all so busy running around all day that we forget to do nice things for ourselves. It’s such a great way to decompress and just bring some joy into your life--especially when you’re under a lot of stress. The function of this exercise is to achieve some balance. Because if you’re doing one nice thing to take care of yourself each day, you’re a lot less likely to come home from work and plow through a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or drink 5 glasses of wine at dinner and pass out on the couch at 9:00. When we give ourselves the things we really want, we don’t have to “settle for what we can get.” Doing one treat per day for yourself keeps you from getting seriously depleted.


The one item that shows up on my treat list over and over is having a day that is completely unscheduled without a to-do list. It turns out that because of the turn of events, today ended up being one of those days for me--what a gift! I do only what I feel inspired to do and I do it when I want to do it. Can I say that when I take these days I am often way more productive than I am on my “get down to work” days. just the idea that I have 8 or 10 hours to do things in the order that I want to do them and that if I don’t want to continue with something I can just put it away and start on something else is extremely energizing to me. I don’t have to be anywhere and if I get a spontaneous call from a friend to meet for coffee or take a walk I can say yes because I’m deadline free that day. This is the ultimately luxury for me. I have a deep need to create my life minute to minute and something about being on a non-schedule puts me in touch with my deepest creativity and my most powerful thinking.

So dear readers, what’s on your treat list? Here’s a little soul-feeding exercise from Feed Your Soul workshop: Make a list of 10 things that just thinking about doing them makes you smile--they don’t have to be extravagant or cost any money at all. And then do one every day! Keep in mind some of the things on the list can be repeated and some won’t be things you can do very often but it’s good to have a mix. Some of mine are:
taking a jasmine scented bubble bath
instead of the usual lunch break - fire up my favorite play list on my ipod and take a 30 minute walk to a favorite place
Go out for cappuccino and get lost in the latest issue of O Magazine for an hour
call a friend I haven’t spoken to in a long time
Go to a Saturday matinee
Take a drive with my friend Julie in her convertible to no where in particular with the radio blasting.
Go to a fancy hotel bar and have a fancy cocktail after work

I’d love to hear yours!

I Wish I Were...

I hadn’t given this any thought in a long time--but last week while having dinner with a friend we got to talking about envy. I had almost forgotten about the big destructive fantasy that I carried around for all of my 20’s and most of my 30’s which was that everyone else’s life was easier and more glamorous than mine. There were tons of people having fun, going to parties, walking red carpets, being on soap operas, jetting off to distant locales and I was living in a tiny box on the Upper East Side of Manhattan being a temp secretary and trying to have a dance career. Of course I only compared myself to celebrities or very accomplished people, not the people I came into contact with in my regular life.

I was completely sure that these people’s lives were one delightful moment after the next, everything they did was in the flow and most of all...THE WORLD CAME TO THEM. They didn’t have to ask, chase, pursue, follow up or present. They didn’t do the calling--people called them. “They” just sat around their infinity pools with their friends while their private chefs made organic, low-cal delicious meals for them and waited for the next opportunity to arrive. Kind of like the show Entourage but without the obnoxious Jeremy Piven character.

For years, every time I cleaned my toilet my first thought was : “Look at my fabulous life, cleaning the bathroom! I’ll bet that Jennifer Anniston isn’t cleaning any toilets today!” As a matter of fact the only time she’s even held a toilet bowl brush is when it was being used as a prop. “How come she gets to not have to clean her bathroom and I’m standing here with my arm in the toilet? why her and not me?”

Whose music was I listening to back then? Patti LaBelle. Of course she has an incredible voice but when I played her CD’s I wasn’t focusing on the music but the fabulous life she must be living. What with the legions of adoring fans, the millions of dollars from all the hit records, the concerts, the traveling first class everywhere and then I would think: “when will someone come along and lift me from the bowels of obscurity and release me from my mundane existence!”

A certain NYC psychic that I saw in the 90’s told me when I called to make an appt. that she only had evening slots available. I remember grabbing one even though it was very inconvenient for me and thinking, wow, she’s totally in demand that’s amazing. What must it be like to have your phone ringing off the hook with people who want an appointment with you. When I went to see her, you would have thought that I was not even fit to breathe her air. Not because of the way she acted, because of the way I perceived things.

The scenarios I used to torture myself about other people’s wonderful lives were endless.

Every time I would take the bus down Fifth Avenue I would fantasize about the awesome lives of the people who lived in those buildings and I would think, “if only I could live in one of those apartments one day.”

We’ve all heard the Rolling Stones lyric: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.” I had the great fortune of being a personal trainer to the very rich. I didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. I got to hang out in those sprawling Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue apartments that I envied from the street. What was going on inside them was nothing like what I had imagined. I saw a lot of misery behind those facades .

One of my clients who lived in a beautiful penthouse apartment was also the author of a very spiritual book. I had read the book before I met her and actually had wondered about what an incredible life she must have living in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse and being a rich and famous author.

My fantasy of what her life was and the reality of what her life was could not have been more different. The first thing I got to learn was that even though her book was meant to heal and enlighten, she was very depressed and angry about her own life. She was constantly giving workshops in her apartment and renting rooms out to student boarders because she was so terrified about money. She ate the same dinner almost every night. A yam and a salad. She didn’t go out to dinner even though she could well afford it because she was socially awkward and didn’t really enjoy spending time with other people. She took three subways out to Queens every Thursday to spend the day with her elderly mother. She had terrible relationships with her children. Basically, she was a hot mess.

I worked with a lot of other people living what appeared to be beautiful lives of privilege that were actually very unhappy existences.

If you look at Jennifer Anniston’s life as a whole, she’s got a great career but I’m sure now that she’s 40 she’d trade it all to have someone to come home to every night.

The NYC psychic I later found out through a mutual friend, only had evening appointments because she worked during the day as a receptionist in a Dr.’s office. She eventually got divorced and had to move out of her swanky loft in tribeca.

Patti LaBelle endured the tragedy of losing her three sisters to cancer. She was diagnosed with diabetes in 1995 and in 2000 divorced her husband of 30 years. Last year she had a melt down on stage at one of her concerts.

I wouldn’t want to trade places with any of these women.

What I learned after taking the blinders off:

There is no such thing as a free ride.
Anything worth having takes a lot of sacrifice and hard work.
Money and fame are the biggest enablers of addiction.
There’s no such thing as an overnight sensation--no one ever talks about the 10 years the person worked at their craft before they finally got a break.
Don’t ever judge anyone’s situation, you never know what’s REALLY going on.
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE is struggling with something.


Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Envy is ignorance.” My Mother often reminded me to be thankful for all the things I don’t have that I don’t want. Turns out that they’re both absolutely right.

Transforming Difficulty

The emotional weather report this summer is much like the weather we've been having--cool and rainy with intermittent storms. I'm hearing about a lot of people having a hard time and going through major transitions physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

And for all of you who feel like life is pushing you to your limit or find yourself in a situation that is the opposite of what you want for yourself --I have some advice that I know will carry you through: yield.

When two forces collide the victory goes to the one who yields.- Lao Tzu

When life throws us a curve ball there are only two choices of action: resist or yield. The definition of the word yield is to give up or surrender oneself to the situation--also the definition of the word acceptance. By yielding you allow the natural flow and can then work with life instead of against it. Yielding doesn't mean you love the situation, it means that you accept it, and only when you accept something can you work through it.

I've spent a lot of time in my life on the road of resistance--thinking I could fight my way out of the circumstances that I was in; thinking that if I got angry and bitter enough, the universe would see the injustice of it all and transform the situation. What I didn't understand was that the transformation comes from going through the difficulties and learning to embody the qualities whose absence make the situation a painful one. I wasted a lot of valuable energy resisting things I had no power over instead of looking for the lessons that those circumstances had come to teach me.

I now understand that hardship is a potent and powerful teacher. I also know that it brings you to places in yourself you never would have found otherwise and dare I say that it's not only yielding and accepting the difficult but embracing it as you would a beloved teacher. Because in fact, that's exactly what it is.

This is my favorite passage from Letters to A Young Poet by Ranier Maria Rilke

We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors: has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are there dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses: perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible in its deepest being is something helpless that wants help from us.

After watching the clip of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at the 2009 TED conference on nurturing creativity, I was totally inspired... and very surprised. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love had a profound effect on my life. I remember being totally awed by the fact that this woman could drop out of life completely and go in search of herself abroad. If I could have taken any one of those three journeys for even of the fraction of the time she did I would have been ecstatic. I had been longing for years to take a sojourn inward and just be with myself. I wanted desperately to unplug and go somewhere and ponder and write with no distractions and no interruptions. For many years this was my burning desire. So to say that I envied Elizabeth Gilbert would be putting it mildly. Not only did she get to take one year off to travel and immerse herself in foreign culture, she found the love of her life, came to terms with herself, and wrote about it in a book that sold 1.5 million copies. If that’s not “having it all” I don’t know what is.

You can imagine my surprise when I listened to the lecture from the conference. She presents a very interesting and poignant theory about how to better manage the creative process and confesses that she had to do some research on this topic to manage her own difficulties since her book has been published. “What difficulty could you possibly be referring to Elizabeth?” Being mobbed at book signings or getting recognized at the supermarket? Such problems, I wish I had them. No, she’s talking about the possibility that at 40 years old she had already done her best work and that it’s all downhill from here. She’s currently in the process of trying to write her next book but instead has found herself fighting for her creative life. Who would have thought that finally arriving meant coming to terms with the most painful aspect of the artist’s life: that you’ve already said everything that you’re going to say, that anything you do from this point on will always fall short of what you did before. Not exactly the tools of inspiration and as she says in the lecture the reason why many a young artist succumbs to self-destruction.

So I thank you Elizabeth Gilbert for being so public with your struggle because now instead of envying you, I feel for you and I am reminded that we’re all struggling...with something. We may be in different places on the ladder but the difficulties are no less painful the further up you go. We never really arrive. There’s always more to do. It’s all a process. And as the Buddhists have been saying all these years: there is no there, only here.

45 Lessons That Life Taught Me

This was a column from The Plain Dealer in Ohio written by Regina Bret. Just a little something to make you stop and think...

45 Lessons That Life Taught Me

1. Life isn't fair,but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate,resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret,you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

In any competitive situation, whoever has the least interest, has the most power.

When I read this quote, it just about knocked me over.

The quote is from The Joy Diet by Martha Beck What’s funny is that I had been working on a blog post for the last couple of weeks about want. You know, the things you have buried so deep in your consciousness they’ve practically disappeared? Those things that if you were able to have/acheive them, would give you a sense of peace/accomplishment/contentment? Those things that if you had them, would make your heart sing? Notice you don’t ever tell them to anyone, least of all yourself.

As a life coach I always begin by asking my clients what they want in the different areas of their lives. The process of coaching is an inquiry into want, but want is also a vehicle. It is our desire for various things in life that propels us into action. Whether it’s the desire for something (money)or the desire to keep something from happening (losing our jobs) desire is the prime mover. Yet, it is so difficult to articulate our wants. I’ve noticed that most people are either afraid of them or they have spent so many years denying them that they can’t even locate their desires. Helping people to identify their wants and lay down a plan for actually getting them is to me the most rewarding thing I can do.

In any competitive situation, whoever has the least interest, has the most power.

The quote is referring to the basis of all Buddhist doctrine which is the concept of detachment. Detachment is a rough concept to grasp. Wanting something, doing everything in your power to make it happen, but letting go of the outcome takes a lot of discipline. Holding on too tightly to the outcome causes tension and impedes performance. Professional athletes aren’t focused on winning when they compete, it’s focused on playing the game to the best of their ability.

There’s a movie in theaters right now that is a documentary about the casting of the 2004 revival of A Chorus Line. In the movie Rachelle Rak, who is a veteran broadway performer is up for the role of Sheila. If you know the show, Sheila is the provocative, somewhat bitter, sexy, older dancer whose quick wit is ready with a comeback at any moment. Rachelle could not be more right for the part. In the course of the movie there are many interviews with the dancers who are being considered for roles. In one of the interviews Rachelle comes right out and says that she doesn’t want to let herself think about getting the role because she doesn’t want to have to experience the devastation she will feel if she doesn’t get it. It is clear that she is afraid of her wanting.

One of the pivotal scenes of the movie takes place during the final call backs, eight months after the first audition. There have been numerous dance and vocal auditions and it is finally the end of the line. Now it is down to yes or no. Unfortunately it is a “no” for Rachelle. When her agent tells her the news, she doesn’t even flinch. She made some flip comment like “you have no idea how Broadway wants me, you have no idea” and took her things and left. No emotion, no tears, no nothing. HER REACTION WAS SO SHIELA.

Why do we think if we pretend not to want something that we really want that it will somehow lessen the hurt when we don’t get it?

What Rachelle did has nothing to do with detachment--as a matter of fact it was just the opposite. She didn’t just want the role--she needed the role. Her entire career was riding on it. Wants are tricky. You need to know what you want and go after it, but then you have to let go of the outcome. It requires serious trust; trust that if you don’t get what you want there’s a really good reason--or there’s something better coming down the path. It’s a careful dance this one of manifestation. You need to know when to push and when to let go.

Call Them Out!

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend yesterday. While we don’t get to speak all that much there is such a deep connection between the two of us that I often feel like we’re living parallel lives but not necessarily in synch. Our world views and life philosophies are very much the same and thus our interpretations of what happens in our lives and our reactions to things tend to be similar--she totally gets me and I totally get her.

She is in between a business that she started which dissolved very quickly and trying to figure out what she should do next for work. There are a lot of options open to her, she just has to decide what direction she wants to go in. Of course it’s easy for me, being on the outside of the situation to make a pithy assessment of everything but she’s having a rough time of it. I’ve been down the road she’s on--the road of having to reinvent myself and create something from nothing. Anyone who has their own business is often in the business of creating something from nothing and let me tell you, it 's exhausting. My friend being the brilliant writer that she is had a great analogy for what she’s been feeling--she said she’s got too much “drag.” Drag is a technical term for one of the aerodyamic forces that acts on an airplane. When there’s too much drag on a plane, it won’t take flight. Right away I had a visceral sensation of being dragged down as she began to name the elements that make up her drag. I’ve been having my own challenges lately and feeling pretty stuck and got me thinking about what my “drag” is... At first I could not think of one single thing but after I gave it some time here’s what I came up with:

The belief that manifesting anything is difficult.

The belief that I don’t have the capability to accomplish the things I need to and I can’t get anyone to help me.

The belief that there is always something in the way of getting what I want.

The belief that there is always something that I have to fix about myself or some life circumstance that I have to overcome before I can be happy.

I cannot tell you what a relief it was to just name these things. Such a simple exercise yet there’s something about calling these things out into the light of day where I can see them that totally deflates them. I really wasn’t aware of the degree that these beliefs were affecting my life. Knowing what they are is the first step to changing them. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that most of these things aren’t even true. They’re something that my psyche has constructed to keep me stressed out and terminally unhappy--states that I had grown accustomed to living in in the past and my brain was just doing its thing to recreate what’s familiar.

Looking at my drag was like that scene in The Wizard Of Oz when Dorothy finally gets the ruby slippers and is told that the thing she’s been most afraid of (the wicked witch of the west) no longer has any power over her.

My plan for next time I get together with Jean is for both of us to put our drag on the table, out in the open. Name it, look at it, let it go and in doing so take away its power. I invite you my dear readers to comment and in those comments, throw your “drag” on the table as a way of letting go of old things that no longer serve you and while you do repeat after Glinda, “You have no power here, now be gone!

Thanks Twitter!

Tweet What You Eat!
As if we’re all not obsessed and messed up enough about what we’re eating, now the latest technology can catalog our obsession for us and make us feel guilty. Thanks twitter! Just what I want-- to be twittering everything I eat. This application is so useless because you have to put in the calorie count --it doesn’t do it for you. You can put in a calorie limit for the day and once you reach it twitter will alarm you. So now my guilty conscience and my phone will both badger me for eating too much. What a joy. And just for additional fun, the food intake that you post is public information. Anyone can click on your username and ready your entire food log. HUMILIATING if you ask me. Then there’s the “do not eat list.” that way you can “keep track of the foods you don’t want to eat.” Meaning you can see all in one place how many times you broke your diet. Information that I never want to have!!! And you can look back at your old food diaries or search on a specific food and you will see what date you ate it. Because you should be reminded to feel guilty about what you eat as many times a day as possible.

Cravings

In the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshop one of the homework assignments is to come up with a list of at least 10 treats that you can give yourself--a treat being anything that when you think of it makes you smile (thanks to the great Martha Beck for the terminology and definition). The rest of the assignment is to do one of the things off your list each day. The thought behind this is that if you’re overeating or bingeing consistently it’s because you’re using food as your primary source of pleasure. Many of us have gotten so used to dieting and depriving ourselves that we have equated eating certain foods to experiencing the ultimate pleasure when in fact eating that food ends up being just another binge because we felt so guilty about what we were eating that we didn’t enjoy it. So part of the point of the workshop is to get in touch with other things that bring us pleasure and to put more of that into our lives. The other concept that I’ve been toying with lately is the concept of cravings. As an eater, I always associate the word cravings with food but I’ve started to broaden that concept for myself. I’ve begun to ask myself what are some of the things that I crave emotionally, because I know that 90% of the time, those are the things that are driving the craving for the ice cream or pizza or whatever it may be at the moment.

Some of the things that I came up with are:
emotional connection- a lot of the time I’m craving being seen, heard and understood by others. Making a deep connection with someone else is its own kind of nourishment that goes a long way. It’s the feeling you get when you have someone in your life that really “gets” you.

a connection to myself- for me this means being connected to my creativity whether it’s through writing, creating a workshop, or performance piece. When I’m being creative I feel connected to the deepest part of myself. Unfortunately it’s not that easy to access that place in my psyche and it’s so much easier to think that I want a kit kat.

Trust in the natural order--for me this means trusting that everything is in perfect order in my life--there’s nothing that has to be changed or fixed or improved upon. It is all working and it’s all good. Faith that everything that is is just as it should be. Just thinking about this makes me let go of stress.

My own approval - I would say that in terms of what’s listed here, this one is the biggie. To let go of trying and striving and just feel that I’ve already arrived at that ideal place that I see myself “someday.” Because we all know that the “someday” place keeps changing so we end up being like the motorized rabbit in Bugs Bunny that has the carrot hovering over him--he keeps chasing it but it’s always just out of reach. It feels like such a luxury to allow myself the feelings of relief that come with finally arriving. I used to have a painting on my fridge that was done in kind of expressionist lettering that said: I Already Am All The Things I Want To Be. What if all those things I feel I’m lacking in myself and in my life had come to me in one fall swoop: In this moment, I am perfect just as I am and I have everything that I need to be happy. Wow, what liberation.

So my wish for myself and for you, dear readers is to answer your true cravings as best you can whenever you can...because no amount of oreos or ice cream sundaes can feed those deep cravings. Only you can do that.

Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body

I’ve not been writing since I was getting ready for the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body Workshop. The workshop was amazing and it was a truly great group of women. It’s always so healing for me to have a bunch of women together in a room talking about their relationship with food. For anyone who has a dysfunctional relationship with food, just hearing that someone else has the same issues and does the same things you do is very,very helpful. It’s funny how we all think we’re the only ones and that we’re totally alone in our crazy behavior. Everyone thinks their situation is so unique yet I hear the same things over and over again in every workshop. Certainly there’s no one who has done anything in regards to bingeing that I haven’t already done myself.

I think the tide is finally beginning to turn because more and more women are realizing that if their eating behaviors are out of balance, then there is a deeper issue. It always surprises me when women say things like, “I just need to get to the gym more or I just need to get my food under control.” You can’t compartmentalize your eating behavior. Everything in life is connected.

I always ask the women in my workshops if they hate their jobs. Often the answer is yes, and yet they don’t see the connection between hating what they do all day and then coming home at night and devouring a pint of ice cream or an entire box of cookies. It pains me that they always assume that the behavior is caused by their own weakness or lack of willpower. Of course this is what the diet industry would like us to believe. But I have news for everyone, if you are overeating consistently and feel like you can’t trust yourself around food, there are real reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. Instead of asking ourselves what’s really going on, we try to get a grip on our food intake which is just addressing the symptom but not the disease. It’s like having a brain tumor and taking pain killers to get rid of your headache--that’s what dieting is for someone who is an emotional eater. It’s not doing anything to address the cause of the issue. I’m hoping that if nothing else all of the lovely ladies who attended the workshop are seeing their issues just a little bit differently and are able to feed their souls. When you feed your soul, you will inherently know how to feed your body.

Feeding Your Soul

As the creator of the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshop, I have done a lot of work on finding ways to feed the soul that don’t involve food. I think it’s really important to know what to do for yourself to feed your soul but there’s also a way to allow food to feed the soul without eating for emotional reasons. For years, I saw food or the enjoyment of food as the enemy. I thought that if I allowed myself to eat something that I enjoyed, I would never stop eating it. I didn’t understand that the enjoyment doesn’t always come from eating fun, fattening foods. It comes from the circumstances around the food that you’re eating. It’s what the Buddhists call “mindful eating”. I had a wonderfully spontaneous example of this when I was in Mexico in March and I know just like everything else it works if you work it.

I’ve had a a lot of resistance to bringing more attention to my eating because for years I was hyper obsessed with it. But I was putting the wrong kind of attention on it. I was mainly focused on eating what I thought were the right foods whether I liked them or not. My focus was on eating the lowest calorie foods that I could find and not deviating from my food program--needless to say I didn’t experience a lot of pleasure during meal time. Mindful eating is not about eating fattening foods and getting the pleasure from them, it’s about eating healthy foods and taking the time to sit down, use a plate and proper cutlery and experience the food that you are eating without distracting yourself by reading or watching TV while you are eating. I have to say that this is very hard for me to do most of the time and I’m really not sure why. I think some of it has to do with always being in a hurry and if I’m being totally honest there is still a part of me (and I know there are millions of you out there) who feels guilty about eating in general. Wow, that’s a big realization. I actually had no idea that I still felt that way but it totally makes sense. If it were published I could refer you to my play: Thin Body, Fat Mind: One Woman’s Lifelong Struggle with Dieting, Bingeing, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Fit and you could find out exactly why that is, but I have told that story so many times that I just can’t revisit it now. Maybe in 10 years I’ll do a revival.

In the meantime I’m working on mindful eating. Savoring my food, taking in my surroundings while I eat and just crafting a whole new experience out of the whole thing. You’re not going to find me using my car keys to cut into a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake and wolfing it down while I’m driving home from the supermarket because I don’t want to wait until I get home to eat it. Nope, not me sister.

Being at Peace With Food Is the New Weight Loss

As I move toward wanting to feel healthy and clear and away from needing to be a certain weight or look a certain way, I notice that my body is changing; I have a lot more energy to work out and I’m not looking to food to fill in the missing pieces of my day. I eat what is going to make my body, not my mouth feel good. I am really thankful that I pulled it together and did the five day Blueprint cleanse. I really needed it. I went way off the reservation this winter and was in food hell. Going on the cleanse was my last ditch effort to bring back some balance into my diet.

For those of you who don’t understand this syndrome here it is in a nutshell: You get a little lazy, you eat a little more and because you can’t dedicate your entire day to physical activity you start gaining weight. You get a little nervous and think, I should really start pulling back with the eating but you just can’t seem to get it together so you keep eating and then you start noticing that your clothes are tight. Very tight. Now you’re getting scared and you think, I’ve really got to get a grip. But you’ve got dinner plans with friends at a great restaurant and you decide to enjoy yourself and eat and drink whatever you want and boy, do you. You feel so bad about your discretion that the next day you just say “what the hell” and eat whatever you want because you feel like a pig. One day turns into the next, and the next and before you know it, a couple of weeks have gone by. A few more pairs of pants go into the “no longer fit” pile. You are headed for a brick wall. You now know that you’ve got to seriously clean up your diet because you don’t want to get to the point of no return. Only you’re almost there but you can’t see it. It’s getting harder and harder for you to work out because you feel so fat and disgusting that there is nothing to motivate you to go to the gym. The terror that you experience at the thought of not being able to lose the weight that you have gained has paralyzed you. You think more about the clean up and you decide that you have not had enough chances over the years to indulge in pancakes because of fear of getting fat so you will take the opportunity now before you clean up to go to brunch and eat 3 pancakes the are the size of dinner plates. So there you are in the thick of food hell, eating something because you think you should, and because you are trying to somehow make up for past deprivation. You know that what you are doing is neither giving you much pleasure or solving the issues of the past. You realize that you are in Food Hell and you are the only one who can dig yourself out.

10 Reasons to embark on a juice fast

1. If you make it through, you’ll feel so good about yourself for having the discipline you’ll forget why you went on it to begin with (lack of discipline and polluting your insides)
2. It wakes up your tastebuds. Flavors are really intense. Everything tastes really good.
3. You need much less food to feel satisfied.
4 You have tons of energy once it’s over.
5. It wipes out your cravings for sugar.
6. All your friends will marvel at your discipline.
7. You will be astounded by your discipline.
8. Bloated stomach--gone.
9. You think twice about what you put into your body
10. It can release you from Food Hell

Finally Over!!!

Yesterday was the last day of the Blueprint Cleanse. I really didn't think I was going to make it. Still not sure why it was so excrutiating but I'm glad it's over. Now of course, I have to go back to eating very slowly. So far today I had an apple and a salad of cucumber and avocado with lemon and olive oil. That was at least two hours ago and I'm still full. Anyway, I'm really trying to embrace my state of inner cleanliness and think carefully about my food choices from now on.

The fact of the matter is that I had so many years where I couldn't stand the feeling of heavy food in my stomach. It was easy to eat well because I was kind of addicted to feeling light inside. These days I could pretty much eat a plate of rice pasta whenever. So I'm hoping that the cleanse kind of re-set everything and that I will naturally gravitate towards lighter stuff and quit the carbo loading.

For now I feel very good. We'll see how long it lasts.

Blueprint Cleanse - Day 3

Where is Blueprint Cleanse Day 2 you ask? Let's just say you don't want to know. At one point, I was ready to eat my own fist. It was so not like this last time. I really had a few moments yesterday of just saying the hell with it and eating something. Only one thing stopped me--this cleanse was a lot of money and I couldn't bear to just flush money down the toilet. Maybe that's why it's so expensive so that people will stick it out.

Today was definitely a better day. I hardly thought about food except for 3 or 4 times which I think is pretty good. My energy was good and I had good concentration. I actually accomplished a lot today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow as being even better, and by day 5 I should be experiencing some kind of euphoria. I hope.

Spring Cleaning

Blueprint Cleanse - Day 1

So it’s that time of year again--spring cleaning for the house and for me. I decided once again to do the Blueprint cleanse which is a juice fast that consists of 6 different raw, organic juices per day (4 green, one lemonade and one nut milk)

The juices are really tasty, much better than if you went to the juice bar in a health food store. They mix in just the right amount of lemon and apple in the green juices so it doesn’t taste like you’re drinking dirt and the lemonade (sweetened with agave of course) and the nut milk are really good too.

The whole thing is pretty pricey but they do all the work for you--the juices are labeled by number so you know when to drink what. Now that’s the kind of pampering I’m happy to pay for. No thinking about it, just follow the numbers. You have the option of doing a one day, three day, five day or 10 day cleanse. I did the three day last year and was really nervous about it. I’ve always been afraid to fast. Let’s see, could that be because my mother pounded into my head that if I didn’t eat enough and my blood sugar got too low I would pass out, hit the floor and crack my head open on the hard surface and bleed to death? Correct! So even though I had heard great things about the benefits of fasting, it took me a long time to get up the courage to finally do it. I’m doing the 5 day program this time. Last year I only did the 3 day and I breezed through it. Even though I did a really good preparation: for the last 3 weeks I had no alcohol, sugar,wheat, dairy I was kind of struggling today. I did decide to go to the gym and then take a yoga class which may be why I’m super hungry but hopefully tomorrow will be better.

So what’s up with the juice fast you ask. Well yes, in the whole idea of “spring cleaning” does apply to the body and I suffer with very bad hay fever in the springtime which I knew the cleaning out my diet would help with (especially no alcohol--that is the worst thing to have if you have allergies), but I must say I had a lot of congestion yesterday before I started the juices and today I have no symptoms which is great. I’d just kill for some solid food.

I had a really bad winter food-wise and spent a lot of time eating things I would not normally eat and the whole thing just kind of spiraled out of control. Since overeating behavior has both a physical and psychological component to it, I decided that in addition to addressing the psychological it would be helpful to address the physical.

Here’s the biology: The more sugar and high calorie crap food you eat, the more you want to eat and cleaning out your system makes a lot of the physical cravings go away so that you’re not constantly having to fight the cravings off. I guess it’s kind of like a food intervention. Which I needed desperately. Just something to interrupt the crazy overeating behavior.

I’m thinking about watching some TV but my first thought is, what’s the point if I can’t snack while I do it? I mean I’m going to need to eat something if I have to watch those bitch housewives from New York City. Maybe read a book. I just got Hungry Woman In Paris out of the library. OK, so I won’t start that this week. Maybe just go to bed and I’ll have one day less without eating. I’ll be keeping you posted on my progress for the next few days so check back.

Do You See What I See Part 2

It’s interesting how sometimes how certain themes are just swirling around in the air. My previous blog post (see below) which was about having a hard time taking compliments seems to have generated some interesting e-mails. One of my good friends who (did not happen to read that post) randomly sent me an e-mail today that said:

Slightly off-topic, but I do want to add, that now that Susan Boyle has become well-known, I can accurately describe my own body dysmorphia. She looks very much like the way that I have thought that I look. I have thought like this since sometime in my early to mid 20s. Intellectually, I know that I don't really look like that, but emotionally, that is how I feel, act, and that is how I conduct my life. I live just as though I looked like her. Fortunately, I was raised to believe that looks were far below kindness, talent, brains, and friendliness, and here in the Midwest, this is pretty much true, so I have done well here.

My first thought was, how could the gap between how she looks in person and what she thinks she looks like in person be so huge? And then I thought, well I do the same thing and I just wrote a blog post about it two days ago. It turns out that the post was sent to the friend of my sister-in-law and she responded with this:

This is real life stuff ... and I'm somehow continually amazed at how
our distorted perception of ourselves (and reality) limits us and our place in the world and the many ways in which we can contribute. Thankfully, and somehow mysteriously, we can still make our mark ... but how much more joyful would we be if only we would get it--who we are, and how we're perceived by others.

I’ve been teaching these principles in the workshops that I do with high school girls and certainly my workshops with women and I’m really trying to walk the walk myself.

If only we could see ourselves, our beauty, our wonder, our female exquisiteness...we are all manifestations of the Goddess. How great it would be if we could all be in touch with our divine feminine now; if only we could see our own beauty instead of being startled by it when we look at pictures of ourselves in our younger years. I hear it over and over again: I wish I knew how beautiful I was then, I wish I thought more of myself, I wish I wasn’t thinking I was fat, because I was gorgeous. If only we knew. I had a realization today: the “me” that I look at with disapproval in the mirror today is the “she” that I will think was gorgeous 10 or 20 years from now. As Carly Simon so aptly put it; These are the good old days. And I’ve decided to embrace who I am and what I look like now and to tell that chick staring back at me in the mirror that she’s not going to have to wait 20 years before she hears that she is beautiful. I’m telling her NOW. And you can do the same for yourself.

Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start. -BJ Marshal

Do You See What I See

I was in the city today running around to appointments and stuff so I was wearing a black dress and boots- definitely more dressed up than usual. At the end of the day, I stopped in for a workout at the gym. The cute little gay boy behind the counter greeted me with, “I love your outfit.” I immediately snapped back “really, I always think I look like a total hag.” He said, “no you don't, I was going to ask you if you work in fashion.” WOW. Now that's a compliment.

I'm always so taken aback when anyone says anything like this to me. I think the shock comes not from the comment but the discrepancy between how I see myself and how others see me. The two points of view could not be farther apart.

I've been thinking a lot about this and I know I'm not alone here. Why is it so difficult for us to see ourselves the way others do?

In the workshops that I do with high school girls, I often give them the following self-esteem building exercise: ask your best friend or one of your close friends to describe how they see you and write down everything that they tell you. I've done this myself and it's incredibly eye opening. My friend Susan said wonderful things about me that I never would have thought about myself. Try it sometime—I guarantee it will make your day.

It will also help to remember these words from Neil Young:
Do not judge yourself too harsh my love or one day you may find your soul endangered.

Talk About Magical Thinking

Bingeasarus - one who eats as if their entire food supply is going to be cut off in the very near future. 2. one who eats to protect against the hunger to come. 3. one who eats to try and make up for the hunger in the past

I am certainly number 3. I spent years depriving myself of sweets, bread, and dairy products. My initial impulse was for health reasons. Instead of focusing on the fact that I had made a choice to follow a specific food program, I focused on my feelings of deprivation. Instead of focusing on how much energy I had, I focused on feeling denied the fun foods that everyone else was eating and now there is a part of me that wants retribution. It's payback time people. Do you know how many dozens of brunches I've sat through where I really wanted to order the pancakes or the french toast but never did? I don't even want to count them. Let's just say I ordered the pancakes or French toast 4 times in total. Not very much when you consider the number of breakfasts I have eaten in restaurants.

So two weekends ago I decided that at brunch I would order the pancakes. Here is the progress that I have made with my food issues: a year ago, I would have just bought pancake mix and maple syrup and made the pancakes and eaten them at home. I decided that I could wait and eat them at breakfast like a normal person, so at least I felt good about showing some restraint, but that is where the restraint ended. When the pancakes arrived, there were three of them, each as large as an 8" dinner plate. My first thought was, "I'll never finish those." Famous last words. Even, I marathon eater of the 70's and 80's could not believe I finished them.

Let me just say that this kind of eating is pretty much devoid of pleasure. I was eating the pancakes to make up for deprivation in the past but the irony is that it's two weeks later and it's like the whole thing never happened. Eating the pancakes didn't satisfy anything. I kept thinking I'm going to have to do this a lot to get it out of my system. What???

I can think about what I just said and see how insane it is and how it tells that clearly, none of this is about food--it's about allowance and not feeling left out. It's about saying yes to something and not always being told no.
It's about trying to experience expansion, freedom, and joy in my life by using food as the conduit.

Why don't I just try to start a fire by rubbing two tissues together--or bang my head against a wall in hopes that it will make my painful childhood memories disappear? It's almost like a crazy voodoo. I keep thinking I will have that one perfect meal that undoes all of the bad decisions that I made in the past about food but each time I go to that place, I come up empty handed.

I had an epiphany the other day. What if in the past I was always able to eat whatever I wanted? What if it was all balanced and normal so there was no debt to pay, no retribution to seek, no pleasureable experiences to try and make up for?

There's really nothing to stop me from adopting this idea about my past. I think it will help me tremendously.

I came across a great quote today: "Every momment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start."

I'm going to go with that one.

Lindsay, Dina, and Me

It seems like the media can only go a couple of months without reporting on the comings and goings of Lindsay Lohan. What is the media’s fascination with her? Oh right, I always forget what’s driving that train--Dina.

I went to high school with Dina Lohan. We were in a dance program together that had only 40 girls. Dina was by far the best dancer and most stunning girl in the bunch. We were all sure that she’d hit Broadway right after graduation and never look back. We were so wrong.

I lost touch with Dina right after the program ended but I found out that she went on to dance with the Rockettes for a short time and soon after marry that sociopath Michael Lohan. She had Lindsay only 4 years after graduating high school. That was the end of the dance career. When I found out the path that her life ended up taking I was shocked. It was incredible to me that so much talent went to waste and it made sense why she had started Lindsay modeling from the time she exited the womb. She dragged that kid to auditions, acting lessons, dance lessons, you name it. She did everything with her that she should have done herself.

It’s a shame that Dina values celebrity more than being an artist. Dina gets a big kick out of being seen in night clubs in New York with Lindsay and telling everyone who doesn’t already know that she’s her mother. Recently she thought it would be a good idea to also add 15 year old Ally into the mix. How many women do you know that take their 15 year olds into clubs with them on a Saturday night?

I’ve always felt a lot of compassion for Lindsay because of knowing the back story about Dina. I can’t imagine the pressure that kid must have been under. In 2006 Vanity Fair did a cover story on Lindsay Lohan with a big interview which ended up being very controversial--especially for me. At that time I was taking my program, Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body into high schools and colleges to bring awareness to young women of the dangers of obsessive dieting and chasing an unrealistic body size. I wrote a letter to Lindsay (which of course I never sent) that I would read to the girls as part of the workshop. I just came across it the other day. Here it is:

Dear Lindsay,

You don’t know me and we’ll most likely never meet, but I feel like I know you. Everytime I see you face on TV or plastered in People Magazine it brings me back to the performing arts program that I was in with your mother in high school. It’s amazing how much you look like her when she was 17.

Dina was very intimidating--she was an incredible dancer and one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen--with a body to match. Everytime I saw her it was a reminder of my own shortcomings. I always felt fat and ugly around your mother. Actually I spent most of my adolescence feeling fat and ugly and being around your mother just intensified it. I didn’t feel like I had the right to breathe her air. It’s weird looking back on it now from this perspective, for many years I’ve felt beautiful, sexy and confident, yet when I think back to that time, it’s like I’m right back in high school feeling totally insecure and worthless. I wonder if in addition to the pressure that is put on women in Hollywood about their looks that having such a gorgeous Mom put some pressure on you also.

I was so ecstatic about your admission to Vanity Fair Magazine regarding your recent weight loss and bouts with bulimia. Do you know what a great thing you were doing for the women and girls of this country? My first thought was, “wow, here is a girl who has her head on straight and who is not going to be manipulated by the media. Here is a girl who is a woman who knows and at this young age she knows that it is important for her to tell the truth about her situation.”

I was so proud of you for just being honest in that interview. When we tell the truth about our struggle and stop pretending to be perfect, we reveal our humanity, which helps others embrace theirs and that is what connects us to each other. I believe sharing our personal difficulties in public is a sacred act.

You can imagine my disappointment when you released a statement the day after the magazine hit news stands denying that you said those things to Vanity Fair and that they misquoted you and took things out of context.

For one day I held the belief that maybe the tide is starting to turn. Maybe the women who are so pressured by Hollywood to be stick thin are finally going to speak up one by one about this tyranny. Because if you speak up, that will trickle down and some 12 year old girl may actually think twice before she starts that diet she’s been pondering. I understand that your handlers probably advised you on your recent actions. But could you at least admit that you were too thin and that you didn’t look good?

I’m guessing that when the article came out and you saw how amazing those pictures were that they took of you maybe you thought an admission in print running alongside the photos would somehow detract from those beautiful images.

Lindsay, I have a newsflash for you: thinness is not happiness. It is heartbreaking to me that I’ve only recently been able to grasp this concept. I spent so much time obsessing over my body and trying to lose weight. I’ll never get that time back and I ‘ve dedicated my future to helping the women and girls of the world stop this behavior.

My wish for you is that you someday find yourself with as much courage as you have talent and that you can just be honest about who you are and what you’re struggling with. The world so doesn’t need another pretty face.

cathy

Valerie, Marie, and Starr

I sat riveted the other day watching the Oprah Winfrey show as she interviewed the 3 skinnies staring down 50: Valerie Bertinelli, Marie Osmond, and Starr Jones. For me the interview with Starr Jones was kind of like watching a car wreck: it’s totally horrifying but you just can’t get yourself to look away.

It was all so hard to watch because I saw myself in these women. They were consumed with self-loathing and body hatred for so long and now here they were “living the dream.”

As they sat there talking about how great they felt and how wonderful their lives were I kept thinking, “what about the part about being hungry all the time? What about the part about structuring your life around your exercise routine? What about the part about not missing a work-out no matter what?

They never got to that part. They just kept going on and on about how euphoric the whole thing was. Let me just say for the record that maintaining a size 6 or under after the age of 35 is serious work. Yes the thrill of being thin either for the first time, or the first time in a long time kind of anesthetizes you but eventually it all wears off and you realize you are tired of being HUNGRY ALL THE TIME and sick of structuring your life around visits to the gym.

I managed to live like this for 10 years and then it occurred to me I hadn’t read a book since I didn’t know when. When I went to school for coaching I realized how much I missed intellectual pursuits and how little time I had for them. I realized that spending so much time exercising my body kept me from doing anything with my mind and being hungry all the time makes you irritable and spacey no matter how many times you check yourself out in the mirror and like what you see.

So now, I’m trying to have more balance and yes, in the interim I have definitely gained some weight but I am so, so much more available for life. And to Valerie, Marie, and Starr I say: eventually the thrill of being thin will wear off and you will have to deal with how out of balance your life has become to maintain your small size. I’m hoping by then, I’ll have my own show and I can tell them how I saw it coming.

I'm So Busy I Forgot to Blog

So here's my new logo for my coaching business. I'm really happy with how it came out. Lots of interesting things are happening such as putting together the The Magic of Yes retreat that will be happening this summer at Menla Mountain Center. I'm so excited to be able to realize this dream that I have had of creating a place for women who are stressed out and exhausted to reconnect with themselves. I hope that this is the first of many.

It looks like I will be running a few workshops in May at Oasis Day Spa in Westchester and Manhattan. I will post the details as soon as I have them. So for now, dear readers I would like to leave you with this thought:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
-Marcel Proust

Open to the possibilites.

It's not called re-entry for nothing

It's almost 4 weeks since I left for Tulum and I have just gotten it together to start blogging again. What an awesome trip. It was truly life-changing--I'm still trying to process alot of it. It would really help if I could just isolate myself for about 10 days--then I'm sure I could assimilate everything.

This is a photo of the morning walk that I took every day.

So much shifted for me while I was there that when I came home I realized that my anchors and what I relied on as my center no longer existed. It was so freeing but yet also alarming. Who am I without all my crap? I've spent the last two and a half weeks trying to figure that out. What is emerging is quite a pleasant surprise.

In this story we begin with the end; where the magic has already taken place, where the miracle has already occurred. We find our heroine alone on the beach looking at the ocean, breathing in the salt air, digging her feet in the white sand; drinking in the beauty that is all around, savoring everything.

And she says to herself silently, "this is it, this moment right here, right now--this feeling of expansion and bliss, I am so happy, I could stay in this spot forever." She then begins to eat the fruit salad in front of her and she realizes it's not the food that gives you the pleasure, it's your state of mind in the moment that creates it.

So simple, but so elusive.

Get Over It

Leave the girl alone. She looks awesome. Who cares if this is a skort!

All The Single Ladies--

Only three more days until all the singles have to feel like they’re outcasts. I hate Valentine’s Day. I hated it when I was single and I hate it now that I’m married--mostly because I have to watch my single friends feel bad about their status because Hallmark says everyone needs to be part of a couple to be happy! As if we all don’t have enough to feel bad about, now Hallmark has set a date for those who are not in a relationship to be reminded about it for two weeks in February. Not to mention the unreasonable expectation that it sets up for couples to get each other something fabulous and have some “super special” date. I’m not even going to start on the candy--that’s reason enough for me to be pissed off. Oh and people at Hallmark, I’ll get my husband a card that says I love him when I want to, not when you say I should.

My friend Jen had a great post on her blog for Valentine’s Day in 2007. She talked about how she had chosen to be single and extolled the benefits of her unencumbered lifestyle. After reading it I actually felt jealous of her.

I want to re-invent Valentine’s Day as a day to celebrate yourself and nurture your relationship with yourself whether you are in a couple or not. When was the last time you gave yourself some unconditional positive regard? When was the last time you did something frivolous for yourself just because you’ve always wanted to do it? Do you ever take time to acknowledge all the good things that you do and are?

This Valentine’s Day may I suggest beginning your self-love fest by doing any one or all of the following:

Call 800 flowers and send yourself the Valentine’s roses

Write yourself a love letter

Watch any of the following movies: Norma Rae, Erin Brokovich, Working Girl,and get inspired!

Read A Woman’s Worth by Marianne Williamson or Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Call yourself “darling” every time you speak to yourself in your mind

Happy Valentine’s Day My Lovelies--make sure to make at least some of it about you!

* Delicious
* Digg

Savor-ing

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the concept of pleasure. I know that like myself, many women use food as their primary or one of their primary sources of pleasure in life. I’ve been investigating other sources lately and in the process have found that it’s not so much about finding things that are pleasurable but finding the pleasure in things. And I believe there is a word for this--it’s called savoring.

Savor – to get enjoyment from.

I think this concept extends way beyond the enjoyment of food, which frankly much of the time I miss due to my judgment about what I’m eating, but that’s a long story for another post! I do know that it’s possible to savor people, places and things.

I have a friend who works at home and she takes a half hour break each day to go out and have a cup of tea at her local coffee shop. When she described to me how she sits and takes in the enviornment and really enjoys every sip of her tea- – I was kind of awestruck! Wow, I thought it’s just a cup of tea but she’s getting so much enjoyment out of it which leads me to believe...

Savoring has much less to do with the object being savored than it does with your state of mind.

You can savor anything, all it takes is consciousness and slowing down enough to allow yourself to really experience it. Savoring is a way to connect with an object or person but also a way to connect with yourself. It’s all happening too fast, too much, too soon. Let’s start slowing down and savoring all of the things we’ve worked so hard to get into our lives--our living spaces, the nature that’s around us, a piece of music, our friends, spouses, lovers. Let’s start by declaring 30 minutes a day to savor...something.

What will you savor today? I’d love to hear back from you!