It seems impossible, but 2014 is drawing to a close. Craziness! With that in mind, I want to take this opportunity to invite you to plan with me for 2015. I’m designing events and supportive resources for 2015, and I’d love to give you a sneak peek and get your input! 

First, I’ll be opening the Kindness Community in early 2015. If you want to be in the loop for that, you can register here for the email notifications. The community will open to the people on that email list first, and there will be fun perks involved, too! (I’m not going to give away ALL the secrets here on the blog, so join the list to learn more!) In the community, you always have an opportunity to request topics for classes AND get coached!

The Kindness Community is an affordable way to learn from me each month, get support in your healing journey (mind, body, emotions, and spirit!) from me and my Endorsed Coaches, and join in the group coaching calls. It’s a perfect solution for anyone who wants continuous community and support and access to coaching. (I’m pretty booked up for 1-1 coaching, so not much is available at the moment).

Second, I’ll be creating a couple in-person retreats for you in 2015. Stay tuned! As a busy mom, I don’t do too many of those a year, so you’ll want to grab your seats right away.

Third, if you want to become a mind-body coach, you can join the 2015 training! To learn more about the training and join the interest list for the 2015 training, visit www.mindbodycoachuniversity.com. We’ll be updating the site in January to include all the details for the 2015 training, including dates and curriculum. Stay tuned!

Fourth, I need your input! I want to know what you’d love to learn about on the blog in 2015! Below, I’ve listed some of my favorite topics. Please comment below on the blog or pop on over to Facebook  where I’ve posed that question today on the page. You can also share ideas via email to my assistant, Beth if you choose. Use the topics below to spur your creativity and tell me the questions you want answered in 2015! Get as specific as you’d like. And anything outside of the topic list is welcome, too. Can’t wait to hear from you!

My Fave Topics:

• Mind-Body Healing (TMS, mind-body syndrome, etc.)
• Spiritual Growth
• Emotional Well-Being
• Law of Attraction – Tricks of the Trade
• Body Image
• Confidence
• Creativity
• Self-Kindness

Looking forward to your input!

I ate food to calm myself, to stuff my emotions down, and to avoid connecting with myself. I got caught up in the flurry of hating my body, trying to change it, and focusing on what I should/shouldn’t eat. That kept me successfully distracted from myself for years. I was too busy to feel emotions, connect to my inner wisdom, or any other such scary notions.

I also used food to help me find joy. Because I wasn’t allowing myself to feel a full range of emotions, real joy eluded me. I had to focus on its distant cousin, pleasure. Now I’m not saying pleasure is bad. In fact, it’s one of the best things about being alive. But pleasure without joy is empty and hollow. The delicious taste of a crunchy bite of cinnamon toast is a moment of pure delight when it’s both pleasurable and joyful.

Eventually, through the mind-body skills, I came to a much more peaceful relationship with my body and food. I felt good about my body, I listened to what it wanted to eat, and I took delight in the taste and variety of everything I ate. I felt joy. I felt sadness. I felt anger. I felt contentment. Finally, I was alive – living fully in my body and working with it instead of fighting it. There were still times when I grabbed a snack instead of feeling an emotion, but I wasn’t trying to be perfect anymore. I had found an equilibrium. Less self-pressure, more listening to myself.

Then, I got pregnant. For the first two weeks, I was ravenously hungry. I ate everything in site. My mind started to freak out. “You’ll be the fattest pregnant woman ever!” it shouted. “Aaaagh! Stop eating for two – you don’t need that much!”

So, in other words, I forgot everything I know about listening to my body.

Wise body was stocking up. Right after those two weeks of nonstop noshing, I was smacked with constant, never-ending, nausea. I am not exaggerating. I spent so much time lying on the couch that I began to blend into it – a moaning, groaning couchy lump. My mom would come visit and talk to me while I lay there, half-alive. I did a lot of writing and other work from my lump position, or in bed. Sometimes I sat up for meetings. That was the extent of my exercise, other than the occasional nauseous walk.

Needless to say, food lost all of its pleasure and joy. Everything smelled revolting and tasted awful. Yet, if I didn’t eat a little bit every couple of hours, I actually felt worse. So I resorted to force-feeding myself and eating while feeling nauseous. I am not sure there is actually anything more revolting than that experience.

For the first time in my life, I could have cared less about food. I dreamed of fasting. I longed to just drink juice for a week. But my body kept up its demanding schedule of small meals every 2-3 hours. Needless to say, I did not gain any weight during the first trimester of the pregnancy. Those first couple weeks of ravenous eating served me well, though, because I didn’t lose any weight, either. I just maintained, which gave me peace of mind. At least the baby was getting nutrition.

Around week eighteen, the nausea began to leave. Bit by bit, I started to feel better. One day, I woke up feeling really good. I was scheduled to go to lunch with a friend, and lunch actually tasted delicious. It was miraculous!

Then, later that day, I felt this strange feeling in my chest. I noticed an awful sour taste in my mouth. Confused, I consulted my pregnancy books. Diagnosis? Heartburn and indigestion – apparently a common pregnancy companion.

So yes – I enjoyed literally one meal before being plunged into a new digestive hell. To relieve the fiery pain in my chest, I had to strip my diet of all yummy things, including garlic, citrus foods, spicy foods, mustard, tomatoes, and more. Even with every possible heartburn remedy on board, I was only able to feel somewhat normal, and food still didn’t taste or sound that great. Mostly everything tasted a bit sour, like old milk. Every now and then, my body would grumble for more food, but the pleasure element had disappeared completely.

I finally surrendered to the idea that food would be nourishment, not joy, for the duration of this pregnancy.

In surrendering, I found an element of peace. It seemed do-able, this 9-month takeover of my body. Yet, it still felt and feels strange to not enjoy food at all. I reflected on the irony of spending a lifetime trying not to gain weight only to now find it difficult to gain weight when I need to. After spending years healing my relationship with my body and learning to listen to it, I now find it absolutely in charge of this pregnancy. I simply sit back and do what it says. My mind has absolutely no say. If I eat something because it simply sounds fun to my mind, my body demands in no uncertain terms that I stop immediately. Sugary foods, processed foods, snacky carbs – all those things I used to enjoy are now not even remotely appealing. You couldn’t get me to eat a Dorito for anything, because my body would immediately reject it.

Since healing my mind-body relationship, I’ve given up diets and strict food plans. I’ve taken away all restriction from my eating. I don’t avoid gluten or dairy like I used to, I’m not a vegetarian, and I eat “bad” foods that are processed or sugary. Overall, with this non-restrictive approach, I find that my body drifts toward what it needs and we don’t have fights. I don’t overeat very often and I don’t eat piles of things that my body doesn’t want. We’ve found a peaceful medium.

This current pregnancy diet is not a mind-imposed experience. I am not eating in this strict fashion because I think it is good for me, or I’m afraid of gaining weight, or I’m afraid that eating certain foods will exacerbate a pain syndrome. (Those are all things I’ve done in the past.) No, I’m eating only the foods that work in my body because my body is insistent about what it needs and wants. After so many years of mind ruling body, now body is ruling mind. It’s a funny switch. I’m comfortable now only because I surrendered and stopped fighting with my mind.

I tell you this long story because I’m smack in the middle of a new journey, a new learning curve with my mind-body relationship. I’m right in the middle of the learning process, and I’d love to take you with me. I’m fascinated. I’m amazed. I’m seeing the food and body image thing so differently now.

I look forward to someday having the pleasure and joy of eating return. I now see it not as a frustration or an addiction, not as bad or good, not as a siren song or temptress, but even more as a beautiful, joyful part of being alive. I can still have joy and peace and contentment in my life without the joy of food. I can still feel perfectly good and I can still love my life.

But there is something to be said for the spice of life – literally. Taste and texture and deliciousness are to be enjoyed and loved, because they are a part of living. A part of taking care of our beautiful bodies. A part of being physical in these beautiful bodies.

It’s a strange experience, my body being hijacked by baby. I salute to its demands, and I do not argue. My body is infinitely wise. In some ways, it’s kind of nice to be completely and totally, one-hundred-percent free of emotional eating right now. I am gaining a new perspective. I can separate out nutrition needs versus emotional needs with ease. I can see the purpose of loving food without using it as an emotional tool.

I can also see just how confused our relationship with food can be. What if it was so simple – ask your body what it really needs, verify through trial and error that you’re hearing its messages accurately, feel emotions when they arise, and then take immense pleasure in the taste of every bite you eat? Toss in a few non-essential foods that just sound fun each day. Done.

I’d love to hear from you about where you are on your food and body-image journey. What if you were in my shoes, and nothing tasted good at all? (Trust me – though you may wish for it, it’s not all its cracked up to be.)

I’m inviting you to enjoy a bite of food today, with all your taste buds, all your senses, every ounce of delight available, and immense joy. Just one bite. Do it for me. I’m living vicariously through you.

Even better – do it for you. Take pleasure and joy in the gift of eating. Let yourself love your food and yourself, for at least one bite today.

The other day I went to coffee with my personal trainer, and we were chatting about fitness, the urge women have to do endless, hideous (in my opinion, of course) hours of cardio exercise instead of strength training, and our cultural viewpoint around women with muscles and strength. She mentioned she was giving a workshop entitled “Strong is the New Skinny.” I loved that phrase so much I could practically feel a blog post writing itself as we spoke.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I’ve had body image struggles for most of my life.  I have often argued with my body about its natural shape – muscular, not a lot in the, er…chest department, and did I say muscular? For a long time, I ACHED to be a tall, willowy, delicate body type. There were periods in my life where I pretended I could achieve this by either a) starving myself, b) doing “lengthening workouts” like Pilates or c) running thousands of miles until I transformed my body into a “runner’s body.”

After much practice, I’ve finally learned to love my body as-is, and to embrace my natural muscular strength. I’ve stopped doing hours of mindless cardio exercise, because my body doesn’t really like it, it drains me energetically, and I find it is just another way for me to ignore my body or push it past its limits. Also, it doesn’t make the slightest difference in my weight or size.

Now, I do primarily heavy weight lifting, short interval cardio workouts, walking, and yoga. It only took me 20 years to finally listen to my body and respect the type of workout it actually likes to do. Lo and behold, I am now actually fitter than I’ve ever been, and I look pretty nice in a pair of jeans. I’m not willowy. You would never mistake me for a swimsuit model. But I feel good about how I care for my body. I feel good in my body. I feel strong. (I’m not saying my workout style is perfect for everyone. I am saying that your body is a much better fitness guide than any fitness guru out there. It helps you design the perfect workout for you.)

Yes, I still have “fat” days here and there, but I’ve come to a new place with my body. I now stand naked in front of the mirror every morning and compliment myself. This is quite a change from the past, in which I once gained 50 pounds without even noticing. I am not kidding. I hated my body so much that I simply couldn’t even tell what it really looked like. I always assumed I needed to lose some huge number of pounds and that I looked terrible, so I didn’t even see the reality in the mirror.

This disconnect played a huge role in my weight gain. When I finally realized what had happened, I looked back at old pictures of myself and discovered I’d spent years thinking I was overweight when I was really just me. I was at my body’s happy weight. Being overweight taught me about my relationship with my body, so I am grateful I went through that experience. I learned how to actually see myself. I learned how to actually be myself, no apologies needed.

The truth is, I am a strong person. I am strong physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. One of my biggest strengths is my strength. I was given the gift of muscles. Even if I don’t work out for weeks, I am strong. In high school, my peers on the swim team called me “Muscles.” I have shoulders and biceps that can power through the pool for hours on end. I have stamina. I have serious thighs. I could probably leap tall buildings at a single bound. I wear totally different dress and pants sizes because of those beauties.

When I was a kid, my dad called me many different nicknames, one of which was “Elephant Touch.” This was because I had trouble dealing with my own strength and often accidentally broke things, gave my brother concussions while playing catch, and otherwise wreaked havoc. The other day we got out the Wiffle ball during a family gathering, and I took the first turn at bat. I took a nice, powerful swing and promptly crushed the ball. Literally. My brother picked it up, held its sad mangled remains in his hand, and shook his head. “I forgot what it’s like to play sports with you,” he said.

I used to feel ashamed of this strength. I used to hate it when people called me strong, muscular, or anything like it. Now, I am proud to be strong. I’m not ripped, I’m not ready to hop on stage at a body builder show, but I do have muscle on me. This is the body I was given, and I finally love it just the way it is. I can see how my strength helps me every single day.

So here’s my question for you today: What about your body has always bothered you, and how can you see it in a new light? How is it a gift?

I think how we treat our bodies, see our bodies, and feel in our bodies is so interconnected. It’s time to make some serious changes in how we talk about our bodies. Nearly everyone I coach struggles with body image dissatisfaction, and I’ve begun to realize just how hard many of us are on ourselves. I used to think I was alone in my struggle, but now I see just how prevalent this issue is for both women and men.

Probably one of the most important things we can do for ourselves in this lifetime is learn to like and love our own bodies, even as they change, age, gain/lose weight, hurt, heal, and otherwise have the physical human experience. Loving our own bodies brings us home. They don’t have to look good, perfect, or even remotely like the “ideal” for us to love them.

Why in the world would willowy be any better than strong? Why is “fat” something we abhor? Why have we picked one normal, natural part of being physical and turned it into something awful? (In fact, I think it’s the classic “what you resist, persists.” The more we “fight fat” the harder it is to be in harmony with our bodies and find a healthy balance as individuals.) Why would I strive for skinny when my body loves strong? Why should any single part of me be any different than it is? There is beauty everywhere in every human body, just waiting to be seen. I’m looking. Are you?

Want to join me in banishing the nasty body talk and learning to treat your body with love? Hop on the phone Tuesday, 8/23 at 9 PT/10 MT/11 CT/12 ET for my monthly Body Talk call for Good Vibe University.

Call In Info: (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 92813 (use 1# if prompted for pin)

The topic is Body Image and I’ve planned a fun and interactive process to help all of us shift how we treat our bodies. (The call is free if you join in live, but recordings are only available to GVU members. If you’re at all interested in the Law of Attraction, I can’t recommend a GVU membership enough! No, I’m not an affiliate, either! I just love Jeannette Maw and her work.)

I was reading fellow coach Jeannette Maw’s blog post about her belly spell this week (The belly spell really cracked me up! Soooo funny! I love Jeannette!) and it inspired this post. I have struggled for many years – my entire life, actually – with body image issues. I can remember clearly when I first started disliking my body. I was ten years old, just beginning those pre-teen, puberty-ridden years, and I saw a video of myself. I was horrified. From that day on, I fought with my body.

I do not have a traditional model body. I am not tall and thin. I am of medium height and muscular build. I tend to look fit and athletic when my body and I are getting along, but I do not weigh in at a featherweight number, ever. When I was struggling with overeating, emotional eating, and severe body dislike, my weight went up near the two-hundred pound mark.

I’ve since returned to my body’s natural weight, but even after the experience of actually being overweight, I struggled to like my body. I kept thinking it should look like the “ideal.” Yet, even when I went on strict diets, my body would drop maybe two to five pounds below my natural weight and then I would get sick. It was clearly a fight that simply didn’t need to be fought. My body is perfectly happy weighing 143 pounds. It is my mind that argues with that.

Much of my personal mind-body work has been directed at this body image issue. I longed to love my body instead of fight my body. For many years, I thought this meant I had to change my body. Then I realized I had to change my relationship with it instead. I had to connect to it, learn to live in it, learn to listen to it, learn to feel my emotions, and recognize mind-stories that weren’t serving me. (Like “I should look like a model.”)

I started to see that stressing about my weight and body was one of my biggest ways to run from my emotions and avoid facing feeling them. It was what I call a decoy – something that successfully occupies me so I simply have no attention left for my emotions. All of this self-awareness combined started to help me love my body more and more. I didn’t love it every day, but I was tipping the balance way more to the love side.

Then, something happened. In January this year, I got pregnant. I was so excited, and so very ready to embark on the motherhood journey. I was excited to experience the changes in my body and the magic of growing a baby in my belly. Like Jeannette, I’ve often wished for a flatter belly, but I was willing to let it expand to hold a new little one inside me.

It was a little disconcerting to notice my jeans fitting more snugly. At only six weeks pregnant, I started to feel somewhat puffy. Then at eight weeks, there were some clothing items that were downright stretched. At nine weeks, I was pretty sure I’d need some new clothes soon, and the waistband of my favorite jeans was uncomfortably tight.  I could feel my backside expanding, too. While I understood it was necessary, I admit to a wince or two after glancing over my shoulder into the mirror.

At nine and half weeks, I miscarried.

The shock was unbelievable. The grief was overwhelming. The physical pain was tiring. I felt empty in my belly, lost in my heart, and just…sad. I was so ready to be a mom. It felt like there was a hole in that mom-space I’d created, both internally and externally. My body was tired and aching, my mind confused, and my emotions strong.

Even as I grieved, I could see the power in my body’s wisdom. It was aware of things I couldn’t know, and it knew this pregnancy wasn’t a go, for whatever reason. I didn’t have to know the details in my mind to feel that my body knew best. I let it do what it needed – sleep, rest, and cry.

After a few weeks, I started going back to my normal routine. Letting the grief flow allowed me to start healing, allowed my body to start regaining energy, and I began to feel like I was almost alive again. I had moments of joy shine through the fog of grief.

One day, I put on my jeans to run an errand. I’d mostly been wearing yoga pants for my resting, sleeping, and grieving phase. I slipped the jeans on, threw on a shirt, and started for the door, purse in hand. Something in that movement caught my attention. My jeans weren’t tight. The waistband wasn’t cutting into my belly anymore. There was room to move in them.

I felt the loose jeans from my belly straight to my heart – a visceral, shocking, upside-down moment.

I set down my purse and cried.  I ached for that tight-jeans feeling. I wanted it back. I wanted my belly to still be expanding. I wanted my backside to be popping seams. I wanted to be shopping for maternity clothes. I didn’t want my jeans to be loose at all. Once of my lifelong desires simply vanished in that instant. I could have cared less how I looked, how thin I was or wasn’t, or what anyone in the world thought of my body. I could have cared less for fashion or the shape of my waist, or any of it. It all paled in comparison to the longing for what was lost.

I never thought I’d be sad because my jeans were loose. I never thought I’d see my body from that vantage point. But because I did, I have something powerful to hold in my mind. Because life goes on, you know. I now have the same old thoughts pop up about how I look in my pants, whether I’ve gained a pound or lost a pound, why my belly can’t just magically transform itself to something much cuter, what dreadful fashion designer cooked up the latest non-flattering style on purpose just to torture me. They come into my mind. And sometimes they bug me for a day or two.

But then I can simply remember. I can drop back into that moment when I was heartbroken that my jeans were loose. I am grateful for that moment, because it gave me a new relationship with my body. I saw what my body can do – it can grow life in it! How amazing! It can heal from loss. It can serve me, every day, even if I’m angry with it. It doesn’t have to look like any prescribed ideal to be completely, totally perfect. Yes, it changed even from a short pregnancy. Yes, I am a little older these days than in my teen years. Yes, I have a wrinkle or two.

But in the end, my body is healthy. We’ve been through chronic pain together, she and I, and now we’ve been through this, too. She’s a war-horse. She’s strong. She still takes to the jogging path and the hiking trail with energy and enjoyment, even after all she’s experienced. I’m impressed. She bounces back. She brings me daily enjoyment in so many different ways. Without her, I’d have no home for my soul. I wouldn’t have a voice, a mind, a heart. I need her. She needs me.

So we’re working together, my body and me. We’re on the same team. Even if we have the occasional disagreement, our relationship is much improved. The war is over. I love her. She’s always loved me. We’re friends.  And she hasn’t dropped a single pound or shed an ounce of fat for me to come to this place of connection, love, and peace. She carried a baby for me. She took care of me. She was there. And truly, that is all I need.

Some people call this skill “acceptance.”  However, I’ve decided that word has too much of a charge for many people.  My clients often react to it with dread, because they misinterpret it to mean “resigning one’s self to this fate forevermore.”  Yuck.  That’s not what we’re doing here!  So, I’ve decided to call this skill “allowing.”

First, here’s a quick definition of allowing: letting this moment be exactly as it is.

Why is allowing such a powerful healing skill?  Get ready for a slight mind-bender here.  With a couple minutes of review and attention, I think you’ll see what I’m saying, but you might need to take those couple minutes to really play with this idea.

If, in this moment, you are experiencing something you dislike (such as pain, overweight, etc.), your natural tendency is probably to push against this unwanted thing and want it to go away.  You are likely doing this with all your might, in the back of your mind, all day long.  Take a moment right now to pay attention to this pushing against sensation.  Notice what it feels like mentally.  Notice what it feels like emotionally.  Notice what it feels like physically.  Meet me back here when you’re done noticing.

What did you feel?  My guess is you felt some kind of mental tension, stress, worry, or fix-it mode.  You probably felt some kind of emotional heaviness or stuck-ness consisting of hopelessness, fear, or anger (or a mix).  You might have felt physical tension and a bit of a fight or flight response.  All of these feelings lumped together becomes what we call “resistance.”  This is the feeling you get when you fight something that is currently present in your life.

When you drop the fight and start allowing, you release this resistance.  Your body relaxes.  Your mind is able to function creatively again.  Your emotions are able to flow freely and be released from your body.  In other words, you drop into healing/weight loss/love mode.  Your body is able to heal itself, your metabolism is able to function properly, and you are able to connect to your inner intuitive genius, which helps with every part of your life.

This is why allowing the pain, the extra weight, the body part you don’t like, or whatever it is you’re resisting right now is the most powerful skill you can learn.  Allowing doesn’t mean thinking that this thing you don’t want will be here forever.  It means dropping the fight and allowing it to be here right now.  Ready for the mind-bender?  As soon as you allow, you actually facilitate change.  When you resist, you create a pattern that repeats itself, meaning you’ll end up continuing to experience pain, overweight, etc.

By now, you’re probably wondering how to allow, seeing as it’s such a powerful skill.  Allowing is something that takes a little practice, because it’s not something you can do in three easy steps.  It’s more of a feeling, a visceral sense, and a dropping into a place you didn’t know you knew existed within yourself.  You’ll get it, I promise.  It just may take a few tries.

Here’s how I do it.  I ask myself the question, “Can I allow this right now?”  Then I say to myself, “I’d like to drop the fight.”  Then, I do nothing for a few moments and just wait.  There’s a feeling of release and relief in my mind, emotions, and body when the allowing kicks in, so I simply wait for that.  Sometimes it takes a few days.  Sometimes it only takes a few minutes.

Remember that you have NOTHING to lose.  In this moment, if you are in pain, you are already in pain.  Fighting it is utterly useless.  Why not just allow it?  If you are overweight in this moment, you are overweight.  There’s no changing it this instant.  So why not allow it?  Why not allow yourself to have those thighs, that butt, that job, or whatever else it might be?  Stop fighting and you’ll find the secret to releasing stress. You’ll find that it allows love to sneak back into your life.  You have everything to gain by playing with this powerful healing skill.