Category: body image

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I have to do it right, not wrong…..I HAVE TO worry about this (eating, weight, conditions).

My right thumb was hurt (you get to see in this video–just the bandaids, don’t worry).
I just can barely type.
But I made you a video on a powerful topic, called WORRYING.
The mind will say “you need to worry about this!” (food, eating, meals, plans, body image, weight, size, shape, feelings, conditions….and much much more).
You might think “Well, duh. Of course I have to worry. Are you kidding me?”
Is that actually true though?
Are you sure you need to worry?
What if you did NOT believe this thought?
Wow.

Much love,

Grace

 

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I made a mistake: that bite, that food, that pound gained.

If you’ve recently been reading my eating peace ebook, thanks for being here! You’ve arrived just in time to attend a live webinar I don’t do very often, in preparation for the Eating Peace Experience coming up at the end of January.

Eating Peace Webinar: Monday January 13th 10:00am PT/ 1:00pm ET/ 7:00pm Europe. Sign up here to attend live and ask me anything. There are also 4 other options for taking this live masterclass–you’ll see them when you click the link to register. A great opportunity to listen, share and do this work together.

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Looking at the world through the eyes of opposites, of right and wrong, of duality….is common. It’s often the only way we seem to know.

In this belief system, there is a Right Way and a Wrong Way to be. With food, eating, body size, appearance.

Right/Wrong, Mistaken Way/ Correct Way, Bad/Good, Successful/Failure, Uncertain/ Certain, Strong/ Wishy-Washy, I Know/ I Don’t Know, Against it/ For It.

Everything’s very black and white, and “clear” in a way, and that’s the GOAL. To know the FINAL answer (like the game show, LOL).

In this world, no ambivalence is allowed, no uncertainty. It’s much better to have certainty and to be right about your way. You might even have supporting data for how your way is the best way, perhaps even the only way.

And then….a “mistake” is made.

Trouble is, when YOU screw up or make a mistake….you follow the usual steps of self-attack, punishment, criticism, anger, disappointment, confusion, fear and a return to “your” way (which is the “right” and “best” way).

I love thinking about all the right/wrong perspective and how it lives so fully in our minds sometimes. It happens in ways that are so much more than only food, eating and body image.

Last week, for example, I offered my live webinar for the first time and made a “mistake” of locking people out of it.

So, the live webinar went to no one “live”.

It was a fun teaching and this material is incredibly profound and powerful for help with understanding the suffering around eating issues–at least it has been for me–but I had no interaction or questions or chats, which seemed confusing.

No comments, no feedback, no emojis.

But is it true that I made a mistake?

Consider the times you’ve taken a compulsive bite of food. You’ve repeated the pattern of overeating, over-indulging, eating the “wrong” thing, shame, secretive thinking. The pain of stuffing in food chaotically without caring about yourself.

Who would you be without the energy of right/wrong and condemnation about this experience?

What if you opened your mind, relaxed with yourself gently, and turned to the possibility that you are not a problem, and there is another way?

Who would you be without the idea that a mistake has been made? Who would you be without the belief you’re sick and twisted and broken and you have to crack down and be rigid?

What if there was another way besides being RIGHT or WRONG?

What if I can notice I’m panic-eating….and be mindful and do The Work of inquiry and shifting my own mind?

Turning the thought around: I have not made a terrible mistake.

I can start again, today, right now. I can breathe deeply, regroup, get support.

Turning around the thought again: my thinking is making a terrible mistake

Yes, especially when I condemn myself and the world and eating and food and weight and other people–or anything else in reality.

Much love,

Grace

 

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l with eating, moving my body in a balanced way….But. I want to be thinner.

The orientation to dieting and getting to the right weight is so stressful. More stressful than we sometimes ever realize.

For me, going on a diet and wishing I was thinner set me up for major and massive obsessing about food.

If we want the body to balance out in its own way, gently, we need to allow it to follow the peaceful thinking, peaceful behaviors….in its own time.

Like a little boat sailing across the ocean makes a small change in its navigation, shifting a tiny bit to the left or right can make a bigger change than we ever imagine in the future.

Meanwhile, the stressful belief: I know what weight I SHOULD be. This number I’m reading today is the wrong number.

Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true?

Hmmm. It seems like it would be really fantastic if I were that “ideal” number.

But who said so?

How do you react when you believe your weight is wrong today? When the number should be another number?

Wow, horrible. I put my life on hold waiting for the future when my body is “right” weighing. I go nuts on my strategies for eating and food.

I think about food all the time.

So who would you be without this story: “I know what my weight should be!”??

Wow.

So freeing.

You mean I don’t have to think endlessly about what weight I should be at, that’s never the weight I’m actually at? I can be myself today?

Yes. I’d be a person not thinking about how I have to endlessly tweak my food.

Let’s turn the thought around.

TurnAround: I do not know what my weight should be. It is the right number today.

Why is this the case? Why is it OK that my weight is this weight today? How does this number support me? What do I notice is OK within, no matter what weight I am?

TA: My thoughts are too weighty today (my thoughts are very heavy). My thoughts are at the “wrong” number.

So true. Except for my thinking, I’d be happily in the body I’m in, going about my life.

“When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself — that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control. ~ Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

Much love,

Grace

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Mothers and our eating: is it their fault?

This is a little controversial.

Our mothers.

Don’t they have rather a lot of influence on our lives?

(Ahem).

When it comes to eating, food, and body image, mother soften have passed along a story that’s quite intense about food, cooking, serving others food, eating, body shapes and what they should be.

They learned, just like we did, what was acceptable, good, perfect, or successful.

And they showed us.

Sometimes, they showed us very well indeed. 

It’s quite profound, however, to be the one who questions any painful story you’ve heard, or learned, or thought….when it comes to mother.

Here’s a story that may surprise you about my mother, and what I felt when she said “I’m so proud of you”.
I wasn’t happy.

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Much love,

Grace

 

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Do you hate your looks?

Breitenbush friends inquiring together in The Work of Byron Katie annual summer retreat 2018

We all have parts of our bodies we think are ugly, imperfect, wrong. Often the thoughts for people with eating issues about the body are that you must be thin. Keep staying thin. Get even thinner. Never be fat. Ever.

The obsession to be thin can actually backfire. Completely. We become so sure getting thin is BEST we’re totally identified with our goals for the body.

Here’s a powerful question to ask, if you notice you’ve got wishes, urges or hopes to be thinner–or something other than what you are right now:

What would I have, if I had this condition? (thin, muscular, smooth, strong, perfect).

What do you think “thinness” means? What qualities do you think you’d have, if you got thin? What would you experience, if you were thin?

When you identify your answers, you can then question the thought that Thin=Happy.

Who would you be without this story?

For me, I quit being vigilant around food. I quit obsessing about making sure I had enough, or the “right” amount of food. I quit going into the future about food.

The present became more peaceful.

Turning the thought around: Thin thinking is my success, I do not need this body to be thin in order to be happy.

Out beyond ideas of thin or fat, there lies a field (of peace, freedom). I’ll meet you there.

To join the secret, private Eating Peace facebook group for support, discussion and self-inquiry (completely free) please send an email or friend request through facebook to grace@workwithgrace.com or Grace Bell’s profile page. You’ll be privately invited to the group.

Much love

Grace