While I’ve been in silent retreat this week, I notice my body is the vehicle for getting into the meditation hall, lying down on the bed at night, making a cup of tea, moving into the kitchen for a meal.
My body takes me here, there, through life.
I used to attack the image of my body with such a vengeance, it was like having a disgusting, foul, cruel enemy with me all the time.
What I didn’t realize was that it was my thinking that was the meanest…..not my body.
And actually, it wasn’t inherently cruel, it was only frightened.
My thinking believed I should look a certain way, present a picture of health or beauty, or else it would mean I was sub-standard somehow, not good enough, horrible, gross.
I never thought through very far why I got that message, where I got that message, what happened that took me from childhood innocence of not caring or noticing the body….
….into imagining it was something to be shunned, something ugly, something constantly needing improvement and criticized.
Why so important? What’s going on?
Such a deep, desperate fear that people will be repulsed and abandon me…or something. I never thought about it. I never questioned my beliefs about beauty.
They were totally bizarre and crazy!
People who perceive themselves as having eating troubles will often think that without the mean, vicious thoughts, they wouldn’t care and they’d eat more, exercise less, care less, and get worse than they already are.
They wouldn’t be motivated to change their eating.
But I have found the opposite to be true. The complete opposite.
If hating your body and your looks doesn’t lead you to change, why not try loving it the way it is instead?
You’ve got nothing to lose, right?
CLICK HERE to watch Byron Katie facilitating The Work with a woman who hates her body and sees it as ugly, flabby and wrong.
Catch yourself being unloving to the image you see in the mirror.
Notice when you are unloving with yourself if you’re stuffing food into your mouth. Be gentle with yourself and accept your cravings. Ask yourself like the kindest grandma you ever met what’s going on, is there anything you need right now?
Practice being madly in love with you, your body, your condition just the way it is.
Kiss you arm right now! Do it!
See what I mean?
Love is inside you, living and breathing and tender and vibrant. It can heal anything. Including a difficult relationship with food.
In fact, it may be the only thing that does.
You are beautiful!
Much Love, Grace