Hello Dear hearts,

Today’s note is about being curious about what we think we have to do and what might happen if we tried something different.

Not trying to be vague here but want to set the table for what can often feels like a loop we won’t get out of with food and how there is hope and a way out!

Tell me if this feels familiar to you?

You have a job that you deeply care for or you hate, plus a kid or 3 or fur babies, a partner or lacking one, PLUS the underlying stuff from our past and the eating or weight concern in the moment.

Oh, and living in this diet focused world plus the fact you haven’t thoroughly cleaned your car out in who knows how long and still haven’t paid that…

Can you feel that in your body?  Yeah, me too and it doesn’t feel good and it’s taken me a lot of practice to learn what I’m here to teach you today.

We cannot “get rid” of all are stressors but we can learn to increase our “window of tolerance” to them.  Window of tolerance is a term I use with my clients from Daniel Siegal which describes the space we have to stimulus coming from the outside into our system and how we respond to them.  Our feelings and sensations and how overwhelmed or contracted we get around them.

And we when contract and get over-whelmed, we tend to lean back on more young  strategies like all or nothing thinking or projection. We also lean on action oriented things that push away or down the sensations such as restricting, binging, purging or un-awareness of when to slow down or rev up our movement.

Why am I sharing all this?  Because “just eating more” or not eating when your are mad or sad plus over time on your job plus tired plus your car needs repair can lead us to overwhelm and our ability to connect with empathy, big picture thinking and even consciously breathing takes a back seat to survival living.

I want you to understand that OF COURSE when things feel like TOO MUCH we are vulnerable to almost autopilot like response.

But today, I’m here to help you out of the autopilot of pushing things down with food rules, binging , body bashing or any other behavior that you feel is taking your peace.

So instead of going back to dieting, eating when you know it’s because you are mad or sad or scared or aren’t sure what you’re feeling, I need you to, if you can, get up a push against a wall, like you are in a standing push up position.

You might be asking, what is she talking about?  How is this going to help me be less obsessive about my food or weight?  How is this going to help me not think that being a smaller size means I’m successful?

You see, when you “push out” when you hear in your head it feels it’s safer to push down those emotions with eating/not eating, you are teaching your body, I see you and hear you.  I am here. We can face this and have compassion and think more big picture.

So go ahead, try again.  Push against that wall. Or sit and put your hands together like in a prayer and push when you want to restrict or binge.  

Take a pause and relax your body.  

And push again.

Now see what comes up.  You might feel sad. You might feel relief.  

What I’m hoping is that you feel in your body a sense of something else is possible besides the spinning, circular thoughts and reactions that keep you stuck.

This is the “HOW” of getting out of your head, besides being radically compassionate with yourself and having a strong WHY for doing this work in the first place.

Not many of us make major changes because we think we “should”; we need to feel and  hear and at least be working towards creating more grounding and safety to do it.

To be willing to let go of our old beliefs for something for TRUE, which is your inherent love-ability that cannot be leveraged with your body size or perfectionism with food or anything else.

I care about you all and hope you try this somatic exercise out.  There is so much that can help you and if you need more, reach out and let’s go.

Sincerely
Tracy

PS:  If you skipped to the bottom, I offered up a way to get more out of your head and into how your body can help you.  Scroll up and check it out.

Ready for a comprehensive Intuitive Eating, Body Image and Self-Care for Less Stress place to call home?  Head here: https://tracybrownrd.lpages.co/self-study-membership-site/