Numbing or Distracting Yourself from Life? Why It May Not Be Necessary Anymore

Lately I've been noticing the many ways we, adults, run away from normal feelings and everyday experiences, instead of facing them and moving on.

Those of us who aren't practiced in the art of mindfulness or presence, often (unconsciously) believe that we can't handle the ups and downs of life, such as experiencing disappointment, loss, rejection, insults, etc., so we do any number of things to numb or distract ourselves from what's in front (or inside) of us. Some of these behaviors include drinking, eating, smoking, spending money, pursuing romance or sex, nail biting, skin picking, working, and being glued to one's phone, computer, or television.

The funny thing is that a lot more time and energy are spent avoiding ourselves, our authentic feelings, and life, than it would take to look at what's coming up and deal with it. So why do we do it?

As infants, we had zero protection from incoming energies. All we could do for ourselves was close our eyes or turn our heads away if someone got in our face or something felt threatening or overwhelming. As a result we developed defense mechanisms to cope with these intolerable intrusions. They were important to our emotional survival when we were young and helpless.

But then we grew up and acquired some skills and smarts for dealing with life. And that was great, except that the inner-defenseless-baby-protector (in many of us) never got the memo. It continued to behave as if every stressor or difficult emotion had the power to destroy us. The numbing out, distracting, or running away mechanisms (fight, flight, freeze) continued to react to everyday challenges as if we were incapable of dealing with them maturely.

Do you know a strong, competent person who refuses to deal with his/her emotions? Or maybe a friend (not you!) who eats or drinks at night to zone out? Or maybe someone who is always too busy or problem-stricken to relax their weary body or mind? Addictions or obsessive/compulsive behavior, of course, are extreme forms of running away from oneself or life.

So, what about you? Are you peaceful and balanced, or do you have a tendency to run away, zone out, or try to control or rise above your feelings in any aspect of your life? If you're an escape artist, you might still be operating under the outdated assumption that you're not "big" enough to stay present and deal with what's going on in your life.

This week, I invite you to view yourself as strong enough to deal with whatever feelings or situations come your way, and to see what happens when you stay present in those moments when you would normally distract or numb yourself. If you feel overwhelmed by what comes up, by all means reach out for help, but know that in the long run you are better off facing whatever's there than running away.

Good luck, and have a great week.

"The Eating Guidelines:" A Spiritual and Physical Practice

If you struggle with food (regardless of your weight), I have a wonderful resource for you. Geneen Roth is the guru of food and weight issues. She leads powerful workshops and is the author of nine books, my favorite of which is Woman, Food, and God, a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Even though her work focuses on the deep emotional aspects of problem eating (such as using food to numb, distract, or punish ourselves, or to rebel), I'd like to skip ahead to the prescription for making peace with food. Geneen writes:

In the food and weight arena, the Eating Guidelines are both the spiritual and physical practice. They provide a precise path to the world of being in the moment as well as well as a concrete path to feeling well. They are descriptions of what eating would look like if you had no problem with it at all. You'd listen to your body. You'd eat to nourish yourself. You'd love yourself with food. The Guidelines are exactly what you will come around to when you are tired of aching joints. Of lugging yourself around. The Guidelines are nothing more than understanding that your body is yours and you can eat as a way to be yourself. After all these years, all these diets, all these pounds gained and lost and lost and gained, after eating to resist and rebel and fight, you realize that eating can finally be---and always was---for you, only you.

Geneen Roth's Eating Guidelines

1. Eat when you are hungry.
2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car. 
3. Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.
4. Eat what your body wants.
5. Eat until you are satisfied [physically].
6. Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.
7. Eat with enjoyment, gusto, and pleasure.

If you are intrigued (or at least tired of the fight), I would highly recommend that you check out Geneen's work. Why Weight? is an excellent workbook designed to get you in touch with your eating and food issues. Women, Food, and God then takes the conversation to a whole new level. 

Thanks for checking in, and have a beautiful week.

Inside Out: A Powerful Message

If you haven't seen the film, Inside Out, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. And if you have seen it, you might be wondering if you agree with it's message. Let's take a quick look at this.

Inside Out is a story about how our psyches are made up of various parts, emotions, beliefs, and structures, and what happens when difficulties (inevitably) arise.

It begins with a little girl who has had a beautiful childhood. Her parents have bent over backward to make her their "happy girl." Because these first few years were successful, Joy is the dominant leader of her inner world. We also see the figures of Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness, but Joy clearly runs the show. Lucky child, huh? (Not everyone has this experience).

When the little girl's family moves to a new city, however, (emotional) disaster strikes, and chaos blows a storm through her psyche. Joy and Sadness accidentally get ejected from "Headquarters," and everything gets crazy. Our "happy girl" loses not only her happiness, but her ability to feel anything but despair. She becomes lost and disenfranchised, and one by one the major areas of her life (family love, trust, playfulness, etc.) go black, and come crashing down. It is devastating.

Throughout all of this, of course, the audience is rooting for (and very much expecting) Joy to save the day. After all, who else could turn things around? We have to rise above, right?

But in the end, it is Sadness who emerges as the hero. Why? Because she was able to help the little girl feel what needed to be felt in order to reconnect with life, and move forward. Joy, alone, just couldn't deliver.

This week, I invite you to feel all of your feelings: joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and anything else that shows up. You don't have to police your mind for "bad guys," because there are no bad guys there. By allowing what's authentic in the moment to emerge, it is able to pass on through. Only when we celebrate some emotions and reject others, (or over-attach to certain emotions) do we get stuck and run into trouble.

Thanks for stopping by, and please join me here again soon.

Being True to Yourself: A Matter of Life and Death?

For years I've been fascinated by accounts of "the other side." NDE's (near death experiences), life-between-lives hypnotherapy sessions, channeled information from people's deceased loved ones---you name it, I've read it (or it's on my list). Nothing interests me more, except possibly my children, and anything with frosting!

I just read Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani, which is the true story of an Indian girl (Anita) who grew up in a multi-cultural (and multi-religious) setting that was so filled with mixed messages and Self-denial, that she desperately lost sight of who she was.

Later, in middle age, Moorjani was diagnosed with lymphoma. She fought a four-year battle, and when she could fight no more, ended up in a coma, 90 lbs., organs shut down, with lemon-sized tumors all over her body.

What happened during the coma was truly remarkable. Not only was she shown breathtaking beauty, love, and understanding of the workings of the universe, but a spontaneous physical healing occurred. Within a few days, her test results revealed that she was cancer-free. Moorjani writes:

Before my NDE, I used to suppress my upsetting emotions a lot, because I used to believe that they would attract negativity in my life. In additions, I didn't want to concern others, so I tried to control my thoughts and force myself to be positive. But I now understand that the key is to always honor who you truly are and allow yourself to be in your own truth.

Bottom line: putting yourself last, trying to be someone you're not, supressing your authentic feelings, manipulating your thoughts to stay "positive," behaving codependently, never feeling good enough, and/or not asserting your truth, really take their toll.

This week, I encourage you to assess how well you're taking care of yourself, expressing yourself, and generally being true to yourself. Make a commitment to improve at least one area of your self-care, knowing that this will benefit not only you and your body, but everyone who loves you.

Accepting vs. Allowing: What's the Difference?

You've probably heard a lot about the benefits of acceptance. (Resistance causes suffering, while acceptance brings peace, right?)

Well, this is often true, but sometimes radical acceptance is an uphill battle that we're not equipped to fight, especially when it involves a difficult situation or circumstance. Sometimes acceptance carries a heavy feeling with it, because it implies that we need to accept what we really don't want.

Recently I've been experimenting with the idea of allowing. To me, allowing is subtler and less rigorous than accepting. In allowing, we simply create a little space in our minds for things to be less polarized, less rigid. Instead of judging ourselves for making a mistake, we recognize that we're human and that mistakes are going to happen.

When it comes to matters of personal appearance, success, traffic, or the faults of ourselves or our spouse, we allow for what's reasonable or realistic. It doesn't mean that we get lazy and stop trying, or drop our standards to zero. Instead, we look at the big picture and find a healthy balance that reduces the harsh judgments and dashed expectations that so often lead to suffering.

What does allowing look like? Let's say you recently noticed lines on your face that didn't used to be there. This experience doesn't put you in your happy place. Resistance would dictate that you judge and reject these changes, and do whatever you can to make them go away, and/or create an inner battle about it. Acceptance would have you work through or transcend your emotional reactions in order to neutralize the situation in your mind. And Allowing, according to my definition, would be like softening the edges around the situation. You neither resist nor push for acceptance. Maybe you allow for your authentic feelings to surface, and then conclude, "Well, I am getting older---I can't turn back the clock. I'll buy some good moisturizer. I still look good."

When we allow, we embrace reality and our humanity. We don't deny our challenges or limitations, nor do we overreact to them. We just take a deep breath and allow life to be the imperfect thing that it is, and then we sleep a little better that night.

What in your life calls for allowing? Maybe your commute to work or your relationship with yourself or an important other? Perhaps your career, your exercise program, or your expectations for your teenager? When we allow some wiggle room where there once was a straight jacket, life gets a lot more comfortable and manageable.

The Problem with "Abundance Consciousness"

For years, probably centuries, there's been a commonly held belief that scarcity is bad and abundance is good. Granted, we all agree that lack or not enough can be a real problem. Not enough food to survive, not enough money to pay the rent, not enough sleep to function properly, not enough clean water to drink---these are serious issues.

But what about too much? Is that a problem? Ours is a culture that values more-more-more, but then we turn around and complain about our cluttered homes and our overweight bodies. Most of us have too much stuff, and eat in excess. Some of us drink too much, or shop too much, or think too much. Or watch too much TV. We're crazy-busy because we do too much. We pack our days to overflowing, and then we walk around wishing that life or the universe would bring us more "abundance."

Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money, takes a serious look at the poverty consciousness that makes us think that enough is never really enough. She advocates for sufficiency, or the idea that there actually is enough for everybody, and when we notice and are grateful for having enough, it unleashes a flood of (otherwise unavailable) energy that we could use to live better, more purposeful, socially responsible, and emotionally satisfying lives.

If scarcity means not enough and abundance means your cup runneth over, they are in effect opposite extremes. The overflowing cup sounds better to us, of course, but is this really in our (and the world's) best interest? The US probably throws away enough food everyday to feed a substantial portion of the impoverished world.

Somewhere between lack and overabundance lies that happy place of enough where our needs are met and we are grateful for what we have. We aren't striving to keep up with the Jones's, or calming our overdoing-related stress with too much food, alcohol, or material possessions/status symbols. We use that extra time and spaciousness to make the most of our lives and our important relationships. We make decisions based on what is best for us, our families and the world, and not on what others are doing or what they might think of us, or on our lack-consciousness.

This week, I invite you to examine your relationship with scarcity, sufficiency, and abundance. In what areas of your life is there truly not enough? In what areas is there too much? And where do you experience what Lynne Twist calls "the exquisite experience of sufficiency."?

Shame: We All Have It. What to Do About It

Over the last few weeks, we've been discussing some very sensitive issues: vulnerability, sacred wounds, perfectionism, and what underlies all of them, shame.

People tend to believe that shame is reserved for those unfortunate souls who suffered horribly dysfunctional childhoods, but the truth is that we all experience shame----many of us just don't cop to it. This denial, of course, is what causes shame to go underground and wreak havoc on our minds, emotions, and bodies.

Shame researcher and author Brene Brown, defines shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. Some of us live from this place, constantly berating ourselves and trying to compensate for our inadequacy, while others are just occasional visitors. But, according to Brown, unless you are incapable of normal human emotions, you do experience shame. The question is: how do you manage it? How do you bolster yourself against it's effects?

Brown writes:

Shame resilience is the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience....Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment. When something shaming happens and we keep it locked up, it festers and grows. It consumes us. We need to share our experience....If we can find someone who has earned the right to hear our story, we need to tell it. Shame loses power when it is spoken.

So, shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment, and is healed through honest and courageous sharing with others. But notice that Brene specifies that we share with people who have "earned the right to hear our story." What does that mean, and why is it important?

When we share our thoughts and feelings with the wrong people (or under the wrong circumstances), it can backfire and make us feel worse. Therefore, it's necessary to exercise discretion and healthy boundaries when sharing sensitive personal information with others, at least when we are most vulnerable. Someone who has earned the right to hear your (shame) story, is a person you trust to respond with love, compassion, and non-judgment. (Note that later, when you've become less sensitive to the reactions of others, you can be even more courageous about putting your truth out there.)

Other shame resilience recommendations from Brown include:

• Understanding shame (and guilt)
• Recognizing what messages and expectations trigger shame
• Heightening our awareness by reality-checking the messages we receive and expectations we and others place on us. (i.e: reminding ourselves that advertising images do not represent reality, and that nobody's perfect, no matter how they appear)
• Using/accepting the word "shame," and talking about feelings and needs
• Connecting with other authentic people 

For more information, please check out Brene Brown's books and audios, The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, I Thought It Was Just Me, Women & Shame, and others.