This is an awareness test.

Focus, this is tough!

So, how did you do? It took me a couple of times. I watched a video similar to this for the first time in a safety leadership class for my job. The idea behind showing the video was to remind us that we need to be aware of unsafe circumstances in the work place. What I began to think about though, is the parallel of this video to my life and its reinforcement of some things I've been learning. Simply put, we see what we focus our attention on and in the process may miss other seemingly obvious things. When I watch this video while focusing on the white team passing the ball, I don't even see "bear" trying to moonwalk. How could I not see something so obvious!?

I've often used this question rhetorically as evidence to argue that I do not have a beautiful or athletic body. It seems like a completely logical, air tight conclusion. If I see that parts of my body are "fat" and/or "ugly" then how can someone say they aren't. I see my body with my own eyes, and our eyes don't lie...right? I used to think things were this black and white but I'm learning that this is not the case.

The more I obsessively focus on something the less I see of other things and the more I mold the image that I am "seeing." Our minds are mysteriously powerful and what we focus on, we see. If I focus on the fat on my legs, that is what I will see and the image becomes more distorted as my obsessions grow. This dedicated focus also distracts me from noticing other parts and functions of my body. Just like I would have sworn there was no "dancing bear" in the video above, I become convinced that my body essentially consists of the fat on my legs, because, in both cases, that is what I "see!"

In order to see the "Bear" in the video I had to first realize that the real goal was not to count the number of passes. Then I had to apply a different level of awareness and unbiased curiosity about what I was seeing. In the same way, in order for me to see my body in its true beauty, I have to realize that the ultimate goal is not to have a perfect body by societal standards. Then I have to practice awareness of my whole body and apply that unbiased curiosity combined with loving appreciation for what I experience. Like the video says at the end, "It's easy to miss something you're not looking for."

The Hunger Spectrum

When people talk about emotional eating I often picture extreme stress or other uncomfortable emotions followed by the conscious decision to eat or binge to numb that feeling. Although this does happen and is obviously not natural, I'm finding that many times identifying emotional eating can be a little less obvious. Sometimes I don't even recognize emotional eating until I look back after I've eaten way too much in a distracted or unconscious way. I don't necessarily notice feeling ultra stressed out or depressed so I figure, oh, a couple of bites in front of the TV won't hurt, but then a couple bites becomes the whole piece, and the whole next piece, and so on. Before I know it, I've totally fallen way out of whack and am left discouraged, disappointed, and a little bewildered that I turned down that road again! Why do I not recognize it and what it will become at the beginning? 

With no way to deal with them growing up, I have practiced since I was young not to "feel" painful, sometimes taboo emotions. In my environment these were the majority of emotions but especially sadness, depression, anxiety, loneliness, love, kind words, appreciation, acceptance, disagreement, etc. and as I grew, I became more and more hungry for the emotional needs that I was not receiving. Like the majority of our society, I was also immersed in emotional and moral associations with food and appearance, and as I got older, I began to recognize that food made uncomfortable feelings go away or a while. Gradually my body began to associate emotions with food signals and my emotional "hunger" began to display similar thoughts and sensations to biological hunger. I had "hunger" in my emotional self so my body physically told me "I want food! I'm hungry!" This skewed mind-body signal became even more engrained as I continued to reinforce it with emotional eating or restricting.

Over the years my mind-body has learned that it is safer to feel hungry for food. Food never disappoints, it never leaves me or falls back on its commitments. When I'm biologically hungry I can eat and the hunger pangs subside. The problem with emotional eating is that the hunger I am truly experiencing is not biological, and feeding a biological hunger will never truly satisfy the actual "hunger." Eating feels good at first. It numbs me during that initial euphoria as I "use" it, but it never seems to fill me up. I can't get enough. I continue to eat, searching for satisfaction from my emotional hunger but I can't quite grasp it and at the end I'm left wondering "what the heck just happened!?"

Knowledge of ourselves is a powerful thing. If we can recognize that all encompassing "hunger feeling" and break it up into its components, like a prism separates the components of white light into a whole spectrum of colors, then we can identify exactly what types of hunger we are experiencing. Are the biological sensations sincere? Am I hungry for peace, rest, friendship, companionship, love, purpose, something to do? If I'm biologically hungry, food is the best food! But, if I'm hungry for acceptance or friendship, food will not fill me. Take a moment to feel the true hunger that you are experiencing and realize that it is ok.

"You aren't a bad person with low will power simply because you've eaten to cope! The problem is: long ago all of your hungers became confused into one signal - the signal for food. Be grateful for all the ways eating has helped you survive." -V Hansen, S. Goodman

No More Puffin'

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes, and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power." -Shirley MacLaine

Last night I remember having a very vivid dream in which I was smoking a cigar. In the dream I remember feeling guilty for indulging in such a "contemptible" behavior but I was enjoying it. It was very vivid. I remember sucking through the cigar and blowing out smoke, tasting a burnt flavor in my mouth, and tapping ashes off of the end of the cigar. What's funny is that I have never smoked a day in my life nor do I have any desire to do so. I remember in my dream feeling silly because I didn't really know what I was doing. Like most other mornings I woke up, briefly remembered my dream, thought "that was bizarre," and totally forgot about it.

Later in the day I finished up some shopping and walked out of the front doors of the store. As I took in my first breath I involuntarily gasped as the -10 degree air hit my lungs...and you know what the first split second thought to come to my mind was?..."Man, those cigars are messing up my lungs!" Baaahhh!! Wait! What!? I have never taken a puff of smoke in my entire life and yet, I had had such a vivid mental image of myself smoking a cigar that my mind associated my gasp with my lungs' inability to handle the cold because of smoking cigars.

I've gone through most of my life thinking that things like positive affirmations and the power of positive thinking were silly and just being used to try to make people "feel" better by pretending and denying the truth. Yet, if one obviously untrue vivid mental image (that I didn't even know I had remembered) could trigger me to react toward myself in such a convinced way (albeit for just a split second), imagine what continual negative thoughts toward ourselves can do. If I often look at my legs and think about how fat and ugly they are, then when I try on a pair of pants that don't fit, what is my first reaction going to be? Just like my initial thought about smoking cigars, I will think "Man, my legs are so fat and ugly." I would assume that this is why the pants didn't fit, just like I briefly assumed the cigar smoking was why I gasped, despite the actual validity of either assumption.

If one fleeting image of me smoking can make me assume that I gasped because I smoke cigars, the implications of continually reinforcing negative thoughts and perceptions are huge! These images and ideas we pound into our minds result in reacting as if those images and ideas are true. And by reacting as if they are true, they easily become true. They can then be even more strongly reenforced in our minds. I do not believe that we should ignore our problems or past or current pains nor should we just try and forget about them by "thinking positively," but we must realize and acknowledge the immense influence that the atmosphere of our thoughts has on the rest of our lives...mental and physical. There comes a point when dwelling on certain images and thoughts ceases to help us through difficult times and only perpetuates negative emotions and physical discomfort. We really do have the choice to think in whatever way we want to, which, considering the impact of those thoughts, is quite empowering! May we all put down the cigar!

It's not easy being green

One of the things that I struggle with is my self body image and the way I feel and talk about my body and self. I enjoyed my body when I was a child. I don't know if I consciously loved it because it just was what it was...I didn't have a concept of judgement against my body. Throughout the years and a slew of factors I've come to a place where I am often disgusted with parts of my body.  I've often used negative self talk thinking that if I was hard enough on myself I could change the way I looked. I've learned some interesting things over the last year though. I've realized that I've been looking at things from the complete wrong direction.

When people have told me that I have to love my body my thought (with sarcasm) has often been "everybody who ever tells me that is beautiful with a rockin' body." When I would think this I would think it in an "easy for you to say" way. What I'm beginning to see though, is the awesome obvious. Yes, all the people who have told me to love my body have had, in my opinion, great bodies. But oh my goodness, if they are right, shouldn't they be the ones with the "great bodies?" My dietitian once told me that she had never met an overweight person who got that way by loving themselves. The flaw in my thinking was that beautiful people loved their bodies because they had fabulous bodies, but in reality, it's the other way around. Beautiful people are beautiful because they have a healthy, beautiful love and view of themselves. The way we think about ourselves manifests itself in our bodies. Beauty is relative. If we see ourselves as beautiful and believe and act like we are, then we are beautiful!

Thus comes the hard part, loving my body before I feel it's 100% lovable. Loving my body in spite of the fact that it is not fabulously perfect. I'm learning that this takes time and patience. There's no magic switch or pill that makes us love our bodies. That is what the diet industry is trying to sell us. The first step is to stop any negative talk or comments about ourselves and/or body. Then we can begin to notice a part of our body that we like, enhance it in our minds, and then slowly move to the rest of our body. Focus on what you love and give zero attention to any negative thoughts. It feels really difficult but, unless everyone else is lying in the same exact manor, we'll gradually change and really loving our bodies won't be a struggle.

I was recently watching one of the first episodes of the Muppet's Show and a lot of the things that I've been learning about my view of myself and my body came together as I listed to Kermit's famous "It's not easy being green" song. I'll admit it's pretty silly saying this, but this song is awesomely profound and admirable.

"When green is all there is to be it could make you wonder why, but why wonder? why wonder? I'm green, it'll do fine...it's beautiful! and I think it's what I want to be."

Nia

Shortly before I went to the Center for Change I was reading about their program and came across an activity that I'd never heard of before...it seemed a little "suspicious." I said "what...the heck...is Nia??" It definitely sounded a little too woo-woo. I grew up in a very conservative environment with a football coach and weight trainer as a father and five siblings to shine against. Traditional training and athletics were a big deal in our little community and with the addition of my dad's views and my desire for his attention and approval, I was actively involved. I didn't know much about alternative types of exercise (as apposed to lifting weights, running, calisthenics, and team sports) but I "knew" that things like yoga and dance were for wussies and nuts.

Nia grew on me at the Center but the years after coming home I fell back on traditional exercise and apprehension about less traditional techniques. I think this was largely due to my environment and the expectations and opinions of my dad and others around me. I recently, however, had an experience that has really helped to adjust that last bit of apprehensive attitude towards intuitive movement and fun in exercise. I've been digitizing hours of home videos and ran across some tape of my youngest brother and sister "dancing." The first thought I had was wow, that reminds of me of Nia! I mean, it looked so much like Nia it could have passed for a Nia class if they weren't four years old (albeit it is a bit more sporadic and acrobatic). I recalled their performances and our responses to them. We thought they were cute, athletic, energetic, and talented. I asked myself "why should there be a difference between our attitude toward what these kids were doing and Nia, dance, or yoga? The only difference was that it wasn't called "Nia." It was just a couple of kids having a fun time moving their bodies and burning some energy. I realized that there is really no reason why I should have a different attitude towards doing the same thing myself. The fact that I'm not a kid anymore should not prohibit me from having fun by moving my body and burning some energy! People are always saying that they would love to be as fit as a kid. Well, then, it makes sense to listen to our bodies and move them like one!