Reclaiming Joy

This has been a challenging year for me personally and as the time approaches for my next birthday I have been reflecting on all the changes that have happened in my life in the past year both personally and professionally.

I have made a promise to myself in the past couple months to reclaim my joy. It’s so easy to get lost in all the things I have to do that I recently realized I don’t often ask myself about the things I want to do, much less make the time and space for those things. It’s a difficult thing to realize, but it has prompted me to really give myself more space. So, my birthday resolution this year is to do more of the things I want even if it means I do a little less of the other stuff.

Here are some tools I have found helpful and perhaps you will too:

• Make room for curiosity. What are you curious about that you talk yourself out of?

• Do non-productive things badly. You don’t need to be the best artist or dancer or baker. Give yourself permission to do fun things just because.

• Do set limits. In personal and work relationships. It will be uncomfortable, but limits are about you and not about other people allowing you to have them.

• Let go of that which is not serving you. Take inventory of your beliefs, stories, and daily habits. What is not serving you? Why are you holding on to it? What would happen if you let it go?

• Face your fears. Often the narrative about the thing we’re afraid of is much worse than the thing itself. Our mind creates dragons where there are puppies.

A final bit of advice: being uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe. It’s important to cultivate skills to be able to discern the difference. If this is something you would like to work toward please feel free to reach out.

A meditation on transitions

Life transitions can be rough even in the best of times. They force us to reflect and reorganize what we thought we knew about ourselves and the world. They throw our worries and insecurities into sharp relief against the fabric of the unfamiliar. Transitions ask us to reflect on who we are and who we want to become.

I’ve been reflecting on some of my own transitions recently and noticing the parts of myself they have been bringing out. The desire to cling to the familiar and the fear of the new. The alternating elation, doubt, and occasional disappointment of what a new experience can bring.

In going through this process myself, I’ve been finding value in meditation as an anchoring practice. Meditation invites us to explore the process of change. The more we fight and try to force change, the more stuck we become.

The past few months have been a process for me of getting stuck and unstuck. A practice of acceptance that can feel very circular. I often think of therapy as a gradual process of moving toward the center of a very large circular maze. We move through the process more or less intentionally and a lot of it looks familiar, yet somehow different each time.

Here is a brief meditative practice to use in times of transition:

1. Sit up and close your eyes. Take a deep breath in through the nose and slowly exhale through the mouth.

2. Scan the body to find a place that feels relatively comfortable, grounded, and/or calm.

3. Notice any feelings that may be arising around the transitions in your life and where those feelings reside in your body.

4. Spend a few minutes just observing the physical sensations present in the comfortable and uncomfortable spaces, pendulating back and forth with the breath.

5. Intentionally allow your mind to drift back and forth. Imagine each pendulum swing becoming a little slower, a little shorter, until you slow all the way down.

6. Stay here as long as you like. Repeat as needed.

Happy meditating! :)

Diet Culture Myths and How to Fight Them

As we get more into the holiday and new year’s resolution season, I thought it might be helpful to reflect on diet culture.

You have likely heard the term “diet culture” before, but what exactly is it? Diet culture is perhaps best defined as a set of social norms and assumptions around the way we eat, move, and look. There are a number of social narratives that reinforce diet culture every day and we experience those narratives in variety of contexts from the office, grocery store, advertising, and TV show plotlines.

Here are some narratives to be aware of:

• You have a social/moral/health-based imperative to lose weight.

• There are “bad” foods and “good” foods.

• There are “clean” and “toxic” foods.

• If you have eaten a “bad” (i.e. high calorie) food then you have to “burn it off” with exercise.

• You earn “cheat meals” by being “good” and restricting your foods at other times of the day/week.

• You are led to believe that simply eating what you want, when you want it, in whatever quantity feels satisfying to your body will result in “letting yourself go” (i.e. gaining weight).

• Compliments when people have lost weight and the assumption that people who have gained weight must have something wrong with or about them.

A common and particularly pernicious myth we experience is the equation of someone losing weight as a path to becoming more attractive or worthy of love, admiration, and/or success. Here are a few ways you can start to combat the pressures of diet culture in your own life:

• Learn about the frameworks that keep diet culture in place and actively explore anti-diet resources to learn more accurate information about health and nutrition. Check out the podcasts Let Us Eat Cake or Food Psych. Both are created by anti-diet nutritionists.

• Create space to nurture your body. Shift out of the self-punishment and self-discipline mindsets.

• Make meals fun, play with your food, use your imagination. Try new recipes, arrange your food in fun ways. Make a smiley face in your morning oatmeal. Create a broccoli tree forest.

• Get rid of any clothes that don’t fit. Stop buying things are too small so you can motivate yourself to lose weight. You deserve clothes that fit you exactly as you are now.

• Get rid of your fitness apps. Stop counting/tracking everything you eat and every time you exercise.

• Prioritize “movement” over “exercise.” Moving your body should not hurt, make you nauseous, or leave you feeling exhausted and sore for days.

• Throw out the “inspiration” photos, unfollow the fitness influencers, and step out of the body comparison game. Shaming yourself into having a different body is not a great strategy for cultivating self-love.

• Ask yourself how you’d rather spend the time you dedicate to losing weight and/or changing something about your body. Would you play with your kids? Have a nap? Read a good book? Do that instead.

If you’re struggling with deconstructing diet culture messages, intrusive thoughts about your body shape or size, or chronic dieting don’t hesitate to reach out for help!