Beginning to Heal Body-Image with Body Neutrality

I have never met a person who was satisfied with their body as it was right at that very second. Particularly among women I work with in my psychotherapy practice, I hear complaints, self-deprecating comments, and how something they are doing related to food, exercise, or anything else just isn’t quite right.

Instead of purely enjoying a dessert or other decadent and delicious food, we often say, “I shouldn’t be eating this.” Why can’t we just say, “This tastes amazing, I love it so much!” This often comes from internalized beliefs about food, and patterns of restrictive diets that lead to food guilt and shame. When given a compliment about an outfit, I often hear it thrown back with a negative, self-rejecting comment, like, “If only I were five (or more) pounds lighter, it would look better.” I hear, “I should be exercising more. I should be eating healthier.” I should, I should, I should… Why is this? Why do so many women hate their bodies and struggle with body-image most of their lives? Why do so many women put so much pressure on themselves to look like what society has deemed to be beautiful, attractive, hot, and sexy?

For those who struggle with emotional eating, disordered eating, or an eating disorder, body-image tends to be the last layer to heal. For so many people, body-image is deeply entrenched and entangled with emotional eating. The long-standing history of feeling less than because of their physical body is old, deeply rooted, and very difficult to shift. Learning how to practice body neutrality allows it to become more possible to shift into gratitude for our bodies, and eventually, maybe even lead to body positivity. Mindfulness, particularly the element of nonjudgment, is essential in this work of true self, and body acceptance in mind, body, and spirit.

So what is body neutrality and how does it help with healing body-image? Body neutrality is a mindfulness practice that creates a neutralizing impact on our relationship with our bodies. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgemental awareness. Mindfulness allows us to recognize and release judgement in a way that can be neutralizing and have a profound emotional impact. Body neutrality as a mindfulness exercise allows us to focus on facts and functions versus size, shape, judgements, and emotions. When I walk my clients through the process of body neutrality, often there are areas of their body that they struggle with to get to a place of neutrality, however, with time, practice, and more practice, they often find it is indeed possible to accept, and even to love their bodies.

Body neutrality is an exercise that first I have people do in their minds eye. I talk them through each area of their body and encourage them to neutralize any judgements, and consider a fact and/or a function about each body part. For instance, if someone doesn’t like an aspect of their nose, rather than focusing on the judgement or emotion around their nose, can they name a fact, it's this particular shape, it’s in the middle of my face, it has a bridge and nostrils… and so on. And then can they name a function, I use my nose to breathe and to smell. Once we get to a place of neutrality consistently, most people notice a decrease in their self-judgement and emotional distress when experiencing their body.

Then, if possible, we search for gratitude. Is it possible to be grateful for your nose, just as it existing is in this moment? Can you experience feeling your nose in space? If so, experiencing their nose from a space of nonjudgement and gratitude, it often begins to continue to shift from discomfort to neutrality, and then over time, maybe even positivity—although this is not the goal, just a possible outcome. I encourage you to try this practice, to observe your body in your mind’s eye as a whole, and just see if you can be present with your body as the container that lovingly holds you, in this moment, just as it is. Then slowly move through your head and face, neck and shoulders, arms and hands, torso, hips, legs and feet. With each part of your body, consider a fact and/or a function. Notice how that feels. If an emotion or judgement comes in, notice it and let it go. If possible, see if you can offer gratitude to each part as you go through the exercise, not to force it, just to see what occurs.

When practiced consistently over time, body neutrality can transform your relationship with your body, as well as with yourself.

Spring Cleaning for Mind, Body, & Spirit

I recently saw this quote by Marie Condo, “The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living in that environment.” I was so inspired I not only decided to create a webinar based on this topic and start writing this blog post, I started seeing mental and emotional cleansing as opportunities to feel happier within my own internal environment. With my background in art, psychology, yoga, and health coaching, I am drawn to inner exploration, personal growth, and healing. I love learning about and doing things that allow me to feel mentally and emotionally more grounded, at ease, and healthier in mind, body, and spirit.

The spring equinox arrives on Tuesday, March 19th this year. Season changes are always a wonderful time to reflect and prepare. As you reflect, you can begin to clear out the clutter and cobwebs from the winter that have lodged themselves within your psyche, your body, and your spirit. Preparing for any changes you’d like to welcome in with the spring season will help inspire the new growth you desire to welcome into your life. Spring represents renewal, color, growth, life, and optimism. I wanted to explore and offer some ways to welcome in the spring season in a way that allows you to lighten your load from the winter, so that your inner environment can feel happier.

Breathing Practices

The breath is our most powerful tool for healing. It’s something we always have with us, it’s a reminder that we are alive. Breathing is an automatic process in our body that will continue to go on whether or not we are paying attention to it. When we do bring our breath into our direct awareness, we can positively impact, and communicate with our nervous system, and therefore all of the systems of our bodies. There is a saying in yoga, the nose is for breathing and the mouth is for eating. Most of the time we want to breathe in and out through our nose. However, there are some practices that are used while exhaling through the mouth, but only while engaging in those specific practices. Here are some cleansing practices that will help you spring clean your mind, body, and spirit through the power of your breath.

• Ujjayi Breathing: Breathe in through your nose, slowly and deeply, open your mouth and exhale as if you were attempting to fog a mirror, let the exhale continue in that way slowly until you complete your exhale. Repeat for one minute with your mouth closed for the exhales. This breathing practice is cleansing, and brings a deeper connection to the present moment. It also builds a little heat in your body, so it has an energizing effect as well.

• Lion’s Breath: Breathe in through your nose until your abdomen and lungs are full, pause, open your mouth, stick out your tongue, look up, and exhale. If you like, you can add curling your fingers in claw shapes as you exhale energetically. This breath is deeply cleansing, and releases stress from your mind and body.

• So-Hum Breath: Breathe in through your nose, exhale through your nose, with your normal breathing rhythm. Allow your breathing rhythm to become calming and serene. Say “So” in your mind as you inhale, and “Hum” in your mind as you exhale. Continue for 1-5 minutes. This is one of the most simple mantras you can use and it offers connection to the present moment. This practice calms the mind and the body. This breathing practice naturally dissipates stress, tension, and discomfort. When your mind wanders, which it will, gently, with compassion, bring your mind back to the mantra, “so, hum” with each inhale and each exhale.

Journal Prompts

Journaling is another wonderful tool to help clear mental clutter, process your inner world of emotions, and offer a place for your psyche to rest. A journal is a container that can hold, separate you from, and provide relief for the inner workings of your mind. Taking time to process your feelings, keep a log of your day, write down what you are grateful for, log your challenges, your wins, what went well, what you need support around etc… can all be deeply healing for your mind, body, and spirit. Journaling allows you to feel connected to yourself, your intuition, and it invites your soul to speak. Here are few journaling prompts that can support clearing the clutter of your mind, body, and spirit.

• When you look ahead to the spring season, what seeds do you want to plant within yourself? This could be a goal, a hope, a plan, a new positive internal belief, just write for 1-5 minutes from a stream of consciousness, anything that comes to mind.

• Take a moment to reflect back, thinking about the past couple of months, has something blocked you, or stood in your way to move towards what you want? If so, how can you reconcile that now in your mind and body so that you can begin to move forward? 

• Reflect on any patterns of self-sabotage all throughout your life. Not to be unkind to yourself, but to look for one way you can disrupt this pattern to ensure it does not cause harm to the seeds you’d like to plant for yourself moving forward. Examples could be, doing more daily reflection with self-awareness, working with a therapist to heal these old patterns, doing more of anything that creates more confidence and trust within yourself. 

• Now imagine, how you will provide these seeds with nourishment? How will you help them grow? How will you ensure that they will be cared for as they sprout, and blossom? Write out all of the ways you will care for these seeds that you’ve planted and commit to their growth within your mind, body, and spirit.

• Write out anything else you’d like to clear from your mind, body, and spirit as you ease into the spring.

After your do this journaling, commit to spending time with the seeds you’ve planted within yourself. Keep a daily and/or weekly reflection log asking, how did I nourish the seeds I’ve planted of my intentions for the spring today? Consistency is key. Believe in your ability to grow what you desire within your life, ask for support and help if you need it, and show up for yourself fully and compassionately.

Self-Affirming Statement Creation

Having a helpful affirmation can offer hope, a reminder, and way of shifting out of the old patterns and beliefs, creating new, more useful ones. When you think about what you’d like to cultivate within your life as you ease into spring, what simple statement would help you re-anchor into the present moment. Think about a statement that will support you to move forward rather than being pulled down into past patterns. Take a moment and brainstorm all of the affirmations that come to mind, and then say them all out loud. Which one resonates with you the most? Write it down, set it as a reminder in your phone to pop up daily, practice saying it consistently, use it as a mantra. This statement will always be available to remind you of your desired outcome and reconnect you to the seeds you’ve planted within. Take it with you, use it to nourish these seeds, and your mind, body, and spirit. 

Visualization

Visualizing what you want is a helpful practice when cultivating the garden of what you want to create and grow within yourself. Our brain is essentially a recording of everything we’ve known, seen, and done up to this point in time. It will always return to default mode, especially if there are lingering negative, limiting, internalized beliefs. It will also return to default mode when we are living mindlessly from day to day. When you visualize what you want, you are offering your brain a new template, a new way of seeing things, a new way to be. This allows you to practice, to rehearse within your mind, new ways of being and offer options for your future self. Visualization is amazing and powerful work.

When visualizing, it is helpful to be comfortable, relaxed, and at ease within your mind and body. Take a moment to steady your breath, letting it become calming and serene. Allow your body to relax, easing the space between your eyebrows, unhinging your jaw, and softening around your shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. Now bring to mind this seed you’d like to plant within your psyche, your mind, your body, your heart, and your whole being, as we ease into spring. Begin to see the daily practice of watering it, feeding it, growing it, nourishing it, nurturing it, see what all of these offerings look like. Now see yourself attaining the blossoms or fruit it’s bearing, how it will impact your life, how you will feel, really allow these feelings to sink into your being. Hold the image for as long as feels right. Bring in your self-affirming statement and repeat it in your mind to strengthen this image, for as long as feels right. Now allow the image to sink into your heart space, and hold it there for a breath, knowing you can bring this imagery forward to return to hope, self-trust, and inspiration to take consistent action any time you need to. As it fades, smile, and say to yourself, “and so it is.”

I hope these practices offer you support to believe in yourself, to trust yourself, and to allow hope and compassion to lead you forward into a healing, resourced, and healthy spring season. Practice letting go daily of what you no longer need, practice breathing, journaling, and visualization to guide you forward. You deserve to live a life filled with compassion, hope, inspiration, and joy. 

10 Reasons You're in a Funk + What to Do About It

When you feel stuck in a rut, a bad mood, or negative mindset, it can be challenging to get out of that funk when you are deeply entrenched in it. Sometimes you might just wake up in a funk that you can’t seem to shake. You might wake up feeling anxious, generally more pessimistic, stressed, or grumpy, for seemingly no reason. Moods can strike at any time, and sometimes these moods seem way out of alignment with what your current circumstances might actually be presenting you with. Trying to “think positive”, “just snap out of it”, or “just let it go” is not helpful advice, because in those moments it may feel like, sure, I would if I could, and wouldn’t that be nice if that could be the case— but when you feel stuck, most likely, you can’t just let it go.

Emotions are powerful, important, and necessary. Emotions provide information about how you are experiencing the present moment through your physical body. When you stuff, repress, or suppress your emotions, they only fester, they do not go away. When you bury emotions, you bury them alive.

The good news is that you actually have more ability to manage your emotions than you might think. However, it takes practice to develop emotional awareness, and a willingness to be present with feeling states that are uncomfortable. When you are struggling with shaking the feeling of being in a funk, it’s important to explore why it’s even there in the first place.

Emotional congruency occurs when you are experiencing an emotion that is providing direct information about your current experience. The emotion is directly congruent with the cause. This is so important as it creates an opportunity in the moment to make a choice about how to respond to the emotion. When you can evaluate the emotion, and begin to understand the message of the emotion, you can then make a sound choice about how to feel, process, and cope, or just be with the emotion. This allows an opportunity to move forward from the feeling state in a way that feels empowering. This is very advanced emotional awareness and intelligence and comes with intentional practice over time. However, now is always the best time to practice.

When we are experiencing an emotion that feels incongruent, like when we wake up in a funk, anxious, stressed, grumpy (or any other uncomfortable internal experience that does not seem to relate to our current experience), it may be time to do some emotional exploration, excavation, and awareness building. Emotional incongruence causes mood states that can take over and feel uncomfortable, and these funks can occur for a number of reasons. Below I’ll explain ten common reasons you might be in a funk, and further down I offer some suggestions to help yourself understand the funk, and hopefully begin tp help yourself out of the funk.

-1. There is an emotion that you have suppressed or repressed that wants to be expressed, felt, understood, and processed.

-2. You are living outside of the present moment. If you evaluate how you are feeling and there is no triggering or causal experience conjuring this emotion, then you might ask yourself, is this feeling connected to something from my past or a worry about my future? If so, there is actually a lot that can be done to help move forward from this feeling state.

-3. You are struggling with a more chronic mental health challenge and it may be of great benefit to talk with a therapist or other medical professional about what you are experiencing. There are so many tools that can support mental health including a variety of therapeutic techniques, lifestyle practices, medication, and supplements. Please don’t suffer alone, there is help available.

-4. You had a rough night of sleep and feel unrested, not fully ready to take on your day and tiredness is impacting your mood.

-5. You had a bad dream that is difficult to shake off, and it’s left a residue of fear, frustration, or other uncomfortable emotion.

-6. You were triggered the previous day and haven’t yet re-stabilized into a feeling of being connected to your body, you still feel unsafe/uncomfortable.

-7. You have created a habit of mindlessly going through the motions of your day, and you feel uncomfortable with and disconnected from your life.

-8. There is something in your current life circumstance that is draining your energy, and you are not confronting it, you are not changing something that you know needs to change.

-9. Your life feels out of alignment with your goals, desires, dreams, and personal needs.

-10. You carry the negative internalized belief that you function best when you are in a state of negativity, self-punishing, and pessimism (these are subconscious, limiting beliefs).

There may be many more reasons you might be in a funk, or experiencing a mood that seems to be incongruent with your present experiences. However, the good news is that when you can evaluate the why, you create more self-awareness. With greater self-awareness, you can make a choice about how to respond to the why, and determine how you can feel empowered rather than powerless to your moods.

Here are some ways to help support yourself and possibly un-funk yourself for each of the above 10 possible causes:

-1. If you are suppressing or repressing emotions, it is most helpful to start creating some type of practice to develop emotional awareness. When you have a greater understanding of why you might be avoiding, suppressing and/or repressing certain emotions, you can begin to do some emotional excavation. This is where therapy can be tremendously useful, EMDR therapy in particular. However, there is a lot you can do on your own as well. Having a feelings wheel handy, and spending time linking emotions that you most seem to avoid feeling with either past experiences or triggers, you can begin to unearth these emotions and learn to process them.

-2. If you are living outside of the present moment, you are letting feelings about the past or future impact your present experience. Practicing mindfulness consistently allows more awareness of how to live in the here and the now, not the past or future. If you think about your life in terms of a set of journals, consider that all of your past journals are filled with feelings, experiences, and memories. If you are living in the past and re-experiencing those feelings in the present, it’s like reading those old journals over and over again without wanting to do so. If you are worrying about the future, it’s as if you are trying to fill up your future journals before you’ve had the lived experience, and often you are filling those journals with fearful, worst-case scenario material. If you imagine the journal that you have for this moment, it is simple, you are writing out your experience based on what is true right now. With each moment, you write only about NOW. If you have material from your past that just keeps showing up, you may benefit from doing some form of therapy to process those memories with a professional. You also may benefit from developing a mindfulness and/or meditation practice to learn how to live more consistently in the here and the now. If you are struggling with constant worries about the future, there are wonderful therapeutic treatments for anxiety, reach out and find the support you need.

-3. If you are struggling with a more chronic mental health challenge, and you feel there is no specific trigger for your current mood state, I encourage you to consider some form of mental health treatment as help is available. You deserve to find a way towards healing. As I previously said, there are so many tools that can support mental health, including a variety of therapeutic techniques, lifestyle practices, medication, and supplements. Please don’t suffer alone, there is help available.

-4. If you had a rough night of sleep, can you practice self-compassion? Remind yourself that if you did not sleep well, it will have an impact on your mood, energy, focus, and your ability to fully engage in the tasks that need to get done. Be gentle with your rough mood, and try to get some rest. Creating a sleep hygiene practice that you stick with consistently for at least a month can help shift your sleep schedule into one that is more restorative and restful.

-5. If you had a bad, uncomfortable, or distressing dream, and now you just feel icky from it, it can be helpful to journal about your dream. One technique that is very helpful is to write out your dream but re-write a new ending. This will help to release the lingering uncomfortable emotions and therefore help to un-funk your mood.

-6. If you were triggered on a previous day and not yet feeling stabilized or grounded in your body, it can be helpful to do somatic exercises. Somatic exercises help to release distress from your physical body. Some examples are, deep breathing, visualizing the discomfort as a color that you can clear out with your breath, shaking out your body all at once while lying down or even just through one limb at a time. Tensing and releasing your body from head to toe—or toes to head—can be helpful to exaggerate the discomfort, but then to release it with a deep exhale to practice letting the discomfort go. You can use your five senses to ground into your present place and time to feel more connected to your body. This may look like naming something you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch and let your senses create a connection to your body in the present moment. Yoga, exercising, stretching, tai-chi, and other movement can all help release somatic discomfort lingering from a trigger. Journaling, talking about your trigger, and addressing it in therapy can also be very helpful.

-7. If you notice that you are going about your daily life mindlessly and living for the perceived “fun times” such as the weekend, vacation, or some other experience that you have to wait for, you are going through the motions rather than truly living your life. If you are feeling as though you are lacking meaning and purpose in your daily life, you might benefit from working with a coach, volunteering, taking up a new hobby, and journaling about what brings you a sense of meaning, and pursue how to bring that into your life more consistently. You also can try to find meaning and purpose in the small, simple joys of life, stretch out your day a little and find pockets where you have space to breathe, to stop and smell the flowers. Find what enchants you, and pursue that daily. Learn mindfulness techniques to live in the present moment more consistently.

-8. If you just feel like something is off in your current day to day and yet you are doing nothing to address it, it is helpful to get honest with yourself. This might be a relationship that is draining your energy and impacting your mood. It could be someone at your job that you are not happy with, or any other circumstance that is troubling you, and you are actively avoiding it, as you are really attempting to avoid the perceived discomfort you will feel through confrontation. Typically, these types of moods fester and can become more difficult mental health struggles if left unaddressed. Many people struggle with confrontation and/or fear having to change something they aren’t sure how to change. If something feels off in your life, and you are not considering how to deal with it, I encourage you to talk with someone you trust, a therapist, coach, mentor or otherwise, to help you create a plan for how to move forward with more intention so that you can address and cope with what is robbing you of joy on a daily basis.

-9. If something feels out of alignment with your goals, dreams, and personal needs, it is helpful to address this as well. For example, it could be something such as you feel you have pursued a particular career, only to find that you don’t really want to do that for the rest of your life, or that you aren’t satisfied with your peer group, where you live or otherwise. This is a scenario that is usually more connected to a lack of fulfillment versus a deep unhappiness with the direct circumstances you are in. Working with a therapist, coach or mentor can help you sort out how to proceed, how to live more in alignment with what brings you a sense of personal fulfillment. Life is too short to not live in alignment with your dreams. Sometimes you have to make a radical change to create a life you love.

-10. If you struggle with negative self-talk, you may feel that you are motivated by the negative inner language that gets you up and going each day. However, this negative self-talk also causes you to feel pretty bad about yourself most of the time. If you are running your life based on negative internalized beliefs that can be changed! If you feel you need to beat yourself up to get things done such as get out of bed, exercise, eat nourishing foods, even simple daily tasks like brushing your teeth, there is a better way. Having self-compassion, speaking to yourself as you would a friend, and giving yourself the opportunity to motivate yourself through believing in yourself will actually help you go much farther in the long run.

If you carry negative internalized beliefs, such as I am not good enough, I am unworthy, I am a failure, I have to be perfect to be loved, I am unsafe… (the list goes on and on)… please know that you are not alone and that there is help to rewrite these old negative cognitions and beliefs into their opposites. EMDR is a powerful therapeutic modality that is evidence-based, and proven to help release negative beliefs and create positive ones through the course of treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness techniques, self-compassion practices, compassionate inquiry, and traditional talk therapy can all help as well.

I am going to be back to talk more about common emotional incongruences soon, but in the meantime, I hope you will take a deeper look at the mood states you are experiencing and just get curious, ask yourself, “is this about what I am currently experiencing, or can I look deeper within and learn more about my emotions, my present experience, and is there anything I can do in the here and the now to feel empowered to un-funk myself?” If so, I hope you choose to do it, so that you can feel more hopeful, grounded, and aligned. I hope you choose to take hold of the power within yourself to live and feel in alignment with how you want to live and feel in this very moment.