Changing the Patterns

Those who take my Mindful Eating class know that I insist that we not talk about weight loss. We focus, instead, on the roots of what we’re carrying around – whether it’s weight or something else – that is not something that we want. The first– and sometimes difficult - part of that is to love ourselves as we are. When we really get a good handle on that, when we can look at ourselves and where we’ve been and see it with great compassion, we are on our way home. “I know how I got here; I see what my experience has been –“. Not just as a neutral statement, but with heart bursting with compassion. As if we could see that earlier self, right now, enduring, doing all (s)he can just to survive. We aren’t focusing on “fixing” our weight, but rather on letting that scared, hurt part of us experience safety and what it feels like to be cared about.

We need to be extraordinarily gentle with ourselves when we feel afraid. And not have an expectation of self that is not realistic as well. Sometimes we can’t come back to inner balance until we get out into the car, or get home, or sit with our diary, or go for a long walk, or overeat - or whatever we need to do to get to a place where we can sit down with ourselves and say, “OK, let me get down to the root here and what do I need to do for me? What am I going to do to take care of me? ” And – not selling ourselves out as fodder to buy permission to exist.

As soon as we wake up to the pattern, itself, it starts to shift. We need to allow for the possibility that it can be different – especially if we’ve had a long-term condition. This can be one of the biggest challenges for us in making the necessary changes to authentically get out of the mire. To allow room for whatever it is – overweight, a chronic ailment, an ailing relationship - to be different. Whatever it is where we feel like “that’s the story of my life.”

Click here: http://www.maryanniyer.com/articlehome.html for the full article, which includes a meditation for integration: “Finding Your Innocence”.

FEAD It Differently

When teaching Mindful Eating classes, I always pose the question: “Why do you eat?” The reasons class participants give are myriad, and seldom is it true hunger that stimulates the eating response. Emotional eating stands out as one of the major reasons for reaching for food. Anxiety, stress, worry, fear, anger—all can involve sensations that mimic hunger. Furthermore, as sensations go, these all rank as uncomfortable. Smothering them with food has become the coping method of choice for many.
Often, class participants discover hidden reservoirs of pain and suffering, many of which have their origins early in life. As we delve ever deeper into the roots of our maladaptive behavior associated with eating, we find ourselves wrestling with the demons of the past that continue to haunt the psyche with their messages of inadequacy, failure, and so on. I have found that by facing, embracing, allowing space and invoking divine grace (FEAD), participants begin to find a different way to deal with the empty spaces left in the wake of attacks from these difficult voices inside. In other words, they learn to FEAD themselves differently. Here’s what I mean:
1. Face it: Whatever is troubling you, wherever you feel the tension, anxiety or pain inside—pause right there and see if you can get a deeper, fuller sense of this place in you. Relax all around it and let it be. Face it squarely, giving it full permission to be there just as it is. Approach this place of discomfort with a sincere curiosity. There is something awry here, in this which is you, and you want to focus on knowing at a deeper level what that is.
Amazingly, as we do this, safety grows around parts of us that have historically felt rejected, shut off and abandoned. Simply because we approach these areas of ourselves and our lives with interest, the pain often begins to abate.
2. Embrace it: Go one step further. Approach this place of pain and offer it loving acceptance. Let it be there, with the full understanding that pain requires kindness, not rejection. Treat it as if it were a hurting child. In many ways, it is.
The healing begins here. As that which has been rejected feels itself being pulled back into the fold of the living with your warm embrace, it instantly begins to relax in a way that is uniquely healing and nurturing.
3. Allow Space for it: As you breathe deeply, embracing that which is hurting, begin to loosen your grip somewhat. Give it permission to be there, and simply allow space for
it—not the space of abandonment in which you turn your back on this part of you that is suffering, but a warm, fully loving and safe space. Compassionate space. Develop the capacity to love each part of yourself.
This means dropping the self-criticisms and judgments that have been aggravating the problem all this time. It means allowing room for change where in the past you may have begun a cycle of self-punishment. Explore this: just focus all your attention on breathing into a compassionate space around the area of pain, and watch with gentle curiosity.
4. Invoke Divine Grace: A last important step in this process is to invite into the picture an awareness that surpasses what you have known to be possible up to this point. We want to change old, repeating patterns that have caused ourselves and others harm. Sometimes, this means not only allowing space, but inviting new ideas to enter into that space. Whatever your belief system, invoke that which is beyond what you currently know to be possible. This expands the space into dimensions of possibility that your conscious mind has not yet realized, and is the basis for deep and lasting change.
Often, the last thing in the world we want when we are in pain is to feel more of the pain! We do everything in our power to escape, cover it up or otherwise remove it from our lives. Eating, for many, provides temporary anesthesia from feeling what hurts. By FEADing yourself differently, you provide safety, nurturance and room to evolve into a whole new way of being. The next time you’re in a tight spot, feeling the constriction inside, I invite you to explore this approach.

This is an excerpt from a longer article which you are free download from: www.maryanniyer.com, in the articles section.