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Article Title: The Yoga of Dieting
Author: Anna Stookey, MA, MFT, CHt.
Category: Yoga, Wellness, Personal Development
Word Count: 682
Keywords: diet, yoga, weight loss, bodymind, health, wellness, success, inside
Author's Email Address: [email protected]
Article Source: http://www.contentcrooner.com
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We live in a culture mired in the external result, the end product. One of the
most pervasive and noticeable ways this external agenda shows up is through
dieting-the constant search for an external result that plagues so many people.
We simply are not okay the way we are. There is always another place to get to,
more weight to be lost.
In this context, yoga is particularly powerful because it reminds us
instead of the process, reconnecting us to the essentials of awareness, breath,
slow and conscious movement. In a sense, yoga mirrors for us an alternative way
of being not only on the yoga mat but in our lives.
What yoga also invites is a meaningful relationship with our bodies.
Rather than push them to where we would like them to be, we need to work with
where we are, breathing and moving through resistances. We need to begin to
listen to our bodies rather than force them. For many, it may be the first time
they've slowed themselves long enough to even begin that process.
Despite shows like the Greatest Loser that extol the virtues of beating
ourselves into thinness, true change still seems to come from the inside out.
As we all know-and may even have experienced--even if the outside package has
changed and someone is successful at losing the weight they want, there can
still be an inner relationship with the body based on fear, submission and lack
of self-love. As a result, many people who lose weight on diets gain it back
again because the central way of relating to themselves hasn't changed. Their
fear of gaining weight spirals, and they end up right back where they started.
Losing weight, then, cannot successfully be just an external process. Just as
we do in yoga, we need to root ourselves in attitudes and awarenesses that
truly transform our experience of our bodies, even before we get to the outer
result. Doing that work first allows us to enter more fully into one of the
most important relationships of our lives--so that if and when change happens,
it feels safe and real. Here are some examples:
1) Make a Radical Choice to Love and Listen to Your Body First
Consciously or unconsciously, diets can bring us out of the present moment and
into 'someday.' Notice if you're waiting to love and listen to your body only
after you get to your goal weight and choose that more kind and caring
relationship now.
2) Think About the Inside, Not Just the Outside
Rather than thinking so much about what you want to look like when you've lost
weight, think about how you'd like to feel in your body. Would you feel more
alive, connected, sexier? Get specific about the qualities you feel losing
weight would bring you and think about how you can bring more of them into your
life even now.
3) Notice What's Happening
Begin to notice what kinds of messages you send to your body throughout the
day. Are you critical and scared or open, loving, supportive? If your body were
a person, how would it feel about being in a relationship where it received
those kinds of messages? As you become more aware, see if you can alter the
messages to reflect the kind of relationship you'd most like to have.
4) Invite and Commit to the Process
The relationship to the body can be a spiritual practice too. Some days you
will relate more consciously to your body than others. Consider some regular
check-in, like a journal, meditation or even writing a letter to your body,
that increases your commitment to working on your body relationship on a
regular basis.
Even the skinniest people may feel fear and disgust when relating to
their own bodies. Though we may believe that losing weight gets us freedom and
happiness, the external result is only one part of the process. If we commit to
the inside shifts first-like the foundations of breath and awareness in yoga-we
lay a foundation for the kind of true transformation and peace with ourselves
we've been seeking all along.
Anna Stookey is a psychotherapist & bodymind coach who helps people move into
their highest vision of health and wellness by partnering with their bodies
rather than working against them. Ongoing blog at
http://www.bodyreunion.blogspot.com or sign on to the website:
http://www.bodymindguide.com
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