A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

Thank You Love Substitutes

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Screen Shot 2014-02-02 at 7.29.03 PMThis month I am embarking on a new journey of teaching in live workshops.  I am sharing the tools and techniques in Lemons, Lemonade & Life in order to heal emotional eating.

For this new endeavor I needed to spread the word, and what better way to do that than electronically?  But, we’re all so busy these days, unless an email title is compelling enough, chances are we won’t even open it.

So as I pondered headlines, titles and idea after idea, nothing really resonated with me.  For weeks.  Then one night as my mind wandered, I really remembered what food meant to me before I healed emotionally.  Food was my focus.  It was comforting and kind to me.  For decades, food was my best friend.

I remember when I was obese.  I was unhappy and potentially facing illness and disease if I continued to gain weight.  I remember how I needed to change my relationship with food and, after I healed emotionally, I was finally ready to take those steps.

I realized that I needed to break up with food as my best friend.  It lied to me.  It felt caring and comforting and nurturing when I was eating it, yet that feeling didn’t last long.  And as my weight climbed and climbed, I remember feeling more and more helpless.  And that’s when I got the title: “Your Best Friend is a Liar… It’s Time to Break Up.”

I was successful in breaking up with food as my best friend.  And once I got back into the driver’s seat of my life and I stabilized my weight, I came to realize that food had been my substitute for love.  I didn’t feel badly about it, because it was a way to connect to love when I couldn’t feel it otherwise.  I needed love and understanding so desperately, and it provided that.  It kept me on the planet long enough to heal then learn to use it in a more balanced way.

Many of us use food as our substitute for love.  There are other love substitutes, such as shopping, alcohol, drugs, plastic surgery, exercise, career, money and even other people.  When we are out of balance and use them in excess, we can see the impact on our bodies and in the quality of our lives.

What’s beautiful about recognizing when you have a love substitute is identifying that what you really seek is love and understanding.  That is the positive wish underneath the excessive use of something, and it provides wonderful direction on how you can start moving forward – by building your self-love and self-understanding first.  After all, our love substitutes are habits, and habits can be broken.

In considering this, the idea of ridding yourself of love substitutes, you may ask, “Well, if I got rid of everything I enjoy, what’s left?”  And the answer is, nothing… and everything. Stripped of the distractions of life, you can identify the real you.  Your real gifts – ones you were born with that have been stymied — await you so that you can use the things of life in balance and harmony with your spirit. Who better to belong to and with than yourself?  Once that bond is established, it is permanent and your ability to shift your relationship with your love substitutes becomes a true possibility.

To build self-love and self-understanding, you can start by honoring what you did to survive to this point.  Understand that it served a positive purpose for you.  It may feel counter-intuitive, however when you acknowledge and honor what you did to survive, it gives you the ability to shift more easily.

If you feel that it’s time to break up with your love substitutes, you might not be ready at the moment, but thinking about it is a wonderful first step.

Use What You’re Given

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A friend of mine presented this topic to me and immediately my mind began to swirl.  “What an interesting idea,” I thought.  I was delighted to run with it, but running with it actually began not with a walk, but with a stroll.

“Hmmm… use what you’re given.”  To make sense of it, I thought about it in terms of my own life.  What was I given?  To me, the idea of being given something means that — once you receive it — that marks the beginning of the relationship with that particular thing.  But when I thought about it in terms of qualities I may have been born with, I couldn’t come up with anything because I don’t remember being born.

However, thinking retrospectively about the significant experiences in my life – the ones that really stand out… the ones that were really impactful — provided the answers about what I was given.  The answers revealed themselves as individual puzzle pieces that I was then able to fit together into my self-portrait.

The significant experiences in my life that immediately came to mind were the really tough ones.  They were experiences that I considered non-preferred, yet paradoxically enough, they were the experiences that provided me with the most gifts and insight into my own character.

For example, I made a business investment that didn’t pan out.  As time (and my disappointment) passed and self-forgiveness kicked in, I came to realize that I actually had courage.  I was willing to risk — to take a chance and venture into uncharted territory.  This courage allows me to continue to move forward in new ways even when I don’t know what the outcome will be.  Moreover, I came to understand that if I’m always learning and growing, perhaps there’s no such thing as a mistake, there’s just learning.

As another example, after I experienced sexual abuse as a child (and believing it was my fault), my self-esteem was so low that I felt that everyone else had a right to be alive except me.  But once I healed, and in retrospect, I came to realize that I had a deep capacity to love others.  That ability, although framed differently in my mind as a child, helped me survive those non-preferred experiences.  The ability to love deeply continues to feed my soul on a daily basis.

And finally, what envelops all of my experiences is the ability to make lemonade out of lemons; to be optimistic enough to think that I can find value in anything, including experiences that are initially non-preferred.  Therefore, my courage, ability to love, and optimism are what I was given, and what I use to navigate the adventure of life and make my dreams reality.

In thinking about the idea of using what you’re given, first things first.  Have the courage to connect with yourself.  Have the willingness to look at your life without judgment.  You can achieve this by just describing the events — just the facts – without assigning any meaning to them.  What happened is neither good nor bad, it’s just what happened.

Take a look at your own non-preferred situations.  How did you survive them?  Did you use determination?  Courage?  Self-restraint?  Good instincts?  Diplomacy?  What about humor or laughter?

Look back at your life.  Let your survival tactics reveal to you what you were given.  When you discover what you were given, not only will you be able to put together the puzzle pieces in order to see your unique self-portrait, you can also allow them to be your cornerstones as you continue to paint the dynamically evolving masterpiece that is your life.

Easy Does It

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_-4I simply adore the concept of the New Year.  Just the idea of it brings hope, happiness and the promise of a new day.  I used to be the queen of New Year’s resolutions.  I was adept at creating lofty goals for myself.  I was going to lose 50 pounds (overnight); I was going to be more fun to be around; I was going to stop being so introspective and just enjoy life.  I would resolve to be thin, smarter and have more money.  I would imagine creating ways of living that were so far away from where I was.

I now realize that if I was successful in achieving my New Year’s resolutions it meant that I would be someone else.  I wouldn’t be myself.  None of my resolutions incorporated the idea of honoring or accepting who I was.

I suppose it is common for many of us to want to be someone other than ourselves, and there’s certainly no better time to start than at the dawn of a new year.  Yet, once I healed for real, something unexpected happened – I didn’t want to be anyone other than myself.  It was delightful!  And when it happened, I discovered that my resolutions gently and effortlessly evolved to be simpler and more attainable.  I gained the ability to create a tangible plan of action to achieve my goal rather than simply thinking with self-sabotaging broad strokes in the hopes of achieving an unattainable goal.

Take a good look at your goal for this year.  Does your goal allow you to embrace who you are right now?   Does your proposed improvement feel like a warm and nurturing blanket around you?  Is your goal manageable?  Will your improvements or refinements be in alignment with accepting yourself?  Are you willing to be gentle with yourself as you incorporate a new habit or two?

The beauty of looking at your goal from these points of view allows you to get a real good glimpse of the state of your personal union.  And when you assess, simply observe it without judgment.  Your observation might be something like, “Ah, I’m feeling really jazzed about it and can already imagine my cool and adventurous journey to get there.”  Or, it could be similar to this, “I am kind of agitated about it because I want it RIGHT NOW!”

Either way you understand where you are in your relationship with yourself.  If you find that there’s something you believe is truly lacking, imagine yourself already having it … a lot of it.  Allow yourself to feel energized.  Pretend that all you think having that thing in your life will bring you is already present.  Your ability to imagine it, to understand it, to know it and to feel it is in your power, here and now.  By shifting your resonance, here and now, you allow yourself to achieve that feeling, now.

When you are feeling jazzed and excited about your goal, easy does it.  Be patient.  You can manifest your goal by doing something in support of it just today, then   to your “just today” on the next day, and on the following day.  Staying present and doing your best “just today” gives you the ability to take nice, easy and gliding steps in achieving what you want.  It honors and supports you.  The adage to under-promise and over-deliver can be such a wonderful gift to give to yourself.

Beginning anew is inherent within us and is reflected so beautifully in our world.  With our renewing cycle of night following day following night, we are gifted with the opportunity to begin anew at any time.  When you decide, truly decide, to begin anew and take one lovely bite-sized step just today, you can find yourself effortlessly and lovingly manifesting what you desire.  Any day can be the beginning of your new year, with all of the hope, happiness and promise that it brings.

The Chicken or the Egg?

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JDT1214Many times I have heard that either you are a car person or you are not. I don’t consider myself a car person, yet I can’t count the times that I pined about owning a certain car.

It actually began when I was a little girl. My parents would take us on drives through different neighborhoods, and when we were in the fancy ones with the fancy cars, I would “ooh and aah” at them. I believed that if you owned that car, it meant that you were strong, confident and successful. I yearned for those qualities because I felt quite the opposite. I felt weak, I lacked confidence and I didn’t have a clue about what being successful felt like.

I held that belief for years… decades, actually. I truly believed that if I had that car, it meant that I, too, was strong, confident and successful. And the day came where I actually got the car. Very soon I discovered that not only did I not feel strong, confident or successful while driving it, I actually felt awful. Never in my life did I feel that lost. Or lonely. Or disillusioned. It was still the same old me, driving the shiny, new car of my dreams.

It was just another notch on my belt – one more thing that I thought would transform me into the strong, confident and successful person I aspired to be. Other things I vehemently pursued that I believed would transform me were weight loss, a good job, cool friends, a nice house, just to name a few. And I achieved them. But, despite the new stuff, I was still the same… old… me.

When nothing worked, when I hit bottom, nothing mattered anymore. And in deciding to live rather than die, I decided that I wanted to do it right. No more pretending that I felt good, no more hiding behind the “stuff.” I rolled up my sleeves and healed for real.

I came to understand a principle that is near and dear to my heart: physical wounds require physical remedies and internal wounds require internal remedies. If I cut my finger, for example, I may require some antiseptic and a bandage. That is a physical wound with a physical remedy. If I have a broken heart, well, healthy tears of grief and time will heal it.

Before understanding this principle, there I was, all my life, attempting to fix my internal wounds – loneliness, disenfranchisement and low self-esteem – with physical remedies: cars, jobs, food and the “stuff” we accumulate in life. And it didn’t work because by definition, it couldn’t work!

What did work? Going internal worked. I finally started using internal remedies for my internal wounds. I faced my past. I learned to describe the painful events in my life without judgment, and feel the pain of them, also without judgment, which then brought about healing.

I acknowledged what I had to do to survive. I commended myself for being so strong in the midst of so much pain. All the love I wanted from the world and didn’t get, I learned to give to myself. It took courage and determination. It was hard at first, but in time I started feeling better and better.

My dream car had been repossessed. My cool friends were gone. I sold the house. Yet, I was soaring. I felt great strength and massive confidence. I was free because I freed myself on the inside. And from there, I attracted new toys, but I no longer looked to them to fix me. I had finally landed firmly in the driver’s seat of my own life!

Do you expect to feel better, safer or happier once you get that “thing?” If so, ask yourself what you really want; what is it that you are really seeking internally by having whatever it is you want to attract physically.

Knowing now that physical remedies won’t heal internal wounds, here is your opportunity to learn to cut to the chase. Whatever it is you think you will feel once you get that thing, be willing to feel that way right here and right now. If you think that more money in your bank account will help you feel more secure, you desire the feeling of security. To get it, use your imagination. For example, you can close your eyes and imagine that roots are growing from the bottom of your feet into a loving Mother Earth, who wraps her loving arms around you at all times. Be willing to feel safe and secure. Breathe it in.

If you think that having that particular girl or guy in your life will help you feel special, use your imagination. Tell yourself all of the things you yearn to hear from that special someone. Nobody knows exactly what to say that will melt your heart better than you do. Don’t hold back… give it to yourself. Be willing to feel special, here and now. Breathe it in.

Understand that your subconscious mind doesn’t know whether something is occurring physically or virtually, the feeling is what matters; the feeling is what is recorded. So, why wait? Why wait for the physical thing to feel how you want to feel? You have the power, here and now, to feel all of the glorious things you want to feel. And when you do, on the inside first, not only do you transform yourself, you are actually prepping yourself to receive that which you desire physically.

Now is your opportunity to reverse the chicken and the egg. Rather than needing the physical stuff to feel better, your strength, confidence and joy is what will actually magnetize that fun physical stuff into your life!

You are powerful. You are dynamic. You have the ability, here and now, to transform your life into the magical one of your imagination.

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