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Oh, Valentine’s Day.  It does such a number on so many people.  Whether you’re in a relationship and don’t know how to celebrate or you’re not in a relationship and nearly hallucinating a hoarde of happy couples wherever you go, Valentine’s Day can easily mess you up.

I remember one particularly heinous Valentine’s Day weekend back in 2006.  Valentine’s Day was on a Tuesday, so it was as if the whole weekend beforehand were reserved for happy couples. I hadn’t had a date in a year.  All of my friends were coupled off.  I spent nearly the entire weekend at home, studying  my Institute for Integrative Nutrition homework and reading a dreary 19th century novel.  Those two things, in and of themselves, were not so bad, but from my perspective at the time, they felt like symptoms of my angst-ridden singleness.

Then, on Sunday afternoon of that never-ending weekend, my doorbell rang. I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders and went to the door.

At first, all I saw was a bouquet of roses.  But there was my apartment building’s super, a tiny, sprightly octogenarian, bringing me flowers during my lonely Valentine’s Day weekend.

I’m not telling you this to say that if you’re feeling really lonely someone’s going to show up with a bouquet of flowers.  Nor will I say that I wasn’t often creeped out by my super’s willingness to ignore a 50 year age difference, and later on, my boyfriend.  But I will tell you that from that day on, I started acknowledging the fact that someone in my life had feelings for me.  He might have been a head shorter and a half century older, but he dug me.  And that was cool, and not another reason to think I was a dork.  I decided to let that feeling of being admired sink into my bones and my bloodstream, and to know that there was more love and adoration coming my way.

After playing with this idea for about two months, I started getting way more dates from the same online dating sites that were yielding nothing a few months before.

Sometimes you just have to feel the love before it’s really there.

So, this week, if you’re feeling unloved, try this technique.  Start thinking of all the people in your life who express their love for you (or even their “like” for you).  Think about your friends who think you’re awesome, the guy at the deli who gives you a free cup of coffee now and again, your coworker who thinks your impressions are hilarious, family members who adore you, people in your life who might not be there now but who were important to you at one time, even your pets who freak out with happiness when you’re near.  Write it all down if it feel right.  Then notice if you find yourself feeling more loved.  As always, let me know how it goes in the comments below.

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Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in Health At Every Size.  She counsels women and men on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves.

Looking for more support with intuitive eating and getting off diets?  Click here to sign up for your FREE Body Love Wellness Consultation.

Are you loving the podcast? You can now subscribe and download it directly from itunes! Be sure to rate it highly and share the Body Love!

Related posts:

1. Feeling The Feeling of Feeling
2. The Way I’m Feeling About My Feelings
3. Don’t Forget To Feel Your Feelings

Feeling Lonely? Here’s How To Feel The Love originally appeared on on February 8, 2010.

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

This morning, I was feeling blah.  I was feeling eh.  I worked steadily from home all morning, finally showering and getting dressed in the late afternoon so that I could run a few errands before meeting a friend for tea.

I had thrown on boring, easy clothes — leggings and a sweater, not much makeup.  I had dressed like my mood, a little boring and dreary and gray.

I didn’t have to leave yet, so I decided to do this thing that I had learned from one of my mentors, Mama Gena.  It’s a skill that she teaches on the first day at her school, and most of her students consider it to be one of their most important, life changing tools.  Once I did it, it completely changed the tone of my day.

It’s called bragging, but it’s not your typical bragging.

With this type of bragging, you take responsibility for all of the amazing things that you do all the time.  It’s about acknowledging your power in the life you’ve created.  And the more you recognize this power, the more it grows and the more you get turned on to it.

Just like with typical bragging, a good brag is often all about the way that you tell it.  A good bragger can talk about doing the laundry and make it sound like an astounding feat.  For example, you could write or say, “I have the most amazing brag.  I’m so creative with always finding outfits to wear that I had really let my laundry pile up.  The bag was so heavy that I could barely get it to the laundromat!  But I brag that the book I’m reading is so good, that having all that laundry to do left me with plenty of time to chill out and read.  I am such a genius for procrastinating with my laundry, because otherwise I never would have set aside all of that time to read this great book.”

You see how bragging can change the way you experience the world?  Suddenly, you’re not beating yourself up for letting your laundry pile up, you’re praising yourself for the power you have to create situations in your life.  You turned a boring afternoon at the laundromat to a brilliant decision to take time out to read a book.  Life didn’t just happen to you, you decided how you wanted it to look.

As you can imagine, you can use bragging for the big and astoundingly wonderful things that happen in your life as well as the difficult things that happen in your life.  It’s such an immensely powerful tool for allowing you to see all of the wonderful things you do every day, as well as the opportunities that may arise from difficult situations.

I know that for many of you, bragging has negative connotations.  We associate it with being obnoxious or self-centered, or we think of braggarts who boast of events that never even happened.  This is not that kind of bragging.  This is the kind of bragging that acknowledges your power, and allows those who hear your brags to (a) agree with you and cheer you on or (b) notice how they can have similar experiences in their own lives.

So this afternoon, I logged on to Mama Gena’s alumni community and wrote out some brags.  I shared all the amazing things that are going on in my life right now, lots of new clients and new friends, lots of opportunities to be in the world in a new way.  Once I was done typing, I was feeling really good again.  Life got a little more vivid.  I changed my outfit, suddenly preferring more form-fitting clothes.  I put some glitter powder on, even though I was just going to the post office and meeting an old friend for tea.  I felt powerful again and I felt turned on by my power and excited for the next brag that I knew was coming my way.

This week, I want you to experiment with bragging.  Write out at least 3 brags about anything in your life.  For extra credit, get a friend to try it with you.  Email each other your brags or speak them aloud.  When you’re hearing or reading someone else’s brag, remember to praise them, let them know what about his or her brag inspires or excites you.  Notice how you feel after bragging.

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Looking for more support with intuitive eating and getting off diets?  Click here to sign up for your FREE Body Love Wellness Consultation.

Are you loving the podcast? You can now subscribe and download it directly from itunes! Be sure to rate it highly and share the Body Love!

Related posts:

1. The Way I’m Feeling About My Feelings
2. The Gratitude Attitude
3. The Compare-Despair Conundrum

Get Your Groove Back Instantly originally appeared on on January 18, 2010.

This is an oldy but a goody.  The Body Love Wellness Blog will be back next week with more new stuff!
 
Most of us have trouble staying present.  We’re either upset or focused on things that have already happened or worried about things that might happen in the future.  Writing out our desires allows us to envision a future that is different than the future we fear might happen.  It grounds us in the fact that the future has not happened yet and that it could be as wonderful as the breadth of our imaginations.

Writing out what you’re grateful for takes you to the present and re-envisions your past.  When you feel grateful for what you have, you ground yourself in the present moment and acknowledge all of the good that you’ve received.  Your list of “gratefuls” can be big or small.  You may even find that you’re grateful for experiences that were otherwise difficult.

To get you started on your “gratefuls” list, here are some examples of the diversity of things you could include.
1) I am grateful for my apartment that is so bright and sunny.
2) I am grateful for my friend Lisa for being such a good friend to me throughout my life.
3) I am grateful for my history degree because it helps me understand the world.
4) I am grateful for my pretty new scarf.
5) I am grateful for being laid off because I know that it is advancing me towards my real career goals.
6) I am grateful for my laptop for being so reliable.
7) I am grateful for the delicious sushi I had for lunch.
8) I am grateful for the car accident I had when I was 17 because it made me the safe driver I am today.
9) I am grateful for all the health difficulties I’ve had because they’ve led me to my passion for holistic healing.
10) I am grateful for the money in my bank account.

As you can see, your “gratefuls” can be about anything and everything.  You can write them or say them aloud or even just think them. They are especially helpful when you find yourself feeling depressed about the past or anxious about the future.  Thinking of everything that you’re grateful for is the key to staying present and opening yourself up to more and more good stuff! 

Try it right now and see how it makes you feel.  Comment below and share with us!  I would love to see your gratitudes!

Now that you’ve grounded yourself in the present, prepare for a better future by reading the Word of the Week, hope.

Related posts:

1. The Gratitude Attitude
2. Accepting Things As They Are While Desiring Change
3. Welcome to the Body Love Wellness Blog!

The Gratitude Attitude originally appeared on on November 16, 2009.

Okay, perhaps it’s a bit of a stretch to go from celebrating the Mexican Resistance for Cinco de Mayo to celebrating our internal resistance, but I’m going to try!

I love writing blog entries for More of Me to Love. They’re fun to write, they get me in touch with this community, and they create great dialogues. But somehow, every Friday before they’re due, I find myself procrastinating. The day flies by and it’s 4 PM, and I need to finish my blog within the hour. In fact, I had all week to write it, but I waited until Friday and then until the final hour!

So what’s the difference between plain old not doing something and resisting doing it?

To me, resistance always feels like it has a “charge” to it, or an intensity of feeling. For example, I don’t like the way mushrooms taste, so if someone offered me a plate of mushrooms, I would just say “No, thank you,” and wouldn’t feel any resistance to saying yes or no. On the other hand, if a friend asked me to go to a really popular club on a Saturday night, I might want to go but come up with excuses not to, like “I don’t have the right clothes,” or “I might not want to stay out late,” or any number of excuses that would keep me from doing what I actually want to do.

Resistance can take many forms: sometimes it’s procrastination (like the blog writing example); sometimes it’s a feeling of being afraid to make a decision or to take action; sometimes you find lots of excuses for why you can’t do something (like the club invitation example).

Our Comfort Zones

Feeling resistance is not a negative – it’s a sign that you’re being asked to do something outside of your comfort zone. When you feel resistance you know that you’re close to expanding your view of yourself and what you’re capable of doing. As difficult as it may be, however, it’s so important to make little moves out of your comfort zone whenever you can. As you do so, you will broaden your understanding of your capabilities. With each step into new territory, you will have a new feeling of bravery, and your comfort zone will get larger and larger. Eventually, you will find yourself capable of actions that you never thought possible before.

How to Start Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zones

So the next time you feel resistance, explore it. Notice how much intensity of feeling you have. Give yourself time to decide whether your reasons for not doing something are really valid or just excuses for you to stay comfortable.

Each day, try something that feels like a stretch. It may be dressing up more for dinner, accepting an invitation from a friend, speaking your mind on an issue at work, or anything else that you might have been resisting. See how it feels, and approve of yourself for the stretch even if it feels difficult or you feel like you didn’t handle it as well as possible. There are always new opportunities for a stretch just around the corner. Let your resistance guide you there!

Want some individualized attention on moving through resistance and stretching out of your comfort zone? Check out www.bodylovewellness.com to set up a free consultation with Golda! And don’t forget to check out my More Of Me to Love Blog and other great More of Me to Love blogs.

Sign the “I’m So Fab!” Pledge and vow to love your body more than ever before!

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Resistance Is (Somewhat) Futile originally appeared on on May 12, 2009.

But very often, the key to being happier with our current state and, yes, getting that new thing that we want is appreciation for what we currently have.

My clients often ask me why they should find things to like about something that they feel isn’t working for them. Finding things to appreciate about something you want to change is often a big challenge for people, especially when what they want to change has to do with their bodies. Most of us are so programmed to find things that we don’t like about our bodies, that we don’t know where to start when we have to think of things that we like. We also think that if we begin to like things about our bodies, we’ll get complacent and things will never change.

I’m going to start with an example of something that has less emotional charge for most people than their bodies. Let’s use the desire to get a new job as an example. Let’s say you’re in a job where you work long hours for too little money. (I’ve been there .) And let’s say you want a job where you work less, earn more, and do more interesting work. (I’ve soooo been there too.) Aside from updating your resume and searching for new jobs, one of the best things you can do is make a list of things about your current job that you’re grateful for. Include everything you can think of, from a coworker you’ve befriended, to skills you’ve learned, to the location — everything.

This exercise does a couple of things. It changes your mindset about your job and you in your job. It allows you to see and feel all that your current job has brought to you. And, perhaps most importantly, it shows you that though you desire change, your current job isn’t “bad” or “wrong”.

Making a list of what you’re grateful for about your body can have an amazing effect. It can make you see that your body, just as it is right now, is beautiful and functional and brilliant. You may find that you’re grateful for so many things about your body, like the beautiful curve of your neck and the strength of your arms and your delicate wrists. You may even find yourself grateful for some of your “bad” habits, like when late-night snacking got you through a painful break-up when you didn’t feel like it was safe to deal with your emotions. Once you begin to find the genius in your current situation and choices, you may find that those situations that you had seen as negative before fall away more easily.

Try this: The next time you’re feeling wrong or bad about a situation (job, habit, relationship, anything) make a list of 25 things that you’re grateful for about that situation. It may be a challenge, but you’ll feel so glad that you did it. Feel free to report back about how it went for you!

Related posts:

1. The Gratitude Attitude
2. The Gratitude Attitude

Accepting Things As They Are While Desiring Change originally appeared on on August 3, 2008.