Listen to the podcast of this post here:

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.

Luckily, I was able to move through this experience by using two methods — one that I have used for years and one that is new to me, but both that I highly recommend.

This first method, free writing, is one that I love to use with Body Love Wellness clients. It’s a great way to detox your brain of negative thoughts or to connect with your internal truth and wisdom. Sometimes I ask clients to free write on a particular topic that comes up in our sessions, such as “good and bad food” or “being perfect” or “being thin.” Very often, clients get in touch with their beliefs through this process, and they’re then able to work with them or change them.

In my case, after a week or so of living with this uncomfortable (and yet familiar) feeling of body hatred, I decided to spend some time free writing on the topic of beauty. After a few pages, I wrote “since you can’t see it in yourself right now, start looking for beauty everywhere.”

Something about that advice resonated with me. This second method of seeing the beauty everywhere started to move me out of my feelings of ugliness. I started noticing beauty everywhere — in the stark early winter trees, in the crinkly fine skin of the elderly lady who sat next to me on the subway, in the way an older sister held her younger sister’s little backpack. I started to see beauty again hundreds of times over that day, and the next morning I felt like myself again.

It was incredibly simple, and, well, beautiful.

So this week, I would love for you to try either of these tips.

1) Take some time to free write, either without a topic or on a topic that’s troubling you. Let your mind go where it wants. Don’t worry about editing or puncuation. Just write!
2) Make it a point to see the beauty in your surroundings as you go about your day. Try this for one day (or even one minute) and notice any changes.

As always, please comment below!

Attention New Yorkers! Join me at Maxi Craft and get your shop on! Re/Dress, the super fabulous plus sized vintage clothing store , is hosting a night of gorgeous handmade products by local designers. Come chat with me about Body Love and score some great holiday gifts!

DATE: Wednesday, December 9, 2009

TIME: 7:00-9:00PM

LOCATION: Re/Dress NYC 109 Boerum Place Brooklyn, NY
And as always, let’s stay connected. Please stop by my Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group! You can also follow me on Twitter.

Be sure to check out our new podcast!  Body Love Wellness Podcast — Find The Beauty

Related posts:

1. Self Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

Find The Beauty originally appeared on on December 7, 2009.

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.

End Dieting and Experience Radical Body Love in an Interview with Expert, Golda Poretsky (October 21, 2009)

More of Me to Love: It’s so great to have the opportunity to sit down with you and learn a little bit more about what you do. Your weekly tips and blogs on body love are wonderful, but I’m sure that when people read them, they can’t help but think, what is body love? Today, I hope we all get to learn a little bit more about you and what you do. So, what made you want to get into the field of body-love counseling in the first place?

Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. of Body Love Wellness: I love this question, because it makes me feel like body-love counseling is really a field!

I was always interested in holistic health, so in 2005 I decided to take my self-taught self to the next level and go to The Institute For Integrative Nutrition.  As a lifelong dieter, a major part of my reason for attending this school was to finally figure out how not to be fat anymore.  (I’m sure More of Me to Love readers can relate to this reasoning.)  While there, I learned a lot about nutrition, and I was also introduced to the concept of intuitive eating, albeit as a weight loss method.

To make a long story short, I lost a bunch of weight on Weight Watchers while in school there, and then in 2007 began the slow, steady weight gain, while still dieting, which I’m sure many readers can relate to as well.  Somehow, I found fat acceptance and fat acceptance blogs at just the right time.  I was really lucky.
My desire in creating Body Love Wellness was to support my clients in their journey to body acceptance and a healthy relationship with food.  My own journey was one of trial and error, and I didn’t feel like I had much support from anyone other than the blog writers.  I desired to be that support for my clients and to use methods that I developed in order to make that journey easier for others. The work that I do now is a combination of things I learned at The Institute For Integrative Nutrition (healthy eating basics, dealing with health concerns nutritionally) and things I learned through my own body acceptance journey (intuitive eating, body love and acceptance).

MMTL: How long have you been doing your work?

Golda: I’ve been doing this work for about 2-3 years.

MMTL: What are your hobbies outside of body counseling?

Golda:  Oh, gosh.  I used to do musical improv comedy, which I really miss now.  I love to read – lots of new-agey nonfiction and novels.  I love to write.  I also read tarot.

MMTL: How did you come up with the name for your business, Body Love Wellness?

Golda:  As someone who was really inspired by the fat acceptance movement, “acceptance” never felt like a strong enough word to me.  I think there are two parts to fat acceptance: acceptance by society at large and self-acceptance.  To me, self-acceptance just isn’t enough.  I want people to really love themselves.  I had struggled to love myself for years without loving my body, and I realized that it just doesn’t work.  That’s why I put the emphasis of my work on Body Love.  I want people to know, up front, that I’m going to support them in loving their bodies, and it’s not a crazy idea, or something just for thin people.  It’s almost confrontational in a way that I enjoy.

MMTL: What do you think it means to “be healthy?”

Golda: I really think that being healthy is about taking care of yourself physically and emotionally.  That means eating in a way that feels good to your body and moving in a way that feels good to your body.  It also means taking care of your emotional needs, acknowledging your feelings, respecting your boundaries, and noticing when your thoughts are judgments that you’ve internalized and need to release.  You really cannot separate the physical and the emotional.  It’s really difficult to eat healthfully and sanely when you’re beating yourself up emotionally.  That’s why I find that, for many people, when they begin to heal emotionally they find it easier to listen for their internal cues about hunger, fullness, and the foods that feel best to them.

MMTL: What do you think the biggest attitude problem is that people have towards their bodies?

Golda:  I think that very often people look at their bodies as something separate from themselves and something that needs controlling.  They think that once they find the right diet or the right personal trainer, and scream at their bodies enough, their bodies will cooperate and fall into line.  This never works for long because our bodies, literally, rebel.

MMTL: How do you help people overcome their negative attitudes towards their bodies and learn to love themselves?

Golda:  I have a set curriculum that I use with clients, but I often mix it up or revise it for each individual client.  I use a multi-faceted approach, addressing everything from thought-patterns and assumptions about their bodies to more body-based, experiential assignments that they try at home and we talk about in session.  I never make assumptions about clients based upon their weight, and I guide our work together by what they really desire to change, whether it’s their relationship with food, and/or their bodies, and/or a myriad of other things.
MMTL: You live in New York. Are the majority of your clients from New York or do you take clients who live farther away as well?

Golda:  I take clients from all over.  Right now, my farthest client is in Arizona.  I love having clients from different states.  We do our sessions over the phone and correspond mainly via email.  The other day, I wanted to demonstrate a lymph moving technique, so I made my client a little one minute video and emailed it to her.  It worked out great and she loved it.

MMTL: Do you find that people in New York are more obsessive about their bodies than people in other parts of the country?

Golda:  It’s an interesting question.  I work a lot with New Yorkers and Californians who often point out how the beauty standards are so demanding where they live.  I think that wherever you have a high concentration of models and actors and entertainment industry people, the pressure to be thin can be even greater.  The great thing about New York in particular is that where there’s culture there’s also counterculture, so those who want to seek out other body positive people can find it here more and more.  Despite all that, I think that, for the most part, things are the same for clients across the country.  There may be gradations in how thin one feels pressure to be based upon where one lives, economic status, cultural norms etc., but we all live in a country where individuals feel the weight, literally, of the so-called obesity epidemic firmly on their shoulders.  We all watch underweight people on television and are told that they’re the norm; we all feel pushed to count calories or points or carbs or fat grams; we all feel like our bodies are unacceptable.  I wish things were different in different parts of the country, but I don’t think they are overall.

MMTL: Are you generally the first counselor that your clients work with who doesn’t believe in weight loss? Are you the first real body-love counselor your clients work with?
Golda:  Always.  Often clients start off by telling me how they’ve failed – how they’ve been to nutritionists or weight loss gurus who promised to help them and then blamed them for not losing their weight or for gaining it back.  It’s really heartbreaking.  At least initially, clients often feel like I can’t be for real.

MMTL: Could you please share a story with us about a particular client who had a challenging time but who you managed to see through her conflicts with her body to a life of body love?

Golda:  I’d be happy to.  One client came to mind right away.  I’ll call her Ann. Ann was in her mid-40’s and had been on diets since her early 20’s, including many starvation diets.  She also hated exercise in all forms. In the middle of her 6 month program, we got on the phone for her session and she began to tell me that she had started a new diet.  We had done a lot of work on intuitive eating and getting off dieting, but she insisted that this diet wasn’t really a diet and she felt really good about it.  Anyway, my approach is to listen and not make people feel bad about their choices, so I listened to her and let her give me updates on it.  After about 3 weeks, she realized that she had just done yet another diet and told me it was her last one ever.  Over the next few months, we worked more with intuitive eating, and she began to really love listening to her body.  Her relationship with food normalized and she even began to find exercise that she enjoyed.  Last I heard, she was so connected to herself and her needs that she received an instructor certification in a really body positive exercise program, she’s eating intuitively, she’s considering moving to a new city, and she’s getting certified as a life coach.  Her life completely changed when she began listening to what her body really needed.  It was really amazing to see her life change when she started listening to her real needs.  I find that many of my clients make major shifts like that because they become willing to connect with their deepest desires and parts of themselves.

MMTL:  How long do you typically work with clients?

Golda:  Clients usually sign up for a 6 session (3 month) or 12 session (6 month) program, though some clients like to extend beyond that, too.  I also offer a “tune-up” session for clients who have done my programs and just want to work on any new issues.  Additionally, I offer workshops and tele-classes that some clients do instead of a one-to-one program or in addition to it.

MMTL:  Do you ever relapse in your own world of body-love? If so, how do you pick yourself back up?

Golda:  Every once in a while I do.  It’s been happening a little too much ever since I’ve been live tweeting that show More To Love.  But seriously, I go back to the techniques I use with my clients.  Sometimes I literally do the same “homeplay” exercise I just sent to a client.  Sometimes it’s something more physical, like getting more dressed up than usual or taking a walk when I’m feeling pressured to work more, or it’s something more mental/emotional, like fine tuning my affirmations or connecting with why that judgmental voice is coming up in that moment.

MMTL: If you had just one simple piece of advice for people to love their bodies what would it be?

Golda:  Just one?  That is really difficult!  It’s difficult because everyone is different, so the starting point to body love is often different for different people.  But here’s one to try – take a moment, every day, to find things that you’re grateful for about your body.  Start out with a list of 10 things.  They could be things like the way your heart pumps blood, the way your immune system defends you, the way your hair sparkles in the sunlight, or the way the skin on the inside of your arms feels so soft and delicate.  As you list the things you’re grateful for (either on paper, aloud, or in your mind) make sure to notice and feel the sensation of that gratitude in your body.  It may feel very subtle or it may feel like a more obvious change.  Do this daily and you will definitely begin to notice positive changes in your connections with your body.

MMTL: Thank you so much, Golda! It was such a pleasure learning a little more about you, your body-love philosophy and the way you work with your clients.

Go to www.bodylovewellness.com for information on Golda’s one-to-one programs and workshops.

Related posts:

1. Exorcising Exercising Bonus Issue — Interview With Ragen Chastain, Competitive (And Fabulously Fat) Dancer!
2. Welcome to the Body Love Wellness Blog!
3. Self Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

My Interview With Jay Solomon At More Of Me To Love originally appeared on on November 4, 2009.

It seems that over the last few weeks, More To Love (the “Bachelor” type show featuring an all plus-sized cast) has become a lightning rod for the cultural debate about the inclusion of fat people in media. I even found myself “live tweeting” the show as I watched it last week.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how, in the real world, people of all shapes and sizes have great relationships, bad relationships, good dating experiences, bad dating experiences, and everything in between.

This week, I was struck by something that Amanda, one of the contestants, said as she was being sent home by Luke, the bachelor:

“I’m really shocked with Luke’s decision. I think I’m kind of prettier than some of the girls in the house. I wonder what Luke could possibly see in Mel B. This is, like, a total blow to my ego. I’ve never lost a guy to a girl [who was] bigger than me or not as attractive. I really don’t know how to take it right now.”

Amanda’s statement was so wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. If Amanda were right, all of the fattest women should be sent home first, with only the thinnest fat women remaining. Also, it’s as if she’s saying that the erstwhile Fatchelor should only be comparing the contestants based on their size and “attractiveness” (which seems to be sized-based in Amanda’s view) rather than other things like, oh, I don’t know, personality, chemistry, etc. (not to mention that Luke may like the size).

But what it really got me thinking about was the idea that there is some value in comparing yourself to other people. I would contend, however, that there is very little value in comparing oneself to others.

Moving away from More To Love (thankfully!), I’d like you to think about whether the following situation has ever happened to you. Have you ever done something really great at work or in school, like you made a great presentation at work or got a really high grade on a paper, only to hear right afterwards about a friend or colleague who did something that you would consider even more successful? For instance, let’s say you give a great presentation and your boss is really impressed with you. You’re feeling great about the job you did. Then you hear about Barry down the hall who’s being sent to France to negotiate some huge deal, and suddenly your presentation seems meaningless? Or let’s say you go on a date with someone you really like, and s/he takes you to a concert to hear a band you really like, and it’s lots of fun and you get home and see your friend’s Facebook status is something like, “Partying with George Clooney on his yacht,” and suddenly, your date doesn’t seem that fabulous.

I used to suffer from this compare/despair syndrome a lot, until I realized that it really wasn’t serving me. Being envious of other people and denigrating the good stuff in my life only made me miserable. I’ve learned that the easiest way out of the compare/despair syndrome was to simply celebrate the successes of people around me. By celebrating those successes, I could actually enjoy my own, and even picture other people’s successes as being possible for me, rather than things I could never attain.

By the same token, bigger people sometimes take themselves out of situations because of the way in which they compare themselves to other people. We, literally, suffer by comparison. I’ve had numerous clients say to me that they feel uncomfortable being the biggest person at a meeting, event, or gym class. They find themselves searching for the fattest people in those situations and then sizing up whether they are, indeed, the fattest person in the room. Some of them even stop attending those events as a result of concluding that they’re the fattest ones around. Just like Amanda’s assumption about Mel B. on More To Love, these people assume that the fatter they are, the less accepted and desirable their presence is in any given situation. And just like Amanda, they assume wrongly.

Usually, we can’t know why someone falls in love with us and someone else doesn’t, why certain things fall into our laps and other things seem unattainable, or why we’re great at some things and not at others. The key is to know that we have value, despite our flaws, real or perceived, and that comparing ourselves to others is fruitless and unwise.

So the next time you start to compare and despair, stop yourself and celebrate instead. Celebrate your successes as well as those of your colleagues, friends, lover(s) or acquaintances. Know your value and theirs.

Please stop by my Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group! Also, I would love it if you would follow me on Twitter. We can even live tweet More To Love together!

Related posts:

1. A Dash Of Blessing

The Compare-Despair Conundrum originally appeared on on August 17, 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. I call this “gratitude.”

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.) Now 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 fact that it’s supported you for x amount of time, to the convenient location—everything you can think of. Write these things down.

This exercise does a couple of things. It changes your mindset about your job and the way you perceive yourself in your job. It allows you to see and feel all that your current job has brought to you. And, perhaps most importantly, this exercise 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. When you are grateful for what you have, you open yourself up to positive change when you least expect it.

Try this week’s tip: The next time you’re feeling wrong or bad about a situation (job, habit, relationship, anything) make a list of 20 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 to us about how it went for you!

And don’t forget to check out other great More of Me to Love blogs.

Also, please stop by Golda’s Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group!

Golda is a Holistic Health Counselor who graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Through her fun, simple, stress-free approach, Golda specializes in transforming people’s relationships with food and their bodies.

Want some individualized attention actualizing this week’s tip? Check out www.bodylovewellness.com to set up a free consultation with Golda!

Related posts:

1. Accepting Things As They Are While Desiring Change
2. The Gratitude Attitude
3. The Gratitude Attitude

Accepting What Is While Desiring What Is Not originally appeared on on June 22, 2009.

In much of Western culture, we’ve been taught to be critical of food. We’re taught to assess and evaluate its contents, whether it has the right vitamins, the right amount of calories, carbohydrates and fats, where it comes from, who makes it, whether it’s “junky” or “healthy” or “bad” or “good.” We toss so much opprobrium on our food that it might as well be a condiment!

As someone with a degree in integrative nutrition, of course, I am an advocate for having fresh, organic, well-made food available to everyone. I believe that the more people have access to whole, non-chemicalized foods, the less prevalent certain diseases will become.

That being said, the way most of us talk about our food may be more unhealthy than most of the food we eat. When we talk about how “bad” or “junky” or “crappy” or “unhealthy” our food is, we create a variety of problems. Below is a list of just a few!

1. Stress Response – When you eat and think that you’re eating something bad for you, this creates a stress response in the body. Your body is getting two signals: digest this food but it’s bad and you should stop eating! This conflict between what you’re actually doing and what your brain thinks you should be doing creates a stress response, also known as a “fight or flight” response. When you’re in fight or flight mode, the blood rushes away from the core of your body (where digestion takes place) to your limbs (where fighting and fleeing take place!). As a result of stressing yourself out about what you’re eating while you’re eating, you become unable to fully digest your food.
2. Negative Messages – By telling yourself that what you eat is bad or wrong or unhealthy, you’re also telling yourself that you are only worthy of such food; i.e., that you’re bad or wrong or unhealthy.
3. Oh, The Guilt! – With all of these negative messages, you also set up a guilt response. As a result, you start to feel guilty about what you eat and then seek out (often unconsciously) more sweet, salty or carbohydrate-packed foods – foods that provide a chemically soothing response – as penance for your guilt.

Luckily, shifting negative thoughts about food is actually quite simple, and I’d like to share one my favorite methods with you right now!

Take a moment, every time you eat, to bless your food. Take a moment to thank Mother Nature, another deity, the food itself, or yourself for feeding your body and nourishing yourself so well. Make this blessing truly your own and have fun with it. Your blessing can be as easy as a quick gratitude list for your food. You can think it to yourself or say it aloud. Getting your friends in on it will make it even more pleasurable. And if you’re accustomed to already blessing your meals as part of a religious practice, pay even more attention to the words you use. Feel the gratitude for the food in your body.
Comment below and let us know if you notice any changes in your relationship to food this week or tell us if you come up with any particularly great blessings!

And don’t forget to check out my blog at More of Me to Love.

Also, please stop by Golda’s Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group!

Related posts:

1. Have A “Food Coma” Free Thanksgiving

A Dash Of Blessing originally appeared on on June 15, 2009.

Remember way back in late March when I asked you to make a desires list? Take a moment to find that list. Does your list need some retooling? Take time to cross entries off the list that no longer interest you and make sure to add any new desires to the list. Also, look through and see which ones you’ve attained. For those, put a check mark next to them and write, “Thank You!” Allow yourself to feel the gratitude in your body. Also, if you didn’t make a desires list in March, now’s as good a time as any to put one together.

The energy of new beginnings is about our incredible ability to reinvent ourselves. When we resolve to look at the world with fresh eyes, we can see new opportunities where once we saw none; we can hope for change where once we believed stagnation inevitable. If you’re feeling stuck in patterns that no longer serve you, you may want to try affirmations or try on new beliefs about your life in order to shift your inner world, and, consequently, your outer world.

It’s also very important to have fun with the process of reinventing your life and achieving your desires. Having fun with your desires means taking pleasure and enjoyment from thinking about them and when experiencing them. For example, even if your desire to live in a gorgeous mansion isn’t so attainable right now, you can still go to a museum or historical society housed in an old mansion and enjoy imagining what it would be like to live there. Choosing fun and pleasure is a delicious way to get enjoyment out of your desires even if you haven’t attained them quite yet. And I really encourage you to think big with your desires, even if you’re feeling resistant and going for what you want is a stretch outside of your comfort zone.

Now get to that desires list! (I’m even hoping that one of your desires is to never diet again!)

For more information on Golda’s programs, please go to www.bodylovewellness.com. Please stop by the Body Love Wellness Facebook group and become a member of the Body Love Wellness Group!

Related posts:

1. Springing Into Your Desires
2. The Gratitude Attitude
3. The Gratitude Attitude

In The Spirit Of Commencement originally appeared on on May 27, 2009.

How often do you feel “stuck” in your life? Do you ever dream of changing jobs or moving to a new place, but find that you have a million reason why you can’t? Do you think about learning guitar, or writing a book, or teaching a class, but it just seems impossible? What about little things like telling the truth to a friend who’s hurt you or saying, “No” to something that isn’t for you? I find that sometimes the little things, like just saying “no” to a request, can seem harder than writing a book. That is, we feel stuck when we struggle to change.

Part of the reason why change can seem difficult is that we often have a fixed idea of who we are. Take a moment to think of a few adjectives that you might use to describe yourself.

For example, you may think of yourself as “logical, reliable, and generous.” These are all good things to be, right? So, let’s say a friend comes to you and asks for a small loan. He always pays you back promptly, with interest, and he says he needs the money and will pay you back within a week. Your gut is telling you not to do it, and you want to say “no” to your friend, but another part of you insists on giving him the loan because you think of yourself – and like to think of yourself – as “logical, reliable, and generous.” Your logical mind says he always pays back with interest, and you want to be a reliable and generous friend. Thus, you lend the money and try to ignore that nagging feeling that you have shouldn’t have lent him the money. In essence, the deeper desire to say “no” was overridden in favor of an ingrained self-perception.

This is just an example of how our fixed perceptions conflict with our deeper desires. When this happens, we feel “stuck.” We know on a deep level what we want to do, but we don’t believe it’s possible because acting in that fashion is not in keeping with what we think we know about ourselves or the roles that we’ve taken on in life.

So how do we shift from stuck to unstuck? Well, the first step is identifying our beliefs about ourselves.

You can start with, “I am _______” or “I am a ________.” Make an actual list on paper if you can. Include everything – even things that seem obvious like, “I am a New Yorker,” or, “I have brown hair.” Have lots of fun with it, identifying all those things you know about yourself.

Next, take one area that you’d like to change and try identifying with it, at least for a week. If you would really like to be a writer, try identifying with that notion for a week. Try saying to yourself or others, “I am a writer” or, “I am studying writing.” If you’re thinking of moving to another city, like Seattle for example, try, “I am moving to Seattle,” or, “I live in Seattle.” If saying these things is difficult for you at first, then you can just try this, “I am open to possibilities and positive change.” As you draw conclusions about certain things, like deciding that you really do want to be a Seattlan or that it’s just not for you, move onto other identities that might suit you. As you find identities you like, pursue them: start writing or move to Seattle!

Like affirmations, this may feel funny at first. It may feel uncomfortable or feel like a lie. It’s not a lie, though: it’s an experiment. You’re trying on a new way of being and a new way of responding to others. You are researching your own happiness.

In fact, next time someone asks you what you do, just say, “I’m a happiness researcher.” You’re guaranteed a good conversation from that one response!

Want some individualized attention getting unstuck? Check out www.bodylovewellness.com to set up a free consultation with Golda! You can also check out my blog at http://www.moreofmetolove.com/blogs/category/soul_food/.

Also—attention New Yorkers! Golda will be teaching 3 workshops this April in Brooklyn. For more info or to register, go to www.bodylovewellness.com/UpcomingWorkshops.html. The first class is Tuesday, April 14th!

Related posts:

1. Accepting Things As They Are While Desiring Change
2. The Way I’m Feeling About My Feelings
3. The Gratitude Attitude

Getting Unstuck: Learning to Actualize Change originally appeared on on April 13, 2009.