Acceptance is a term that is used a lot in yoga and Buddhist circles but often causes a lot of confusion. The confusion stems from (a) a misunderstanding of what it does and does not mean and (b) how difficult it can be to change our habitual resistance to the unpleasant moments in our lives.
If you watch animals, you can see how closely connected they are to their internal signals showing them how to find food, how much they need to eat, when and where they need to rest, which other animals they can trust and which ones consider them as prey, and every other aspect of their lives.
Start the year 2021 with a new hope, not a diet plan that won’t work. Shift the focus from weight to well-being, from shallow promises to values that bring your life meaning, and from outer to inner wisdom. Spend ten weeks with a community of people who are all learning this new path of inner
Back when we were safe to socialize in parties together, I would always have people make the strangest comments to me about mindful eating. For instance, if someone was eating a dessert or just taking a variety of food from a holiday buffet, she would say, “Oh dear, I know I’m not eating mindfully.” This
Join me in supporting The Center for Mindful Eating (TCME) by bidding on products and services through their Annual Fundraising Auction, October 21-30, 2020. As the President of The Center for Mindful Eating, I am proud to be a part of an organization that has improved the lives of thousands of people who struggle with
Practicing mindfulness of the body can happen in many ways. We practice when we move, eat, sleep, rest, and play. Moving the body mindfully is just one of the lens that we practice mindfulness and it enhances and improves our relationship to the body when we eat. Being aware of the body, in general, translates
About a month ago a good friend got in my car to go to the gym and immediately blurted out “Can I ask you a personal question?” I said “Sure,” being pretty open to people about most things in my life. It turns out that she wanted to know how much I weighed. To her
Research indicates that mindfulness is one of the most important skills for changing how you eat and how you feel about your body. Mindfulness is a skill that helps you focus and attend to sensations like hunger, satiety, and taste, as well as increases kindness and self-compassion. Meditation practice is a method for strengthening your
As a health psychologist working with people who are trying to change their relationship with food and their bodies, I don’t put a focus on weight. That is problematic for a wide variety of reasons and it usually doesn’t help. Instead, I ask people to pay attention to how their bodies feel as they do certain activities
I’ve been particularly struck this week by the devastation that occurs when we engage in negative speech toward ourselves and others. It is so common to be critical of ourselves that we are often unconscious of how much we engage in this type of thinking. While we can’t really stop the critical thinking from happening
