The dictionary says stress is a state of mental or emotional tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.
The dictionary is wrong. How do I know? Because stress is a feeling – an emotion – and the only place our emotions come from is from the thoughts we think.
Adverse or very demanding circumstances will absolutely cause some people to think thoughts that lead to feeling stressed. Those exact same adverse or very demanding circumstances will cause others to think thoughts that lead to feeling exhilarated.
Since this is absolutely true, we want to select our thoughts with great care and intention.
Self-chosen stress vs normal, natural stress.
What is a “normal” or natural life stress? These are stressors that we cannot control, like aging, health concerns, natural disasters, financial setbacks. Those kinds of stress show up in every life, and Google can offer myriad advice on how to handle them. I want to talk about optional stress – the stress we choose that is completely unnecessary – yet is often MORE damaging to our health and peace of mind than natural stress.
Self-chosen stressors include, but are not limited to:
negative self-talk
self body shaming & body hate
adopting weight loss strategies that are stringent & impossible to maintain
artificially controlling appetite
limiting a needed macronutrient such as protein, fat, or carbohydrates
believing we are unlovable, and will never be loved unless we lose weight or look different
trying to create an impossible-to-have body
unfavorably comparing oneself to others
believing we are alone in this world, or that the universe is against us
The list goes on, and is different for each of us. When we choose these stressors, we live under a constantly higher level of stress than is necessary.
Most of us have plenty of natural stress in life, so why would we choose this type of self-harming thinking? We have been conditioned over a lifetime to choose these stressors. We didn’t make this stuff up. We didn’t invent thinking negative thoughts about ourselves. The world we live in trained that behavior into us, some more than others.
Other than the fact that stress feels crappy, why do we want to begin learning how to let go of these self-chosen stressors? Constant stress causes increased insulin, and increased cortisol which can lead to:
weight gain
inability to lose weight
inability to build muscle
decreased calorie burning
increased fat deposits at midsection
increased inflammation
gut microbiome die off
nutrient wasting
decreased energy
appetite deregulation
desensitivity to pleasure
decreased metabolism
decreased Thyroid function
decreased oxygen uptake
poor sleep
So how do we begin to let go of these self-chosen stressors?
Awareness is always the first step. We cannot change it if we do not see it.
The Grow on! section below includes a way to begin cultivating more awareness around self-chosen stress.
Don’t beat yourself up for thinking stressful thoughts! It’s a conditioned human behavior. Give yourself some grace, practice letting go of self-chosen stressors, and see what happens for yourself!
Grow on!
How does stress show up in your body? Write a physical description of how it feels when you are STRESSED about something. For some people it will include sweaty palms, or a racing heart. For others it might feel like a twist in the solar plexus or a kick in the gut. Whatever it is for you, take a minute to describe the physical sensations that arise for you when you feel stressed out.
Practice awareness by noticing these physical symptoms each time they show up. As you become aware that you are feeling your symptoms of stress – ask yourself what thought you were thinking that caused the symptoms. Then ask yourself if it is a life stress, or a self-chosen stress.
If it is something you are choosing to think/believe, what will it take to give self permission to let it go?
Reframing thoughts is a superpower that grows with coaching!
If you are ready to let go of some of your self-chosen stress and need some help or guidance, I would love to chat with you! Click THIS LINK to schedule a free conversation to see if I am the right coach for you!
I feel confident in saying that one of the larger underlying goals of most body transformation goals is to increase the amount that we like ourself, and be more happy.
I might like myself better in that special occasion dress, or maybe I like myself better as a potential employee at an upcoming interview. Maybe I believe that I will be more likable to possible romantic partners once I achieve my goal. I will like my life journey more when I reach that goal! I’ll like the way I look in my vacation photos more once I look a certain way. Along our path we became conditioned to believe that we are “not enough” and that our body is not good enough. “If my body’s not good enough by cultural standards, I can’t love my body. If I can’t love my body, I have to hate it.” But we know we’ll like ourselves much more once the body transformation goal is met.
Here’s the fucking problem ~
We try to hate ourselves to the goal! We may restrict calories, skip meals, increase workouts that we hate, over commit to new changes, get on the scale every day, get discouraged by weight fluctuations, overeat to soothe our emotions, then beat the crap out of ourselves for not being perfect at body transformation in every way. We compound our brutal physical treatment of ourselves by brutally beating ourselves mentally for what we see as our own failure.
If this sounds familiar to you, please know you are not alone. This is pretty common human behavior. It’s the way we’ve been trained to go after our body transformation goals, and we’re beginning to realize that it’s doomed to failure. We simply cannot hate ourselves into liking ourselves more. The path to love and friendship is not paved with hate and shame.
No one has ever been motivated by shame.
Shame and self-hate take us in the opposite direction of our goals.
Let’s shift for a minute from a body transformation goal to a reading transformation goal.
Imagine you have a child who is struggling in reading. The teacher tells you they are behind the rest of their class. Would we shame and belittle them into reading better? Would we hate them until they catch up with the rest of the class? Would we tell them that we can’t love them until they are a better reader? Of course not! This course of action would not only damage the psyche, it would cause the child to hate reading.
Will we create success by insisting they do exercises they hate or by finding fun ways to grow their love of reading? Will they gain more confidence if we yell at them each time they are imperfect or if we are supportive and encouraging each time they perform well?
How can we shift this same loving approach to our weight and body challenges?
Rule #1 ~ Don’t beat yourself up.
Our healing journey is a roller coaster full of ups and downs. We need to be easy with ourselves as we learn what works for us, and what does not work. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are no magic fucking beans. There is no magic pill, nor is there one right way to do relationship to food and body, nor one right way to eat.
For these reasons, we are the scientist in our own body transformation journey. Through trial and error we will find what is best for us individually, though it might not be right for anyone else! What does not work is not “failure.” Rather it is valuable information to inform our future choices!
"The more you beat yourself up for doing something you said you didn’t want to do, the more you will continue to return to the ‘scene of the crime’ and you will continue to do the very same thing that you said you didn’t want to do - NOT because there is something wrong with you - but because that is how body wisdom, and life wisdom teaches us. We learn through repetition, so body wisdom, life wisdom will return us to the scene of the crime - life classroom - until we learn to integrate the lessons. Until we learn to love ourselves, until we learn to stop beating ourselves up because we did something we said we didn’t want to do. Until we learn to forgive self."
~ Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating,and author of Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind-Body Approach to Nutrition and Well-Being
Body transformation starts with love, not hate.
If you’re feeling shame or hate about self or body, please remember you’re not alone. You didn’t make this stuff up – it’s embedded in our culture. Shame and hate feel icky because they do not belong to our true vibration (our true vibration is unconditional love). Since they don’t belong to us, we can choose to simply let them go! Check out two ways to do this below in the “Grow on!” section.
Letting go of body shame and self-hate is the ESSENTIAL, non-negotiable first step toward every body transformation goal. We can’t transform the body while simultaneously beating it up. Healing transformation can never happen in the presence of the toxic body chemistry created by shame and hate.
Here are two techniques that are wonderfully useful in letting go of negative emotions like shame and hate that do not serve us.
Grounding it – When you become aware of feeling shame or self-hate, remind yourself that it is not yours and you don’t have to carry it. Take a deep breath and as you exhale, simply drop it onto the ground. Imagine it pouring out of your palms onto the ground until it is gone and you feel lighter.
Give it to the light – The vibration of shame and hate can feel BIG. See it shrinking smaller and smaller until it fits in the palm of your hand, or on the tip of one finger. Hold it up and offer it to the Light. You feel lighter as the light easily removes the unwanted emotion.
I used to think it was NORMAL to put on 5-10 pounds during the holidays. I told myself it was no big deal, everyone does it, I’ll drop the weight later.
Sometimes I did. More often I gave up. I grew heavier as years passed.
Joy & Cyndi ~ 2005
Two years after I got sober I was using food like a drug and weighed over 220 pounds. I would eat like I could NEVER get full, even when I was full, then restrict my calories ridiculously, and try to lose the weight as fast as possible.
I beat myself up for the extra weight I was carrying, scolding myself, causing increased stress, which caused me to eat more and gain weight, for which I scolded myself. I felt ashamed for being so WEAK that I turned to food for comfort. That caused MORE stress and MORE eating to numb those feelings.
That was my pattern for over a decade.
My chiropractor told me that my debilitating pain was caused by inflammation in my lumbar spine, and that inflammation was caused by inflammatory foods. He did not say what foods were inflammatory, but I cleaned up my act and stopped eating so much sugar, at least for a little while. As soon as my back felt better, I went back to eating whatever I like. Then I woke up one morning with half my face paralyzed. The medical doctors had a name: Bell’s palsy, but no idea what caused it or what to do for it. They told me the symptoms could last for as little as three weeks, or be permanent. They had no way to know.
The palsy symptoms have slowly improved over time, but have never gone away completely. Several months after the onset, I read a book that suggested that palsy symptoms might be due to inflammation. That got me to thinking about inflammatory foods again.
I knew that some of the foods I was eating were damaging my health, and that the medical community was of no help. I decided to start looking for a naturopath hoping that she might be able to help me.
I searched for a naturopath for months before finding one completely by accident. In early October, I was driving home from the beach and pulled over to stretch my legs. When I got out and walked around the sidewalk there was her sign. I should have made an appointment right then, but I took a picture of her sign with her contact information and filed it away.
I really wanted to talk to someone about those lingering palsy symptoms, but I knew without a doubt from the center of my being that she was going to tell me to change the way that I was eating.
I made a conscious decision that I was not willing to give up sugar and treats until after the holidays, so that I could eat whatever I liked and enjoy myself without feeling restricted or left out.
I put it on my agenda to make an appointment with the naturopath early in the new year.
That holiday season I ate like a fiend. Everyone knows if you’ve got a diet coming up you double down on calories, right?
Between Halloween and Christmas that year, I gained 20 lb. When January came I was miserable. My energy was depressed. I wasn’t working out. I had night sweats that soaked my sheets. I was ashamed of the way I looked. I didn’t like the way I felt. I was nauseous most mornings. I was hungry all the time, and I was heavy with shame.
Of course I forgot about calling the naturopath right away, and in early February, I awoke one morning with pain in my intestines that I was certain would kill me. I was really sick. And I was scared. I had a panic attack, and my blood pressure rose off the charts.
I went to the hospital, and got no answers, and no warm fuzzy feeling the answers were coming. Then I remembered that I was going to call that naturopath. So I did.
At our first appointment she told me that she suspected food allergies. She did a blood test, and put me on an Elimination Diet that excluded all the foods known to be troublemakers for two weeks while we waited for the results. I had no problems whatsoever sticking to the eating plan because the pain was an all-too-real indication that there was something seriously wrong with me and I needed to make some changes. Digesting HURT, and I didn’t’t eat anything but produce for nearly two weeks.
When the food allergy test came back, it told me something I had long suspected. Dairy is not my friend. In fact, the food allergy test showed that I am allergic to dairy, sugar, and wheat.
I thought my life was over.
The idea of living without dairy and wheat seemed impossible, restrictive, and heinous. As far as I was concerned the perfect diet was bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, quesadillas for lunch and pizza for dinner. Everyone knows the perfect hiking food is a big hero sandwich loaded with cold cuts and cheese. This is the reason I hadn’t gone to see her in October!
But, I knew that my health was in serious trouble. My body was giving me very clear messages about that. It needed to make changes in what I was eating.
So I stopped eating dairy, wheat and sugar.
And guess what? Not only did I feel better right away, and start to see improvements in the symptoms I had been experiencing within a week, I started to see improvements in things I had not related to food. My skin cleared up. The Eczema on my ankles and elbows went away. The night sweats vanished. My energy level increased tremendously. I started sleeping better, and my libido returned.
By the time my birthday arrived in June, I had dropped 50 lb without doing a single workout. The only change I made was to lose the dairy, wheat, and sugar. It was like a miracle. I had been trying to drop excess weight my entire life.
Sugar In The Wound
Despite my triumph, when stress began to increase, or I was pressed for time, I headed back down that well worn path to the comfort of food, and the ease of wheat and dairy foods.
I mean salads, REALLY, who has time for all that chopping?! Am I right?
Just two weeks before my first vacation to Europe, I was SICK again. I put myself on the elimination diet and called my naturopath. This time I got a diagnosis of SIBO. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is no joke. I was sick at least part of nearly every day of my European vacation. I lost 10 pounds the first 5 days we were there. Horrible, miserable intestinal symptoms. We still had a fabulous time, we simply had a lot of challenges along with the fun.
It was after that trip that I realized that dairy and sugar had become my new booze. At the time, I actually had many thoughts about being powerless over sugar. I told myself things like: “I can’t pass up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I can’t resist free candy, Halloween is my favorite holiday, I can’t leave any cookies for later, If it’s in the house I have to eat it.” And I knew with every cell in my body I didn’t have the power to pass up cheese on a buffet table.
That kind of conviction will override healthy intentions every time! I had these mantras in my head that blocked my success despite my overwhelming desire to regain my health. I felt like I must be crazy!
Even though I lived through evidence in my own life that proved this eating pattern makes me sick, miserable, and unable to enjoy my life, I returned to it again and again when I was feeling stressed or lonely!
Even though I suspected long before my naturopath told me that I was allergic to cheese because of the way I craved it – just like alcohol – I returned to it whenever I was upset, AND whenever I felt like celebrating. It was truly a deadly double edged sword.
Even though I had experienced hangovers from overeating just like I did from over drinking, if I was stressed or upset when I walked into an event with free food, I was almost guaranteed to overeat even when I told myself I wasn’t going to do it.
But after Europe, I was finally ready to admit that I needed to make changes. I wanted to feel energized and healthy.
I knew I had to make changes, but in my experience, I could not eat a little or I would end up eating a lot. I had learned that with my addictive foods, it was ALL of it, or none of it, so I restricted myself completely. That year at Christmas, I ate ZERO goodies. I avoided parties and gatherings as much as possible so I wouldn’t screw up. I didn’t make my usual holiday candies or cheeseballs. The entire family complained. I didn’t buy candy to put into stockings. I shot resentful looks at people enjoying holiday goodies. I was miserable, resentful and I felt left out, but by golly, I had my food addiction under control.
How many of you think that lasted? By Halloween that year, I was sick again.
Turned out that being aware that I needed to change was a great start, but I still didn’t have the whole picture. I was trying to resist the food cravings with willpower alone, and my willpower eventually ran out.
I was so tired of the weight roller coaster, the night sweats, the inflammation, the achey joints, that powerless feeling I got around chocolate. I was sick of it all.
Worse than that, I was tired of letting myself down! I felt trapped in an vicious cycle of wanting healthy change, planning to make those changes, and then not following through. It left me full of self-doubt and lacking self-confidence!
I felt like I was spinning out of control, like I was powerless over food, like I would never figure it out. And right in the middle of my turmoil, my normally helpful and supportive partner brought home a couple of bricks of cheese from the grocery store.
Rage.
Why would he do this? He knows I can’t eat dairy! He knows I am sick! He obviously knows I can’t resist it. He knows this will end up on my burger and he doesn’t care! I wanted to eat ALL of it because – who cares?
I care.
I clearly heard the voice in my head say, “I care.” Who cares what he brings home? He’s not forcing me to eat it.
And like a ton of bricks it hit me.
Esther Hicks and Abraham tell a wonderful story about getting tabasco in your pie. Just because the tabasco is in the kitchen does NOT mean it will get in your pie. The only way the tabasco gets in your pie is if YOU put it in your pie.
SAME with the cheese, Cyndi! The only way the cheese gets in your pie hole is if you put the cheese in your pie hole!
I had NOT been taking responsibility for what I was eating.
I had been refusing to take responsibility for what I was eating by pretending to be powerless over certain foods. I was giving away my power by clinging to the belief that if certain foods were available, I HAD to eat them. I was pretending that I could not control myself around sugar and dairy, when in fact, I am the ONLY one who can choose my actions. I was simply choosing to give in to temptation and pretend it wasn’t my fault, that it wasn’t my choice, that in fact – I was powerless to change the foods I was eating.
EVERYTHING changed for me with that simple realization.
I took the steps I needed to take to STOP overeating, and stop eating foods I am allergic to, foods that cause harm, inflammation, and all kinds of health problems.
I’ve learned to navigate the holidays without spiraling into stress and overeating, and I’ve developed a process to help clients do the same!
Grow on!
Is your body ready for some healthy changes?
Join me for my first masterclass to explore these key questions:
● Why do I overindulge even when I tell myself I won’t? ● What’s kept me from achieving my health goals in the past? ● Why do I backslide into old behaviors when I’m stressed? ● How can I reduce holiday stress that leads to stress eating? ● Is it possible for me to avoid weight gain during the holidays? ● How can I stay motivated during the holidays? ● BONUS – How can I indulge a little bit without overindulging?
