Relationships
Eating your feelings and the power of paradox
I made this quick 4 minute video today, inspired by the lovely clients I get to work with. It’s on Understanding the power of paradox.
Please watch if you have intense cravings, desire more freedom, experience being lonely, tired, sadness or dark moments. (Pretty sure that all of us have these experiences by the way – you are not alone)
I hope you find this short little video helpful and some more inspiration from one of my first clients who was struggling with “eating her feelings”. See below the video for more.
When I began my coaching practice now over 9 years ago, one of my first clients was a woman in her mid to late 70’s. She was struggling with an eating disorder. You don’t need to have an eating disorder to relate to this woman because what she has to teach us is universal.
She had a fear that she would die not living a life that was on her own terms. She spent her entire life doing things expected of her and she never allowed herself to express who she was and do the things she had always wanted to do.
She needed courage to be more herself if she was to overcome her entire life pattern of “eating her feelings”. This beautiful woman had a light inside her that wanted to express. Her deepest feelings wanted to come out and she was scared. So food helped her numb that fear. Old patterns and comforting, familiar yet unhealthy habits consumed her.
I found out that she used to love making art as a child. Our motto became this: “Fight like hell every day to make art”
On our third session together, she asked me… “Renee, why are we focusing on my art instead of my disorder?”
I shared with her that so often we try to fix what is wrong with us instead of tapping into what is RIGHT with us.
I told her, “I can try to change you and make you into the athlete you will never be and you will continue to fear not living the life you have always wanted and dreamed of. Or I can help you develop the courage, and it will take some courage and staring fear in the face, to bring out what has always be inside of you… your art.
Now of course, we did some very important work around her patterns of bingeing and purging food – but I knew that those newer healthy habits would not stick if she didn’t find herself reconnected to that part of her that made her happy inside.
I shared this woman’s story today because I was thinking of her today and how much she inspired me also. I knew when she reached out, that our work together was her last effort to heal her life long eating disorder. She had spent most of her 70+ years with it and we had to do this right.
She could fight like hell to die early or fight like hell to make her art.
She taught me that the fruits of discovering your freedom will be the sweetest thing. That you can and will be free of the need to be anything other than who you are. That you can be free of being attached to food as a means to find yourself.
Intuitive Eating: Does it even work?
One of the things I’m a stand for as a holistic practitioner is teaching people how to NOT DIET. It is simply unhealthy to be dieting all the time and one of the things that clients ask me about and share their interest in, is called, “intuitive eating”.
Intuitive eating, unfortunately, seems to cause more trouble for many if not all of these clients.
Watch today’s video to learn about why “intuitive eating” is the new “diet fad” and why chronic dieters may cling to this intuitive eating and why it’s dangerous to practice it in certain situations.
The essence of intuitive eating is incredible – it is about learning a trust and intimacy with your body, food and Self where you know what to eat and what your body may need from moment to moment. Intuitive eating invites in the feelings of peace and freedom and it sounds great, doesn’t it? I mean, eating food really needs to be stress free.
Also, intuitive eating is a learned behavior – we all have access to it.
Here is the problem though: the majority of people who come to me with issues around food are not quite ready for intuitive eating.
If we have obsessive, restrictive, compulsive, addictive and disordered feelings with food, our bodies or exercise and we are still counting calories and weighing ourselves all the time, intuitive eating can be a recipe for disaster for these people.
There is a process to healing and “intuitive eating”, for some people, comes down the line, but not right now.
Nutrition 360 One-On-One Coaching:
Do you need more personalized attention with your nutrition and heath so you can get the outcome you desire with your body, relationships, health, sex life, career and life to love it all?
I have 3 openings for one-on-one coaching right now that I will fill soon.
To apply for this empowering opportunity, click here.
I want people to be healthy and to have access to healthy food, resources and the best of the best without making it complicated and difficult.
I want you to know your value.
Thank you for tuning in,
Renee
My 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Experience
I’ve been getting asked a lot about how the 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat was that I completed about a month ago. So I created a spoken word catch-you-up video on the past 35 or so days, including what happened when I stopped speaking for 10 days and sat in meditation for 100 hours!
This video has a lot of teaching nuggets and a personal review of my experience of 10 days sitting in Vipassana meditation. It’s a bit different than a typical video with one topic, let me know your thoughts or questions in the comments below.
Below the video you’ll find the bullets of what I discuss throughout the video. Enjoy and I hope you find value.
- What is Vipassana?
- Why 10 days of silence?
- Why I got fed up with the personal growth industry?
- The need to get more quiet and be more introspective.
- Humans have craving – it’s primal.
- Looking for connection?
- Carrying trauma.
- Repeating patterns.
- Go inward and observe your body without judgement
- We want to look outward because it’s easier.
- Looking inward, makes us see shame, fear, craving.
- Incredibly challenging. Day 4 was tough!
- Losing your mind – it can be a good thing.
- Observations of craving, aversion and ignorance.
- Judging others.
- Forgetting how to breathe.
- Trusting yourself.
- Commitment – a deep level of commitment.
- Meditation practice and moving forward.
To learn more about Vipassana, please visit: http://www.dhamma.org/
I want people to be healthy and to have access to healthy food, resources and the best of the best without making it complicated and difficult.
I want you to know your value.
Thank you,
Renee
PS. I have a couple of private coaching spots available right now. Our My Nutrition 360 Group has started, it’s inspiring to welcome this community. If you want more information or to check our private coaching or our next group, click here to fill out your application. This is so you can have your own Nutrition 360!
Is your belief about time impacting your health?
You know, sometimes I have moments where I wish I could go back in time and be smacked with cold water in my face to wake the heck up and see things differently. If I only knew what I know now, back then… everything would be different…
And then I remember, that living in the past won’t serve anyone. I gotta come back to this moment, right now, and face reality and SO DO YOU.
Watch today’s video below to learn how:
I used to have this belief that I needed to focus almost solely on my career and business and that included ignoring other things that needed my attention. It started in my early 20’s. It meant that I was seeking validation from this “career” and ignoring what I valued more in my life.
“I don’t have enough time to get my work done”
“I don’t have enough time to make healthy foods”
“I don’t have time to focus on my health right now”
“I don’t have time to workout”
One of those, at the time, was cooking and feeding myself. In my early twenties, I used to believe “I didn’t have time to cook”. When I’m really honest, I thought I was too good to do my own cooking and I had an expectation that someone should do it for me. I know, that sounds terrible as I type it out, but it’s true.
I didn’t think there was enough time in the day to get things done and I rarely made “TIME” for my health.
Well, it eventually caught up with me.
Over the years, one of the biggest health lessons I have learned, above all else, was about healing my relationship to TIME.
As I continue to grow my relationship to TIME (and Self), I learn more and more and today I want to share one of the biggest secrets and root causes to ALL OF OUR HEALTH ISSUES.
Click above to watch the video about how your belief about TIME impacts your health
Why silence affects your brain and health
Hey there. I’d like to share a quick story with you. I spent a lot of my childhood playing alone, well except for the super loud thoughts rattling around in my head. I thought of this fact one day, when I sat across from a client, who had the very opposite. Her childhood was constant stimulation, chaos and trauma. My recommendation for her at the end of our session was to take a day to go have time with her SELF. To be ALONE. Maybe get a massage, see a movie by herself, take herself out to lunch.
I knew this was going to be a challenge for her and she needed it. What I didn’t anticipate was the near panic and terror that came over her face when she heard this from me. The very thought of being alone with herself was quite possibly her worst fear in life. As time went forward in our coaching together, we learned why… she had been carrying so much shame and pain and it was so scary to look at it. She was afraid to be alone with herself because it might mean that she would have to face some uncomfortable things.
I created this video talking about how silence can quite literally grow your brain! Watch it above.
Us humans, we are pretty addicted to our thoughts and being silent, even for a little while can be a challenge.
We also know silence can change your brain chemistry and that silence is becoming more and more essential to your health.
What about you? Could you imagine being silent for a half day?
As you read this – I’m gone and taking 10 days of complete silence on a vipassana meditation retreat. I share a bit about this toward the end of the video if you’re interested.
I also talk about the benefit of a morning practice and how to incorporate some silence and alone time into your day and how this can grow new cells in your brain and impact your memory, emotion and learning.
Silence is powerful.
Enjoy the video!
Thanks for tuning in,
Renee
PS. Applications are open for My Nutrition 360 Group! Click the My Nutrition 360 button on this page to fill out your application.
Oh and if you want more information on the vipassana retreat center I went with, visit here: http://www.dhamma.org/en
Are you silently grieving?
I’ve been speaking with people in the last 24 hours, I get the impression that many people are silently grieving.
Are you one of them?
Many of us are struggling with human intimacy and connection right now… we may be afraid to see others (and even ourselves) in a new light. For many we might feel completely shut down and even numb. And for others we feel unsafe, not only in our own body but in the light of tragic events and devastation all over the world – we feel less safe in general.
You might act like everything is “fine”. But inside, no one know’s how bad you’re doing.
There is a decision we make, to shut people off, close off intimacy and hide. This decision comes for survival-mode. It happens when horrible, traumatic things happen in the world and it happens in our day to day life when we get “triggered” by things that remind us of childhood trauma.
It’s the woman who feels depressed, lonely and shameful for numbing out with food last night, but the next day when she is with friends or at work she is telling stories about all of the good things happening. She is avoiding the entire picture of her reality.
She is silently grieving and it is slowly eating her alive.
Withholding distorts our reality. Soon we compartmentalize and begin to live a double life. The one we know in the quiet corners of our thoughts and the one everyone else sees.
This is how I felt within my 9 year marriage, that ended over 5 years ago. I didn’t feel connected and I blamed myself. I felt shame that it was my problem. Maybe something was wrong with me. Maybe, something everything that was wrong was my fault…
So I made little decisions, every day, mostly unconscious that I was doing it, to hide my unhappiness and loneliness. I vowed to figure it out myself. I did the personal development work, I tried to change my thoughts. I did the stuff my coaches said and “focused on the positive”. I changed my food and nutrition.
And years later, nothing helped. Things were the same and probably worse.
I had completely lost touch with my feelings and emotions and I hid this from most everyone – even myself. I got lost in another persons dreams, ideas and visions. I lost myself and didn’t know how to feel anymore. I didn’t feel like I was lying or intentionally hiding, because I didn’t know any different, but in reality I was living like everything was “just fine”. In reality, everything was not fine, in fact, it wasn’t good at all.
I’m sharing this with you because transformation often requires that we separate our emotional selves from our rational minds.
And the problem is that so many of us, have not been taught how to connect to our emotional self.
Even though I had my food and nutrition figured out and this positive mind and the best coaches helping with it, everything still fell apart because I had NO idea how to get in touch with my emotions and feelings.
If you want to change your life, you must have the formula of growing yourself with your:
1) Feelings
2) Food
3) Thoughts
You must have ALL 3 of these or you will keep spinning in circles and hiding, just like I was.
By the way, your spirituality is the undercurrent of all 3 of these, however without your feelings, food and thoughts in alignment, your spirituality will be used as a mission to prove yourself.
We start with “food” first and we begin soon. There are only a few days left to get access to a quick breakthrough call with me to be a part of Love Your Life Academy.
Have the courage to say yes to an opportunity to have a breakthrough.
Love,
PS. If you haven’t already, I’m inviting you to join me on this “90 Days To Freedom” Workshop right now. It’s available for just 48 hours. Click here to listen to the the 90 Days To Freedom Workshop right now. Oh and let me know what you think below. I’d love to hear from you.
