Happy new month ladies (and gents, always welcome of course). It's the start of summer in the northern hemisphere and for many of us this is the time of year that we all dread. Shorts, day dresses, short sleeves, and gasp! bathing suits. Come January 1st women collectively look in the months ahead as a time to buckle down and prepare their bodies for the inevitable shedding of clothes and start joining gyms by the herds, and swearing off all their favorite foods while scolding themselves for over-enjoying the delicious holidays (and yet every year that doesn't prevent us from looking forward to the holidays, go figure wink wink).
So here it, is it's now summer and we have to make peace with our bodies at a very scary time of year. At the time of year we feel most insecure with our bodies. I have a trip planned to visit my family in europe, and I have lots of fears about being on the beach and comparing to my skinny cousins and friends. But I'm also looking forward to enjoying my newfound self confidence about my body, I have been working diligently every day in the mirror appreciating my own beauty and feeling more comfortable in my own skin. It's paying off and I'm having fun looking in the mirror. So here's to a happy summer and let's take note of these wise words from Geneen Roth:
"We often forget that our lives are made up of moments and of feelings about moments. As emotional eaters, we spend our lives forsaking all the moments of satisfaction for a future moment when we will be thin and the deprivation will have paid off. And if and when that moment does come, we are so worried about gaining weight that we focus our attention once more on the future and do not take pleasure in the present.
Most of us miss our own lives. Most of us spend our time preparing for a moment that never comes, while the years slip by, unnoticed, unused.
The means to an end cannot be separated from the end. If you attempt to get thin by reining yourself in, judging yourself, not believing in yourself, you will end up a deprived, self-condemning and frightened human being. And maybe you will have a thin body. For a while.
Breaking free from emotional eating is also breaking free from preoccupation with the future. It asks, it demands that you be aware of what you are doing now. It forces you to examine, by the very questions it asks, the ways in which you rush through your meals–and your days–in perpetual pursuit of moments that may never arrive. It brings up the issues of pleasure and satisfaction and asks that you rediscover their meaning in your life."