Take a big breath in And let it out Another breath in And let it out One last breath in And let it out with a sigh If you haven't already close your eyes And imagine the space between your eyebrows growing smooth The skin growing smooth the muscles growing smooth And if as we move through this you notice a part of your body that doesn't want to let go of its tension just notice That's perfectly normal Bring your attention to your temples.
What do you find there?
If you can Let the skin there go smooth let the muscles grow heavy and soft and then the softness Now find some softness in your jaw Your scalp The very base of your skull Find that softness and just feel those muscles letting gravity pull them down from the top of your head And now with your eyes still closed Think about a moment from these past few days when you were really disappointed about an eating decision you made Or a critical of your body Or your weight Choose one specific moment and go back there to how you were feeling as you were eating the food or maybe afterwards When regret or shame or disgust really set in And if you want to put your hand over your heart Notice how the skin of your chest or your clothes feel against your hand And how your hand feels against your chest that pressure Become aware of your heartbeat I'm going to give you some time to just Be with the feelings that you felt Be with the feelings that you felt if you felt lousy for that choice,
That's totally normal We all have painful moments where we feel bad about what we did or didn't do And the point of self-compassion isn't to get rid of those crummy feelings The point is to let ourselves have that moment if we need it Feel that disappointment,
That regret,
That shame,
Disgust It's okay Take care of ourselves Like we would take care of a child I'm sorry you're feeling this way,
That's hard The goal right now isn't to be perfectly happy with every choice It's to be good to ourselves even when we don't make the choice we wanted to make And this kindness caring for ourselves actually calms down our brains And allows us to be more confident in ourselves This kindness caring for ourselves actually calms down our brains And allows us to build new habits It's a critical part of the journey I want you to repeat after me out loud or in your head It's okay to feel ashamed of my eating choices It's okay to feel ashamed of my body It's totally 100% okay to feel however I feel And now I,
Sarah,
Am going to say to you I'm sorry you feel that way right now That sounds so hard,
I've been there,
I know I'm sorry And now I want you to say it to yourself I'm sorry I feel this way It's so hard And notice if just telling yourself that it's okay to feel the way you feel Actually helps you move through that emotion so you don't feel it as strongly anymore When you're ready,
We can build a little distance from that moment For your whole life you've been building brain patterns that guide your eating choices You're doing the work right now to change those patterns but you know it doesn't happen overnight You're changing your relationship to food and it takes time You're doing great things I want you to think about why you might have made that choice in that moment Maybe you were feeling some stress or some loneliness Maybe your brain was really screaming at you to eat,
Eat,
Eat And you needed a pick-me-up to get through a tough afternoon Maybe you were celebrating something really joyful Having an intense emotional experience Whatever it was,
I want you to repeat after me out loud in your head This choice doesn't define me It's something I did once to help me feel good One more time This choice doesn't define me It's just something I did once to help me feel good That's the truth,
You are a complex person,
You're balancing a lie,
You're doing your best at any moment It takes a lot of resilience and courage to do the work you're doing right now So that one choice that you made and the disappointment or shame or anger you felt You're doing the work right now So that one choice that you made and the disappointment or shame or anger you felt afterward That just means you're normal Let yourself have that moment of pain around the choice And when you're ready to,
You can take a breath and remind yourself that that choice does not define you Making choices that you aren't happy with is part of life It happens to every single human being on this planet It's going to happen again to you many,
Many times And that's okay Take a deep breath in Let it out Another deep breath in And let it out When you're ready,
Open your eyes
