stephanie cirihal
move... be moved
An open letter I wrote to myself, and therefore, since we are all one on some level, to you as well….
Dear One,
Who gets up every day thinking “This will be the day I have enough willpower to eat healthy,” who tells herself, “Tomorrow will be different,” and “I should not have eaten that.” The answer you seek lies within – it is not in any diet or eating plan. It is buried underneath all the beliefs you carry about yourself and the world you live in, all the judgments and restrictions you place upon yourself. The truth is underneath all that. The truth is so precious that once you understand it instead of knowing it intellectually, it will melt away all struggles with your weight.
For you see, your relationship to food is just a mirror of your relationship to yourself. It is a reflection of you living in your mind instead of in your body. Your weight is an outcome of seeking the truth externally versus internally. It is all a mis-understanding.
Food is a comfort to the fears and insecurities you face daily. It is a temporary fix to a spiritual issue. The spiritual issue of having lost your connection, your felt connection to the divine, the universe, God, whatever you like to call it. Having lost that connection you believe that on some level you cannot handle the fears and emotions that make you uncomfortable, and running from discomfort, you eat for solace. Which works temporarily, only to add self-loathing on top of the discomfort for having eaten what you did.
Little do you know, dear one, how powerful and strong you are. If you knew that you could allow the fears and emotions to be, to just watch them, you would soon see how they come and go, and how nothing is big enough to swallow you or take you down with it. The resistance and the fear of feeling these uncomfortable emotions is worse than actually allowing yourself to feel them. Really feel them – physically in the body, without a story in your head. Using the body for what it was meant – to ground you in the here and now, and give you access to joy and peace.
For dieting is not why you are here, and it takes up far too much of your precious energy. Release your fears and your obsession with weight, and see that for what it really is: a way to avoid living your life. Your life, that happens while you obsess about what you just ate, what you are going to eat, and what you wish you could eat. You can handle, in fact you can actually embrace, everything that happens to you, whether you label it good or bad. You are so much bigger than you think you are. It’s time now to put down the weapons in the war with yourself.
Love,
Stephanie
Want to learn more? Visit my blog...
If you find that support would be beneficial to you, I would be happy to partner with you on your journey, as much or as little as is needed. Find out more about my lifestyle coaching services.
BE HAPPY
Happiness is an elusive, sometimes fleeting, experience for many of us. Our mind convinces us that we need something - the next promotion, anew car, a different job or spouse - to be happy. My experience is that happiness is dependent on external circumstances, which due to the nature of life, are always fleeting. But beneath happiness, there is something more powerful - peace. So that's what I endeavor to help myself and others find. You can read more thoughts on happiness vs. peace on my blog, and here is the way to peace that has worked for me and that I share with others:
- Inquiry is a process that allows us to examine the stressful thoughts that we automatically believe to see if they are really true for us. It includes identifying any negative emotion and discovering the stressful story or thoughts that we are believing that cause our suffering. If you can believe it, suffering IS optional. So is stress, and they both originate from resisting what IS in the present moment. When we argue with reality, we always lose. So, this process consists of 4 simple questions and a turnaround to that leads us to peace and love in any situation. It has changed my life and my marriage. I can't explain it better than its creator, Byron Katie, so I'll just share the link to her website, www.thework.com. On her Resources page, you'll find a variety of tools to guide you through this process. Many people find that being facilitated through the process is helpful in the beginning, and I offer that as part of my Lifestyle Coaching services. I also occasionally offer Inquiry Workshops - subscribe to get email updates to be notified when the next one occurs.
Want to learn more about revolutionary strategies to happiness? Visit my blog! Also, check out my specialty services targeted to help you find peace and authentic happiness.
Our stress-full lives make it difficult to dis-connect. We become addicted to adrenaline, approval, and appreciation, and like hamsters on a wheel we keep going until our bodies finally force us to stop. Taking time each day to relax and return to an unstimulated state is key to long term wellness. Did you know that stress is a leading lifestyle factor in many chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and some forms of cancer? Our bodies are like the engine of a car - we would never expect our cars to run forever without regular maintenance like oil changes - and yet even we go on vacation we either over-schedule our activities or eat and drink to excess. Add to that the sleep deficit most Americans live with, and you can see why our bodies fail us.
So, the key to relaxing is to shut down the mind, which is no small feat. Many people have tried meditation, but get frustrated, or don't get it. There are several more active ways to achieve short-term relaxation, outlined in the link here. They include many things that are practiced in Nia classes, and leave you feeling recharged and refreshed.
Exercise is known to have great benefits in reducing stress, for a variety of reasons. First, it releases feel-good endorphins that flood our bodies and elicit a sense of well-being. New studies show that exercise is as effective as anti-depressants for many people. To find the exercise that works for you, try taking the "Workout by Type" quiz and see what kinds of activities match your personality. It's fun and informative!
Another great way to reduce stress is to stop believing your stressful thoughts by investigating them. Often when we don't know all the facts, our mind fills in the details and creates a story that we then believe to be true. Or, we think we know what is best for someone else, and we feel stress when they don't take our advice. It's nothing personal - our mind's job is to make us right! Unfortunately, that can often lead to stress and distance from the ones we love. We can choose to begin to question our stressful beliefs using a simple process called Inquiry:
- Inquiry is a process that allows us to examine the stressful thoughts that we automatically believe to see if they are really true for us. It includes identifying any negative emotion and discovering the stressful story or thoughts that we are believing that cause our suffering. If you can believe it, suffering IS optional. So is stress, and they both originate from resisting what IS in the present moment. When we argue with reality, we always lose. So, this process consists of 4 simple questions and a turnaround to that leads us to peace and love in any situation. It has changed my life and my marriage. I can't explain it better than its creator, Byron Katie, so I'll just share the link to her website, www.thework.com. On her Resources page, you'll find a variety of tools to guide you through this process. Many people find that being facilitated through the process is helpful in the beginning, and I offer that as part of my Lifestyle Coaching services. I also occasionally offer Inquiry Workshops - subscribe to get email updates to be notified when the next one occurs.
For more relaxation strategies, visit my blog! Also, check out my specialty services targeted to help you find peace and authentic happiness.
Finally, I will be adding guided meditations and visualizations to this website for you to download. Subscribe to get email updates to be notified when they are added.
