Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners.

There’s a class I’m taking with Meadow Devour and Brooke Castillo on The Art of Self Coaching. I love it, and it hasn’t even *officially* started yet.

{Just forum lurking and playlist listening. Loving.}

A most fabulous poem at the beginning of our workbook… it’s really good, really true.

There is a lot to ponder in it. What’s most powerful to me is how much we can try to pigeon hole things, or categorize ourselves as a [this kind of] person — and we get trapped in how we think of everything.

But, we don’t have to be.

Dropping Keys

The small  man

Builds cages for everyone

He

Knows.

While the sage,

Who has to duck his head

When the moon is low,

Keeps dropping keys all night long

For the

Beautiful

Rowdy

Prisoners.

– Hafiz

Why you’re carrying extra weight.

Thinking about what is okay to eat based on what/how much you’ve eaten today.

Resisting eating when you’re not hungry.

Resolving to recommit to eating healthy food/less food/no food, starting tomorrow. Once again.

There’s this neurotic behavior around food, because of how we want our weight to be anything from extremely thin to a weight that feels right for us.

Where does it come from?

There are the culprits that you always hear about:

• the ultra-thin fit image portrayed in the media (ubiquitous statement, but also true)
• the fact that your body is intrinsically anti-diet
• the whole, I’d rather zone out and munch while I work rather than be present and accounted for in a job that makes me miserable; comfortably numb

Then, there is the “emotional” side of eating.

It’s such a big part of the whole tangled mess. It’s really even bigger than we think it is.

It deserves an entire column unto itself:

• I deserve a reward (somehow, we make this mean food) after my hard day
• Finding yourself munching until bed time, rather than being idle and feeling
• Lunches with friends that make you act like a vacuum.
• And, maybe even the thinking about it is just a way to distract us, anyway… (more on this later)

So, of course, because of that pesky phenomenon that the more you try to lose weight, the harder it is to lose weight, we use the technique we’ve been taught for getting things done.

Set a goal! Achieve the goal through drive, hard work and pushing yourself!

In my experience, the self-discipline tactic is a FAIL: you’re kicking holes in the wall, that rebuild only stronger.

It’s the oak who uses his brute strength to not bend in the wind, and so he gets uprooted while the willow flexes and bows and survives the storm.

It’s the storm that blows and blows to get the man to take off his raincoat, but he only grabs it tighter. Then, the sun wins the bet to get the jacket off of the man by beaming his warmth; the man wants to take it off.

The self-discipline route is especially problematic because you are, essentially, declaring war on yourself. No one tells you that’s what you’re doing, but you really are.

You’re body (and its extra weight) are the enemy, and you will get rid of it by

• fighting the urge to eat
• beating yourself up when you eat more than you should
• ignoring its pleas for food, and then later…
• stuffing it (because Mother Nature always wins)

You know, we really do not think of it this way, but we are truly brutal tyrants to ourselves.

Declaring war on yourself means one thing for sure (in the words of Brooke Castillo):

You will lose.

(and since I’m kind of a smart-ass, that also makes me think: yeah, but I also definitely win, according to that logic… but whatever, imperfect metaphors, etc.)

Here’s the twist!

While we gain weight for many reasons, and use traditional methods to get the weight off, (a.k.a. the war on self — this is your brain on diets), it’s the battle that becomes our addiction.

It’s all that we think about, and therefore, we don’t have to think about anything else.

We’ve escaped that thing we don’t want to admit to ourselves. Or, that we are scared to deal with.

• Anytime that I feel myself gaining weight, I know that there is something I’m avoiding.

But, I’ve also been at this game for a while — so that may make zero sense to you at this moment. That is very okay.

101 edition goes like this:

• If you feel like you are carrying extra weight for you, listen to that instinct even if you are not technically overweight.  You are probably eating more than your body actually wants, and it’s actually more inconvenient to do this, than to stop eating when you are satisfied.

The easy answer is, oh, but I love food!

That is so interesting for me to hear, because food’s deliciousness diminishes the more of it you have. Every bite is slightly less yum. Also — you could eat more later.  Sweetie, it’s not that you just love food.

Eating slightly too much all of the time can feel comforting. Again, that invites the question, why do you need comforting?

Because — you’re scared (more on this shortly! AND, important: it’s okay/unavoidable to be scared).

The one thing you really don’t want to talk about.

This is why you feel heavier than YOU really should be — you’re looking for a bogy to distract you.

And, guess what? Your body knows how to get your attention: I’ll always notice when I am gaining weight.

Your extra weight is the exact amount of self-discovery, self-care and self-work (for lack of better terms) that you need right now. Once you’ve done your personal work, your weight will be gone (for real).

If this all feels confusing, that is okay, too — there is such a spectrum of where we are right now with connecting to our appetites, focusing on our weight, and finding the right way to handle it.

When I start feeling like I’m gaining weight, I check in with my feelings. I do this by monitoring my appetite (which you can learn in my Guerilla Weight Loss class — starts July 20, and as of this post 5 spots left) to reconnect with myself.

I usually find fear.

In the beginning, it was this kind of fear:

• Fear of how big these feelings I was avoiding might be
• Fear that I wouldn’t be able to handle what I was avoiding — or, worse, get fatter
• What if I’m avoiding something truly terrible! Ahhhhhhh!
• And, what if my fears are all really true! I better ignore them so that I stay safe

What I’ve learned is this: my feels come from me. They come from inside of me — quite literally, they are vibrations in my nervous system.

The only way out of a feeling is to feel it.  Whatever you resist (or kick holes in) persists. When you’re a willow in the wind, or sunshine on my back (allowing the feeling to be, give it space, let it enter this realm), then it moves through you like a wave.

In fact, most emotions last 90 seconds (which is also the amount of time that it takes for a woman giving birth to have a contraction). Interesting.

(Also — did you know that the human body has the same ratio of salt to water as does the ocean?  I love stuff like that. No clue what it all means.)

Your emotions are also things that are not going anywhere until they are all felt. We can eat and obsess to avoid them, but they will lay waiting under the additional layer of stuff to deal with that we’ve just dumped on top of the unfelt emotion.

Here’s the last thing: your emotions are valid and real. They are also the product of what you are thinking.

And while emotions must be embraced to be free from them, your thoughts? Those you can change.

There is a thought behind every emotion.

And, the way out of a thought is to question it.

This is the most successful method I’ve found around emotional eating that actually makes long term progress.

This is how I deal with emotional eating whenever I notice that I’m beginning to focus on what I’m eating (or my weight).

It gets a LOT easier with time, because when you deal with emotions as they come up, instead of stuffing them down and having to deal with 2 decades of fear and anger in one stretch, it’s not so bad. Honestly.

This is like getting to the root of the problem — which, you never have to do. You can actually just let yourself feel your emotions, and stop there. That is more than enough — that’s great.

Whatever your choice, there’s no rush.

You can do stuff now, or wait until you feel more ready.

No wrong answers. No wrong moves.

Your wonderful, and if you want to heal this, you will.

You don’t want what you can’t have.

And, I want you to feel good in your body. So, that’s what you get.

Most productive thing you can do is doing nothing.

Did I tell you that, very recently, I was in Portland, Oregon for Havi’s Camp Biggification?

It was pretty amazing. I met some really, really awesome people. I learned some cool stuff from Havi that I will do, um, every day for the rest of my life.

I am TOTALLY still processing everything that we did and talked about. Why is it taking me so long to process? Because, I think I do not deserve extended down time.

Which leads me to Part I (of many!): To increase your productivity, REST (and, why).

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Sucky Yoga and Grim Vibe Gay

Sucky yoga.

It’s the evil petting zoo version of [capital] Yoga.

I am currently engaged in a Sucky Yoga Bootcamp — except, when it was advertised, the Sucky was silent, so I thought I was signing up for a Yoga Bootcamp (really a {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp masquerading as Yoga Bootcamp).

Sure, it would be at 6 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 8 weeks. Sure, it’s 15-20 minutes from where I live. These parts were not left silent.

It was also not cheap, and with the price tag and the above-mentioned obstacles, I’m expecting this {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp to deliver.

You know, de-liver. Like, be challenging! Enlightening! Very attuned to form and everything else I’ve ever wanted yoga to be.

Possibly, unrealistic. Whatever.

Because instead of being the ultimate yoga challenge of the century!, it’s kind of a suckfest. Suck-a-thon. It’s suck-tastic.

The guy teaching is, like, okay.  As a human being, we probably wouldn’t hang out. That’s cool though, that’s just part of me knowing who my Right People are (which is a good thing to know) and who my Right People are definitely not.

What truthfully bothers me is that it’s all just SO DAMN SLOW. He talks slow, we stop and like, hang out, in between poses, which also slows things way, way down until we slooooowly get into another pose.

I even like slow (a.k.a., “restorative“) yoga. I like it a lot.

But this is like yoga for the elderly who also have ADHD, and aren’t able to study one thing for very long, so attention is all jerky and distracted AND are also creaky and cannot be that distracted very quickly. Creeping, but all over the place.

Also: stop telling me what to do, guy. My body doesn’t like it when I do something called the butterfly or whatever it is you just said. Ouch-in-the-spine (always bad, duh).

And I’ve pulled my back (or pinched a nerve, who freaking knows, but it’s annoying). So, I really can only do some stuff and cannot do other, twisty stuff. (Yes, I know who you’re talking to when you repeat to twist more deeply 4 extra times.)

There’s also this dude who releases, um, bodily noises (so gross, sorry to put that on you) throughout the class at an alarming frequency. And he doesn’t really look that clean.

Sick.

I sort of hate you, {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp! Blah!

Early morning, long-ish drive, 90 minutes of movement suited for ADHD octogenarians and a disgusting side show.

And I’m pretty sure that I bring everyone in the class down with me in my negative tornado of loathing.

Reportedly, there was a “grim vibe” in class today.

That would be me. I would be the Grim Vibe in class.

Yoo hoo! It’s just me, Grim Vibe Gay.

And, here’s the most surprising part.

Clearly, I have grown to hate this class.

But what is sooo interesting is how much better I feel afterwards. Even this yoga makes me feel peaceful, more open and more creative.

Can you believe that? Clearly, after reading my ranting, you can appreciate how much I don’t like this {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp.

And even when Grim Vibe Gay has villianously ruined it, for everyone else!

The fact that I still get something out of this tells me a couple of things that can go in my Book of Me (see tomorrow’s post).

(Book of Me, briefly for now, keeps track on stuff that works for me, doesn’t work for me and things in the “other” category of me.)

Things like:

• First, it tells me that even when the sucky is silent in self-care stuff, like yoga, it’s still worth doing. So, do it even if I have reservations.

That is good to know because there are times when I know a class will be s0-so, it’s not paid for like this {Sucky} Bootcamp and so, I don’t go. Really, going is better than not going.

• It tells me that I’m turning someone who is not my Right Person into an enemy.

This is not a useful habit. Really, it’s totally fine for anyone to not be one of my Right People. Super fine! No big deal! That’s part of finding all of my Right People (hello there, Right Person!).

But instead, I am not respecting his Him-ness. He gets to be as slow and herky-jerkified as he wants to be. It is his class, and just because he does that doesn’t mean I have to do that, too.

Because, I am the boss of me. Just ask my big sister. She’s been told that a lot.

Not in an aggressive, power-suit way, but in a Epsolom the catepillar from Alice in Wonderland kind of way. It just is.

It’s a knowing power, a deep and peaceful fact that I’m in charge of what my body does or doesn’t do and it’s fine for Other People not to be on board with that. They don’t have to agree with my worldview on this or anything else.

• I am allowed to not want to hang out with all people.

The person who happens to guide me in stuff (life stuff, work stuff, yoga stuff) is important to my experience of the process. It’s okay to be choosy. I can be as choosy as I want to me.

• Grim Vibe Gay is bringing people down.

It is worth it to find a way to have my own experience of a class that is not how I would like the class to be so that I’m not ruining it for everyone else, whose experience matters just as much to them as mine does to me.

For whatever reason, my energy affects theirs’ (maybe true for all people?) and it would be loving to them to work on myself here so that they can have their own experience, and not GVG’s.

Stuff I can do about this {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp experience.

I could stop going.

I could go, stay in the back, and do my own thing when I would like to.

I could remember my Book of Me’s, and let this time be a clearing out of crappy moods and an opportunity to learn different boundaries between me and this yoga guy.

Because, really, this is all about my relationship with Other People. It’s all about where my business stops (my business, which is where I belong and feel happiest), and Other People’s business begins (which I don’t belong in and breeds anxiety for me).

It can be a lesson in how I relate to Other People, where I have patterns of thinking and action that don’t serve me well. I think {Sucky} Yoga Bootcamp is that whether I want it to be or not.

Well, if I stop going, it won’t have to be a teacher in Life School. And I can quit going if I feel that’s the best path for me.

Maybe I will go. Maybe I won’t go.

But, I do commit to watching this pattern with Other People who are not my Right People generally. It’s bound to come up again.

And learning to stay in my business and letting them run their business however they want, out of kindness for myself and not frustration with them (who knows where they come from! They could drink from toilets, for all we know.)

In the comments, I’d like:

• Anything! That is not advice (or admonishment for GVG)
• Also, thoughts on you and Other People
• Places where Other People get to you

Find your purpose by not looking for it (ironic!).

Oh, the irony!

We look for that thing we want to do everywhere. And we know we have a purpose, so we oh-so-dutifully go out and try to discover it.

We chase after it at full sprint. We try to sneak up on it. We take tests that promise to up and tell us what it is already.

But, it always seems to trickily evade our grasp.

Like when you want to catch the cat to take it to the kennel: we chase the cat! We lung after the cat. The cat is very good at not getting caught.

It’s frustrating. Is there something wrong with me? Have I no purpose? Am I lost right now, or is this my purpose??? AH. Frustration.

There is a Purpose Finding Secret (and, I’m going to tell you!).

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How procrastination lead to me writing an eBook in 2 days

The story goes like this:

[Me] Hi Kelly! My name is Laurie, and I have this thing I want to do, my friend Pam said you’re the best person to talk to — let’s talk about it!

[Kelly] Hi, Laurie! I’m happy to help! Let me know a good time to talk!

Approximately, 4 months go by…

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I’m wrestling with my Snoozeletter. AGAIN.

I really should have talked to you about this before now.

For the past, um, FOREVER, I’ve been feeling weird, out-of-my-depth, LOST and gross about my newsletter.*

*Which is why I, basically, do not ever send it out, and you may be thinking, you have a newsletter?

Which is interesting because my newsletter is only exactly what I want it to be (I work for me, I create my thing out here, in the world, the way it works for me, and NO ONE is making me do this**)

**Well, I kind of am making me do this. LBH***.

***LBH = let’s be honest. It’s my second favorite acronym surpassed only by R.O.U.S’s.

I hate sending out my Snoozeletter because I don’t know what the point of it is, and I’m not going to just send crap to your inbox, which is a pretty personal place to show up, without it being worth it.

And I show up to my blog to tell you stuff that will solve your problemos, and to Feast to support and encourage and have fun times with my Feastie crew — so, why even have a newsletter?

It feels superfluous and hokey, because I feel like when I try to write it (EVERY WEEK, this happens!) I put on my Authority Hat, which feels gross, instead of just talking to you, which feels fun and good and is WHY I even do this thing I do.

So, yeah! Why even HAVE this Snoozeletter???

Alright, there’s the obvious solution — just don’t have a newsletter!

But, that doesn’t feel that great to me.

I feel like (at least, for now) showing up to your inbox could be a really good thing.

• It could be another way to support you (and you don’t have to remember to check the blog) and connect with you and help you be YOU out there in the world the way you want to be you.

WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT of what I do.

• It could be a way to let you know what hard stuff that I see in your life (or stuck areas, or challenges — however we want to call them) and what I’m up to to help you over them. Kind of like a big-picture view.

Also — THE WHOLE POINT of what I do.

• Ooooo! I could also include links to recent posts, like as categorization, so that you can see the bigger picture and it’s easy for you to see your issue and all of the stuff we’ve talked about to get you past the issue.

This is feeling better.

• I could take off my Authority Hat, and just talk to you. And it could be just like my blog, but just be called a Newsletter.

Because, I love talking to you! I really miss it when I don’t do it regularly. It brings me great joy.

• AND I could re-name it, and call it not a “Newsletter” (which cheeses me out for some reason) and instead call it… ummm… something better.

Liiiike, Nooseletter? It’s Not A Newsletter? Paperless Post? The Automagical? Vanilla Pricilla? So, maybe this piece is a work in progress.

And, oooo Oooo oooo, MAYBE you can throw out some ideas!

The newsletter is for you, so you can throw out some names that you like… yeah??? Yeah.

Hooray!

That’s what I would LOVE in the comments: what could I call my Newsletter-Reinvention?

Purpose of this “it’s not a newsletter” is

1. to make it easy for me to support you (by showing up to your inbox)
2. to give you an overview of what we’ve been talking about in the blog
3. to show you how we are working together through the tough stuff
4. to just talk to you! like a normal person would (refreshing)

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I hope you’re having a magnificent Friday. Let’s chat next week.

It’s the Solopreneur Life (for us)

Many, MANY thanks to Larry Keltto! He’s terrific, and the author-extraordinaire of The Solopreneur Life.

He’s been so kind as to feature me and my lil’ biz on his site today. And, what’s more is that he’s been MOST generous in his comment, too.

So unnecessary!

But, how lovely.

The Solopreneur Life is this wonderful blog and site that provides information all about, and tremendous support and resources for, entrepreneurs who work all for themselves… hence, the “solo-preneur” (clever, no?).

I really am honored to be part of his project and delighted overjoyed if anything I share is helpful to you, or anyone carving out a life that is your very own.

Check out his site, it’s great — and, then, check back often.

(Larry, you rock.)

How to get out of your funk!

Blurgh! I suck.

You know when you feel like crapola because you feel you are screwing it all up at your job or with your special friend or with your kiddos (or whatever)?

OR, maybe you’re just THINKING about yourself, generally… and feeling all kinds of inadequate, in ALL kinds of ways.

And sometimes, you don’t even know why you feel kind of not good enough.

This experience is your friendly, neighborhood Inferiority Complex.

This experience that you and I know and loathe is actually an archetypal phenomenon (as old as time).

Historical figures (I’m talking Lincoln — as in Abe) have struggled for half of their lifetimes feeling inferior… before ultimately working through it (and witnessing gargantuan successes, like a presidency).

And, let’s be honest — it feels awful. It feels so real! And overwhelming, and debilitating.

Here’s what’s going down: You are comparing yourself to one of two things (or both): (more…)

Ricky’s Got It Right.

There comes a time in the life of every blog to be controversial.

This may be that time for me. I have never received any hate comments (well, on this blog — my locavore life blog? Another story… who knew seasonal food could insight such outrage??) or harsh words. That may change today.

Did you see how today, Tuesday, March 30th, Ricky Martin (finally) came out of the closet? Some might call his post to his site “gushy” — I see it as modeling everything we talk about here.

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