5 Ways to Make Permanent Change in Your Life

My bookshelf is filled with books offering the best, life-altering diets, the cure for overeating, and the secret to making peace with food. I bought my first Geneen Roth book in college, and from there, I was insatiable. I couldn’t get enough information.

I wanted to know. How could lose weight? Why was I overeating and how could I stop?

One would think that because I knew so much and I was so well read, that I must have been able to solve all of my eating problems.

Far from it. I was really good at collecting information, but I had a very hard time making a permanent change and following what the books told me to do.

If we KNOW how to make the change we need to make, why don’t we do it?

What I have come to find out for myself is that knowing just doesn’t matter. Having the information is only one small ingredient in the recipe of everlasting change. But many of us stop there and think reading that “miracle, end all be all” book will be our quick fix. You know that you feel better when you work out at least five days a week. But unless you get off your duff and get to the gym or lace up your running shoes, knowing that doesn't make any difference. 

“We first make our habits and then our habits make us.” John Dryden, 1631-1700

This is the key. We must repeatedly take action until that change is who we are.

> Stop seeking and start doing. Spending time reading and following the latest fad and what others are doing can be a distraction. If you already know what to do, take one step in the direction you want to go in right now.

> Keep the change you want to make top of mind. A daily reminder and a plan in your weekly schedule will certainly help. Keep a sticky on your laptop or bathroom mirror or a reminder on your calendar.

> Drop the idea that it’s hard, painful or it’s going to take a lot of work. I’m in the process of kicking my caffeine habit. Initially, I assumed that when I’m no longer drinking my caffeinated tea or coffee that I will have a big brain fog, get a caffeine withdrawal headache, and simply feel miserable. My idea of what would happen when I kicked the caffeine habit was initially keeping me from making any change at all. Letting go of that idea made it much easier for me to begin making the switch to decaf.  

> Connect the dots between the change you want to make and how it impacts your life. When I drink more water, I just feel better. I have more energy. When I sleep more, I have so much more patience with my family, and it feels so great to have more energy to do the things I love. Take a careful look at why this change you want to make matters so much to you.

> Replace perfect with your best. It doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Many of us want to do things perfectly or exactly as planned, but that may keep us from doing anything. Your ideal workout may be 45 or 60 minutes, but if you only have 15 minutes, that is better than nothing at all.

There will come a point when the change you want to make is no longer a change you want to make, it will be the fabric of your being. If you are not doing what you know to do, you just won’t feel like yourself. You have changed yourself forever. And you will know that for sure.

With Love and Inspiration~

Tara

How to Stop Your Overeating Habit

How to Stop-1

Are you one of those people that eats everything on your plate no matter what? I’m a former member of the Clean Plate Club myself. Actually, I often had second helpings at meal time. You can say I was a member of the Two Clean Plates Club ;). It didn’t matter if I was hungry or full. I just ate what was in front of me, and then some. I started my journey to transform my relationship with food and my body because I knew I was overeating and overstuffing. Sometimes when I was hungry, I felt empty. Not just physically, but emotionally. When I was full or even very full, I felt calm and a little sedated. These emotional causes and side effects of my overeating created a very well-ingrained habit that was in place for many years. It took me a while to break this habit, but after trying and failing a few times, I found a practice that made a big difference. Try this exercise to eat just enough and leave every meal satisfied:

• Sit down to eat your meal when you are hungry. Please notice the two important things: Sit down to eat. Eat when you are hungry.
• Create the intention that you are going to eat mindfully. Eat your meal slowly.
• Put your fork down occasionally to check in with your body. Drop your awareness to your belly and notice.
• When you have come to that point when you have moved past no longer feeling hungry and begin to feel satisfied, PAUSE.  Promise yourself that you are going to temporarily set your food aside for 15 minutes. After that time, you can freely and without guilt, eat what’s left on your plate.  Wrap up any remaining food, whether it’s one bite or 10 bites, and put it away.
• After 15 minutes, check in with your belly. Are you hungry? Does the idea of finishing or eating more of your meal appeal to you? If so, sit down and eat. If not, save your remaining food for another time.

People overeat for a lot of different reasons. You may find that overeating has become a habit you would like to break. Stopping overeating takes awareness, patience, and practice. Try this exercise when you eat your next meal, and you will be well on your way to honoring your body and yourself in a very powerful and loving way.

New Girl, New Habit

I have a confession to make.  It may make you laugh. My family thinks it’s hysterical. Over the past 2 ½ weeks, I’ve been obsessed with the TV show “New Girl”. I sat down to watch the pilot on Netflix and after a few shorts weeks, I’m already in the middle of Season 3. I’ve been watching the show religiously every night, averaging about 2.5 shows an evening. This is a big change for me as I typically only watch TV  a few times week. But now, I sit down to watch it with a glass of red wine or a cup of tea (depending on the night), curl up on the couch and let myself be thoroughly and mindlessly entertained. A habit is supposedly formed by consistently doing the same thing every day for 28, 30, or even 40 days (depending on who you ask and where you look). So you may not call my "New Girl" routine a habit just yet, but it did get me thinking about habits and how some habits can be so easily formed and some habits can be so hard to break.

People spend a good deal of time and money trying to create positive habits and to break negative ones. They often look at the action of the habit itself, for example, smoking, running every morning, or flossing before bedtime. But there are a few other pieces to the habit puzzle that are more critical than the action itself. A habit also includes the desire we crave before we move into action and the outcome that immediately follows. Take my “New Girl” routine. It started with me looking for relaxation, which is the desire I craved. While I watched the first 4 episodes of Season 1, I laughed, gave my mind and body a break sitting on the couch and afterward felt renewed. Immediately, my mind drew the connection. Desire to relax > "New Girl"> Feel Better. It didn’t take more than a few days for me to realize that when I wanted to feel better; I sat to watch "New Girl".

One habit that I’m familiar with is around binge eating, as it started for me in my early teens. At the time, food was the only coping mechanism I knew to help me deal with overwhelming feelings.  Even though I wasn't aware of it at the time, my desire was to not feel the intensity of my sadness, frustration, anxiety or anger. When I stuffed myself with food (maybe girl-scout cookies or M&M’s) I went numb and didn’t feel anything. The outcome of my binge eating habit was to take away the immediate discomfort (even though it was fleeting and ultimately I felt worse). This habit continued over the years by eating uncontrollably in response to stress, overwhelm or anything else that I wanted an escape from. I would try desperately to change this habit by trying to stop binge eating, like it was the cause and effect of my problems. The more I fought with the binge eating, the more energy I was giving to the one thing I desperately wanted to change. I realized, with mindfulness, awareness and compassion that acknowledging and not reacting to the the emotion was at the heart of dismantling this habit. It was then that I began to replace binge eating with a more loving habit.

Here is the thing. We make our habits and then our habits make us. The action of the habit can define us if we let it. We start to smoke and we become a smoker. We train for our first 5k and we become a runner. We stop eating meat and become a vegetarian. Look at your habits carefully; are they reflecting who you want to be and how you want to live? If not, look at the desire and the outcome of the habit itself.  Is watching "New Girl" every night a reflection of how I want to live? Maybe not. But let me put it another way, is relaxing and laughing every evening how I want to live? Absolutely.

Get Out of Your Own Way and Get What You Want

You just put yourself out on a limb and took on a big change. Maybe you will give it up, what ever that “it” is- sugar, wine, gluten, staying up late, not letting that co-worker get under your skin. Or you are going to take that new thing on- you just signed up for your first half marathon, you are finally going to look for a new job, or paint the bathroom that desperately needs it. Way to go. You’ve taken on that first step. So what happens not a few hours, days or weeks later when you find yourself diving into the chocolate cake, missing your early morning run, or seeing the paint still securely fastened in the paint can? It’s almost like our one step forward takes us two steps back! Why is it that sometimes when we put ourselves out on a limb we can’t keep ourselves there? There is actually a part of us that wants to undermine the change we are trying to make. There is a part of us that is more than happy staying comfortable in the familiarity of the how we know our lives to be. I like to refer to the two steps back simply as resistance. Here is what you do with resistance so you can really take on that change in your life as you intended:

1. See it for what it is.

When we begin to undermine ourselves, find ourselves acting in the complete opposite direction than what we said we would, the first thing we need to do is become aware of it. The key is observing the counter productive actions we just took and name them as resistance. You may find yourself saying “oh, that’s just a part of me resisting this change”.

2. Don’t analyze it.

So often our mind wants to understand why we did what we did. Like there is some good reason for it and that we need to solve another problem. Or maybe our mind wants to turn our resistance into an excuse or reason why we can’t get what we really want. Stop thinking about why you dove into the chocolate cake. Stop trying to understand why you haven’t started running yet. Resistance doesn’t need to be solved or given any more of your time or energy. Trying to understand it keeps the resistance in place.

3. It’s not personal.

It’s very typical for us to feel bad about ourselves when we take those two steps back. It can be frustrating, but it’s not personal. We can typically say things to ourselves like “I’ll never be able to do this” , “Why can’t I get this right?” or “What’s wrong with me?”. This is that fearful part of you that is resisting change. It doesn’t like the uncomfortable and the unknown and wants to hold you back. Here is where you exercise your compassion and kindness. Pick yourself up and see that what you did has nothing to do with how amazing you are and about your intention to make a change.

There is a reason why you want to make the changes you do. You may want to feel better, be happier in your life, or invest in making your home more inviting. Whatever it is, don’t lose sight of the why. When the resistance comes (and it like will), see it as a small detour and not a sign to turn back or stop all together.

Earlier this week, I put myself out on the limb. For weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to start a new project that I was really excited about but couldn’t find the time to do. I finally put this project on the top of my list and told myself that I’m going to take on the first two steps. Well, what did I find myself doing the minute I put the intention out there? I started staying up really late. Doing who knows what- Facebook, Instagram, Downton Abby. I found myself in that pattern for 3 days, feeling exhausted, cranky and full of that “what’s wrong with me that I can’t do this”. And then I realized. It was just resistance. The minute I saw it, I felt relief and was able to take on some huge strides on the project.

Our success with what we are willing to take on in our lives takes practicing awareness, compassion, and persistence. You are meant to go out on a limb and go after what you want.  The process in doing this is where the fruit is after all. Set yourself aside and don’t let a bit of resistance get in your way!