“Think Lovely Thoughts”. This sweet little plaque hangs in my kitchen. Right next to the coffee maker.
I bought it at the gift shop at Kripalu, a yoga retreat center in Western Massachusetts. I remember thinking, I want lovely thoughts. Maybe this small plaque would serve as the reminder I needed.
Early in my transformational journey, I “worked” on my thoughts. Thanks to Dr. Wayne Dyer, I embraced the notion that if I changed my thoughts, I would change my life. And when it came to emotional eating and overeating, I wanted change. Lots of change.
My interpretation of Dr. Dyer’s advice was if I had the right thoughts in my mind then I’d eat the right foods in the right amounts and the extra weight would just come off.
Along these lines, my thoughts were to blame for my struggles with food. They needed to be fixed.
Consider these common thoughts, one’s I’ve had and my clients have also shared with me:
I’m fat.
I can’t believe I just ate all of that. I’m disgusting.
I’ll never lose weight.
I hate my body.
Being grateful and appreciating yourself and your body is a common way to change negative thoughts and beliefs.
Gratitude may have its place in your healing journey, but I have found forcing yourself to be grateful when you’re riddled with shame and blame is much like putting frosting on dog shit.
Battling thoughts, trying to force them away, and covering them up with more positive ones takes an extraordinary amount of energy and often feels fake and forced.
Changing our thoughts and beliefs is a powerful approach. When we’re aware of what we’re thinking, challenge the assumptions and stories that created those thoughts, we can feel tangible relief when we stop believing a painful thought and embrace a new one.
Yet, excavating your thoughts and beliefs is not so easy and can be hard to do on the fly. It takes time and effort.
But the larger problem I have is the prevalent personal growth conversation that implies “we are broken and need fixing”. Thoughts, like our bodies, are assumed to be wrong. But what if they aren’t?
What if our thoughts don’t need changing and our bodies don’t need fixing? (There is a lovely thought, don’t you think?;))
This is why I want to share with you a more accessible and powerful way to be with your painful thoughts.
Just witness them.
Let them be.
Watch them like you’re watching an airplane fly across a bright blue sky.
Don’t try to change them or fix them.
The magic of thoughts is how we react to them. Your mind can think whatever it would like to think. But what really matters, what ultimately changes your life, is what you’re choosing to do with the words you’re saying to yourself.
Often, when we say “I’m fat.”, we react with shame and in turn, want to fix our fatness by trying to lose weight. In a world saturated with weight stigma and fatphobia, “I’m fat”, can feel worse and be a more degrading label than being called a bitch, dumb, or lazy.
Stop battling with this internal dialogue. Stop letting these words hold any meaning in your mind, bad or good. Let the thought be the thought. Because what ultimately matters is what you do.
Do you choose to carry out shameful behaviors like punishing your body with intense and endless exercise and withholding food from it when you’re physically hungry? Or do you choose to nourish and care for your body?
These are the choices you get to make, no matter what you’re thinking.
You may not be able to choose what thoughts run through your head. And quite honestly, don’t spend any more time trying to change them. Instead, let them pass like the impersonal words they truly are.
Chances are, you’re working very hard to change your relationship with food and your body. Let your thoughts be one less thing to fix. Just let them be.