Don’t get me wrong, these activities are lovely, I enjoy them myself. The problem is we have it backwards. These tactics will never work until we address WHY we’re not finding the space to take care of ourselves. Notice that I said space and not time.

The reason why you aren’t eating, food journaling, exercising, sleeping, meditating, or de-stresssing the way you want is not because you’re too busy, it’s because you have a damn good reason not to.

Any of these sound familiar?
Paying attention to my body’s hunger signals is hard.
Keeping a food journal is a hassle.
I don’t have time to plan meals.
It’ll never work.
I’m just going to fail again. (aka The Eyeore Defense)
I get more praise and attention for taking care of others than for taking care of me.
If I stop doing for others, I’ll feel scary emotions.

To move into self care mode, find the sucky reasons (SR’s) that are holding you back and use all those smarts you have to question them.

Here are some ways you could question the above SR’s:

What takes more time out of your life? Taking care of yourself, or not? Give yourself detailed examples of how not taking care of yourself takes more time and how taking care of yourself takes less. They’re there, I promise.

Rather than giving it a go, they Eyeore defense allows you to fail now and be done with it. That is indeed sucky.

What’s the cost of that praise and attention you’re working so hard to get? What happens when you work so hard and you don’t get it? In the esteemed words of the modern sage/nutball Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for ya?”

What would happen if you didn’t jump in and do for others? If it’s not enough that doing this would be an awesome thing for you–how might that be an awesome thing to do for them?

Can you die of feeling an emotion? Can you die (inside) from not feeling an emotion?

Self care is an attitude, not an activity.
I can be completely hair-on-fire busy and feel peaceful, content and caring toward myself. I can be getting one of those aforementioned pedicures and be a hot mess of stress.

What you’re doing and your level of activity in life matter less than how you’re THINKING about it and yourself. When you dissolve the beliefs that stand between you and caring for yourself, you’ll find a way to get enough sleep, fuel your body properly, exercise and take your Flintstone vitamins regardless of what’s going on. You’ll be calmer and more centered even in the storm of activity that is your life.

You’re never going to “put your oxygen mask on first” if you believe you’re getting a bigger emotional payoff for putting everyone else’s mask on first and leaving yourself lying passed out in your airplane seat. It will feel really hard to perform the self-loving acts that will take you to your natural weight until you disprove the beliefs getting in the way.

Once you dissolve all those sucky reasons for not putting yourself at the center of your life, then by all means, go get yourself a massage.

They had a saying for this in 12-step programs, they call it being “terminally unique”. Each person tends to think their own story is unique. They tell themselves (and us!) that their case is special, they are REALLY messed up, that their issues are the WORST. Which is really their way of convincing themselves they can’t change. The truth is, we all have stuff–big stuff and small stuff–our stories are nothing special. Like Byron Katie says, there are no new painful stories. What’s great about this is that once you are able to let go of being terminally unique, you can lose weight/stop drinking/change your life just like thousands of other people who have before you.

How would you eat, tune into your body and take care of yourself if you let go of being terminally unique?

This phrase is the weight-loss shorthand for our culture, it captures a desirable outcome we can all get behind—a cute booty. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to look cute in your jeans (my point would be to buy cute jeans and rock them out now, but that’s another blog post…), I just don’t think that thought motivates you.

Why?

Because it’s not really what you want.

What you are looking for is the emotion behind looking cute in your jeans—the emotion that comes from loving, honoring, respecting and nurturing yourself enough to be willing to feel your feelings and stop putting more food in your body than it wants.

I’m talking about pride.

Pride has gotten a bad rap. When most people talk derisively about pride, they are talking about false pride—propping up of insecurities with arrogance and conceit; seeking external validation with a “look at me” attitude. I am talking about true pride—appreciation of yourself and your accomplishments from a place of genuine self respect, dignity and confidence.

This is great news because you don’t have to wait until those skinny jeans fit, you can feel proud of yourself right now. And when you tap into this very strong emotion of pride in yourself, it becomes a piece of cake (ha! pun intended) to stop eating when you’re satisfied.

Here’s how to cultivate pride:

1. Create strong emotion.
Here’s where I think the skinny jeans battle-cry falls down. There’s not enough emotion associated with it. You slip on those jeans and you feel… really good, maybe great. And then, you’re wearing pants. Not exactly a Hallmark moment.

Now, think about a day where you take great care of yourself. A day where you eat wonderful foods that fuel your body just until you’re satisfied and no more. A day where you exercise and maybe even go a little longer or faster than you did the day before. A day where you are willing to feel your feelings rather than eat them. Or, a day where you simply do one of those things.

Now, how do you feel? I hope you say proud. What does pride feel like? Get into it, make it vivid, feel free to lay it on thick—you deserve it.

Remember that feeling.

2. Pride now, no waiting.
Waiting for your jeans to fit (or until you get to your natural weight) is too long to wait for the emotional payoff of loving yourself. Plus, it’s totally unneccesary. That feeling I asked you to remember above? Give it to yourself every time you do something pride-worthy. Let me tell you, when I do my Kinesis workouts, I give myself a HUGE dose of pride feelings. I lay it on thick. I make it a double. I frickin’ supersize it. I went from a woman who had an ambivalent and rocky relationship with exercise to a woman who not only loves it, but regularly challenges herself to new levels of fitness. I’m proud of that.

Since I’m not a fan of cooking, I am proud of myself every time I make a great fuel food meal from my “Eating for Life” cookbook. (Or a not-so-great meal due to operator error!) And, I’m just a proud when I grab a great fuel food option from the grocery store. I am still proud every time I stop eating at +2 on the Hunger Scale. Have you caught on yet? I am extremely proud of myself on a daily basis.

3. Fast Forward
Whenever you have a decision point between prideful action and self-destructive action, fast-forward in your mind. Conjure up all your prideful feelings and think about how awesome you will feel about yourself right after you choose self-esteem over self-destruction. Feel those feelings deeply—and choose.

Let your strong emotions of pride propel you through to the outcome you want. The Biggest Loser theme song captures this concept perfectly, “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

So? What have you done today to make yourself feel proud? Please comment and share. It doesn’t have to be just eating or exercise, all kinds of pride cultivation welcome!

What I have been finding are a ton of great blog posts that I’ve been sending to my clients. So I figured I’d share them with you too since I’ve got nothin’ right now.

Jeannette Maw, the fabulous Good Vibe Coach, recently posted an interactive discussion about how to move toward what you want by acting as if you already have it. Be sure to read the comments!

Brooke Castillo, one of my mentors, recently posted an oldie but goodie about the lies we tell ourselves about our relationship with food. (Hint: You don’t  have a “relationship” with food, you have relationships with people.)

Master Coach and my very good friend Susan Hyatt chimes in with this nugget about savoring the moment. Juicy.

Another Master Coach and very good friend Michele Woodward wrote this post about when other people’s gifts (think metaphor here) become junk.

You’ll hear more from me next week. In the meantime, enjoy these posts, I did.

I was reading this diet book last night (which shall remain nameless) where the author said “resisting” so many times, it started to make me feel a little jumpy. Resist overeating, resist cravings, resist your thinking. Just keep on resisting and those pounds will fall right off. Ugh.

My experience with resistance is more along the lines of “what we resist, persists.” Meaning the more you resist, the more you find yourself nose-first in nachos.

Try this little experiment:

Think about the color green.

Now DON’T think about it. Don’t! Don’t do it, stop it, no green.

Seriously I mean it, no green!

Have you just seen more green things than you have in a year?
That’s how resistance works.

Telling yourself to not do or think something is the same as telling your mind to put your full attention on it. So when you decide to resist that tempting Godiva bar (Or as I call it, Go-Diva), you have now created a traction beam to it. Before you know it, you’ve been assimilated into the chocolate-covered Borg.

So if resistance is futile, what now?

Flip from resistance mode to curious mode and dive right into it.

When you find yourself resisting something, it’s the fighting of it that makes it that much stronger. Instead of running away from the object of your resistance, walk right up to it and find out what the heck it’s all about. Be curious about why you’re trying to avoid the food/feeling/person/activity.

In the case of food, is it something you’ve told yourself you shouldn’t have? What if you truly allowed yourself to have it? Or, you might notice you want it because you think it will make you feel better. Would it? Once you’re in curious mode rather than resistance mode, you can actively choose what you want to do.

If it’s a feeling you’re avoiding. Spelunk right into it and see what’s there. Is the feeling as intense as you thought? Can you handle feeling it? How does it feel in your body, what does it make you want to do? Oh, the feeling’s gone already? Funny how that works…

When you stop resisting, you’ll find the intensity of the feeling or craving lessens or even goes away entirely. Resistance is like fuel for your negative emotions, it just makes them burn hotter. Once you remove the fuel, the emotion becomes right sized. You also feel the emotion all the way through so you can be done with it. Resistance just drags it out.

Whether it’s anger, boredom, Ho-Hos or the Borg, resistance is futile.

I won’t email you too much, promise.

I realized the truth is that I dream big and make it happen so fast that sometimes I don’t realize what I’ve done. Oooh, that felt better! All of the sudden the big ideas started coming, people even approached me with big ideas! And, I noticed that I quickly started to make them happen.

Here are the steps I went through to move from playing small to dreaming big:

1. Bust the beliefs
The first step in allowing yourself to dream big is to address any limiting beliefs you have around your ability to do so. You might think limiting thoughts like:

“If I dream it, then I have to make it happen and that’s scary.”
“If I allow myself to dream and it doesn’t happen, I’ll be disappointed.”
“If I dream it and make it happen, my friends/family won’t approve.”

Bust those beliefs by looking at the opposites of your fears:

“If I DON’T dream it, I won’t make it happen and that’s scary.”
“If I DON’T allow myself to dream, it won’t happen and I’ll be disappointed.”
“If I DON’T dream it and make it happen, I won’t approve.”

Could these statements be as true or even more true than the original fears? What happens in your life if you don’t dream big?

2. Use your own definition of “big”
If it’s inspiring and energizing, then it’s big. Doesn’t matter what it actually is, what matters is how you FEEL about it.

3. Let ‘er rip
Give those random, crazy ideas light and air. As I was making my vision board this year, I found myself pasting on an image of a blonde woman on the radio. Until that point, I hadn’t consciously realized I wanted to be on the radio. I had no idea what I wanted to do on the radio, it just sounded fun on a deep level. I didn’t pressure myself to figure it out, I didn’t run out and start an internet radio show. I just noticed and started tuning in to see what felt right. I started telling people I wanted to be on the radio and opportunities to be a guest on several radio shows arose. I have no idea where this radio thing is going, but I’m enjoying the ride.

Put your half-baked idea out there—write it down, put it on a vision board, start telling your friends. It just might be your next big idea.

4. Think good thoughts, and water
My mom and I were out planting plants the other day and had this exchange:

Mom: “I hope these transplants make it here.”

Me: “We’ll think good thoughts for them.”

Mom: “Think good thoughts and add water.”

Aside from making me laugh (I could do better at watering the plants), this struck me as profound. Making big things happen is equal parts inspiration and action—inspired action. I can’t just think good thoughts about the plants and expect them to thrive. But, when I’m thinking good thoughts about the plants, I remember that they love to be watered and get out there and do it. The same with your big ideas, think about them, get inspired and then do the footwork to make them happen.

What does dreaming big have to do with weight loss? If you are dreaming big, there’s no need to eat big.

On the flipside, it’s possible that taking it slow may result in “faster” weight loss. This could look like going back to the basics of keeping a food journal and and not letting yourself get too hungry or full. It could mean being kind to yourself which results in feeling really good and motivated about the work you’re doing, which leads you to wanting to do more, which leads to you losing more weight—perhaps faster than on the “fast” track.

I’m just sayin’.

You know this scenario, right? You’re eating something scrumptious and you know you’re full, but you think, “It tastes so good, I don’t want to stop eating.” and with that, you blow by fulls-ville into overstuffed town, perhaps with a side trip to bloated city. If you want to lose weight, chances are there’s a big part of you that really does want to stop eating—that part of you is just not in charge at the moment.

Here’s a checklist you can use to see what’s really behind the ‘It’s so good’ phenomenon and get yourself back on track:

Are you depriving yourself?
Deprivation and overindulgence are two ends of the same pendulum. When you make certain foods forbidden, you are loading up the deprivation side of the pendulum. That pendulum is eventually going to swing the other way into overindulgence. It’s physics, it’s going to happen. When you finally allow yourself to have that tasty treat, your inner wild child will kick in and of course you won’t want to stop eating. After all, it’s going to be a LONG time before you let yourself have this treat again!

Like any pendulum, there’s a huge area of balance within the two extremes. Stop the deprivation/overindulgence cycle by shifting to the center. All foods are allowed, there is no forbidden fruit. I know you’re thinking that you’ll start eating with wild abandon, you won’t. What happens is food becomes right sized. If you can have ice cream any time, that means you don’t have to pack in the whole pint in one sitting. You could pick the exact kind of ice cream you want and savor each bite. You might catch yourself thinking something like “This is so good, I could have it again tomorrow night!”

You find yourself saying, “I deserve this.”

It’s been a hard, frustrating day at work. That Bill is such a f*&%ing idiot. Ahhh, home, relaxation, I deserve this treat. Stoprightthere. This looks like eating for the joy of it (which I fully support) but the “I deserve” gives it away as eating to comfort or gratify yourself.

If you’re feeling like you deserve a nice big slice of cheesecake or plate of nachos, take a moment to ask yourself what you really deserve. After a stressful day, do you really deserve to overstuff your body with food? Do you really deserve to feel guilty afterward? Sounds kinda mean to me. Ask yourself what you really deserve—to go to bed early, to exercise and release some stress, maybe a hot bath or a book, or a hot bath AND a book!

What percentage of joy in life are you getting from food?

If you answered more than 10%, think about diversifying your joy. At this point many of my clients start wracking their brains for classes they can take or new hobbies to try. Upping your joy quotient isn’t necessarily about trying new things. It can be, but it’s also about noticing the joy in your life right now—the joyful moments. The more you notice the joy around you, the more you will create. When you diversify your joy, it’s much easier to put down the fork because frankly, you have better things to do.

The 7 Biggest Mistakes People Make When They Say No
by Christine Kane

Know what’s funny?

Many women will talk about anything when it comes to personal growth work. They aren’t afraid to “go there.”

But as soon as the topic of Saying No comes up, they’ll sit back in their seats.

“Sorry.”

“No can do.”

“I tried that. It didn’t work.”

“Huh-uh.” In fact, it seems the only thing they’re willing to say no to is… Saying No!

But saying no is important as you move to the next level in your life. One of the items in the Tool Kit of my new Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program is called “The Natural No: Templates for Saying No Authentically, Clearly, and Graciously.” After all, it’s tough to uplevel if you don’t know how to eliminate and release!

Saying No isn’t hard. It’s just that many of us do it badly! Here are the seven biggest mistakes people make when they say no…

1 – Waiting until they’re put on the spot

Most people never actually take time to ask themselves about their No’s. They wait until they’re put on the spot – and then they let their emotions (guilt, fear, anxiety) make their decisions for them!

While you can’t be prepared for every request that comes your way, you can get clear on your No’s in advance. I call this The Proactive No.

Write your list of Proactive No’s on a day off. “No volunteer positions on weekends.” “No more committees.” “No Sunday night dinner parties.” Get clear about how you want to honor your time and priorities. That way when you say no, it will be simple and authentic!

2 – Over-explaining

Rather than saying a clear “No,” many people try to explain their way out of it. This only digs them deeper into the muck.

When you over-explain yourself, you embody uneasiness. Over-explaining says, “I don’t really mean this, so I’m trying to find proof.”

3 – Using disempowered language

Language is a key element of effective “No-Saying.”

Empowered language is clear, firm, compassionate, and keeps the focus on the issue. Most people get so nervous and distracted that they ultimately do themselves a disservice by speaking at all. They ramble through the territory of the “sort of,” “kinda,” and “ya know.”

Empowered language stops the rambling. “I’m getting clear on my priorities so I’m cutting back on the extra activities in my life. In order to honor that intention, I need to say no. Thanks for understanding.”

4 – Trying to get approval

Rather than simply turning something down, many people try to “campaign” for their No.

They want to say “No.” But that’s not enough.

They also want the parties involved to approve of their “No,” agree with their “No,” and not be mad at them for saying “No.”

Saying No means that some people might be disappointed in you. That’s their “stuff.” Accept that. Give them the gift of allowing their disappointment. Give yourself the gift of having preferences.

5 – Hoping people will just ‘get it.’

Not responding at all. Putting the request off for a week. Avoiding eye-contact. These are the dances we do, hoping that people will just “get it.”

The problem with this approach is not that you’re not being “nice” to other people.

The problem is that you aren’t being complete with yourself. These little “Non-no’s” are actually draining your creative energy. Stop the leaks, and say no in the moment!

6 – Promising something they don’t mean

There’s a “Friends” episode where Ross’s new girlfriend asks him where their relationship is “going.” Ross admits to his Friends that he doesn’t want the relationship to go anywhere. But rather than stating this to his girlfriend, Ross gives her the keys to his apartment and tells her he loves her.

It’s a funny episode because it shows how much energy and integrity we lose when we dishonor our own preferences and desires – all in an effort to avoid another person’s disappointment.

7 – Giving in to guilt

When you say No, you might have to deal with some guilt.

At first, being on your own side is scary. This is why some people cave in as soon as the discomfort of guilt arises. Within a week, they change their mind and opt back into the thing they didn’t want to do in the first place. Wavering and waffling sends shaky messages to everyone involved, including yourself. Allow the guilt, and just experience it. You’ll get more comfortable after a little practice!
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Let’s face it. Saying No is uncomfortable sometimes. But once you experience the clarity and space that comes from saying No successfully, then you’ll never want to go back to the way you used to do it!

Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.