A woman came to me for her first fitness training session yesterday; we’ve known each other for a couple of years in the context of a theater group but this is the first time we’ve talked one on one.
She’s been struggling with her weight since the age of 12. She’s a big woman, tall, beautiful, bold, intimidating until you get to know her softer side.
“I’ve been in Overeater’s Anonymous for 18 years,’ she explains, and then laughs, “I know everything there is to know about healthy eating and weight loss, but knowledge doesn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference.”
She’s struggling with obesity, with emotional eating, with finding the motivation to exercise. I ask her what it would mean for her to lose weight and she replies,
She’s been struggling with her weight since the age of 12. She’s a big woman, tall, beautiful, bold, intimidating until you get to know her softer side.
“I’ve been in Overeater’s Anonymous for 18 years,’ she explains, and then laughs, “I know everything there is to know about healthy eating and weight loss, but knowledge doesn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference.”
She’s struggling with obesity, with emotional eating, with finding the motivation to exercise. I ask her what it would mean for her to lose weight and she replies,
“The truth is, Polina, I’m scared to lose weight. Every time I’ve started losing weight in the past, people begin commenting on it and I gain it right back. I believe if I’m smaller, thinner, I won’t be as intimidating and I’ll be more likely to be attacked.”
“Were you attacked when you were smaller?”
“Yes, I was raped when I was 12, and I’ve been overweight ever since…”
When our body goes through such a traumatic experience, it’s only natural for us to create a protective response. I tell her, “Of course you’re body doesn’t want to lose the weight, given the trauma it’s been through. But as long as you keep holding onto the belief that if you are smaller, you will be attacked, the weight will never come off, no matter how much exercise you do.”
I’m passionate about exercise, it’s transformed my life, but I’m clear that our bodies and the way relate to them and to our food, are a direct manifestation of our unconscious beliefs. By bringing to light the unconscious beliefs we created about the bodies we ‘should’ have, whether it be for the need of protection or to gain more love, we can begin to release them and open the space for true well-being, self-love and vitality to come through.
The motivation to exercise and eat right will come naturally as a response to the opening we create. The fight to find the ‘will-power’ to exercise, the ‘discipline’ to eat more vegetables, will lift, and we will find ourselves more easily making good choices because we will be relating to our bodies from a place of Love rather than from a place of ‘needing’ to look a certain way.
What beliefs did you create about your body as child or adult? How do these beliefs no longer serve you and what would it look like if you let them go?
May the Journey be a beautiful one.
~Polina
“Were you attacked when you were smaller?”
“Yes, I was raped when I was 12, and I’ve been overweight ever since…”
When our body goes through such a traumatic experience, it’s only natural for us to create a protective response. I tell her, “Of course you’re body doesn’t want to lose the weight, given the trauma it’s been through. But as long as you keep holding onto the belief that if you are smaller, you will be attacked, the weight will never come off, no matter how much exercise you do.”
I’m passionate about exercise, it’s transformed my life, but I’m clear that our bodies and the way relate to them and to our food, are a direct manifestation of our unconscious beliefs. By bringing to light the unconscious beliefs we created about the bodies we ‘should’ have, whether it be for the need of protection or to gain more love, we can begin to release them and open the space for true well-being, self-love and vitality to come through.
The motivation to exercise and eat right will come naturally as a response to the opening we create. The fight to find the ‘will-power’ to exercise, the ‘discipline’ to eat more vegetables, will lift, and we will find ourselves more easily making good choices because we will be relating to our bodies from a place of Love rather than from a place of ‘needing’ to look a certain way.
What beliefs did you create about your body as child or adult? How do these beliefs no longer serve you and what would it look like if you let them go?
May the Journey be a beautiful one.
~Polina
RSS Feed
