Giving attention

Renee sent a supreme question in response to my last post: So, what does it mean to give yourself attention? How does it play out in your activities? The short answer is it means that we listen to ourselves, our souls, at a deep level. And it's more than meditation or pausing. It's stepping out of what Mary O'Malley calls "the attic of our minds" into our hearts and our bodies.

Mary gives an example in her book The Gift of Our Compulsions. Imagine that music is blasting in your house. You turn off the music, and suddenly, you can hear all of the sounds that were masked by the blaring music: the hum of the fridge, the dog's toenails clicking on the kitchen floor, the thunk of the mail dropping through the mail slot. Our struggles are the too-loud music, and our hearts, our true selves, are the masked sounds.

To address the how-to part of Renee's question, Mary offers four questions to ask ourselves throughout our day:

1. In this moment, what am I experiencing?
2. For this moment, can I let this be here?
3. In this moment, can I touch this with compassion?
4. Right now, what do I truly need?

There's more, of course. And that's the essence of it: reconnecting with ourselves. Telling our own truth, the truth that lies underneath our noise, our struggle, our compulsions.

Replace judgment with compassion

I've been participating in a food compulsions group led by Mary O'Malley (http://www.maryomalley.com/), and it's opening me up, allowing me to experience life on another plane. Instead of worrying about food, sitting in deprivation or "I don't care" mode, I'm much more present to myself. Mary says that when we are gripped by food compulsions, what we're really hungry for is our own attention. She teaches a process of returning to ourselves.

One of her key messages is replacing judgment with compassion. Notice the judgmental voice that rises up in you, give it a name so that you can recognize it, and then just sharpen your awareness. "Ah, there is is again." Without attachment. In this way, we relate TO the judgment rather than operate FROM it or being lost in it.

Her concepts and her words are simple, and they touch me so deeply.

Poetry and body image

My neighbor sent me this fun poem, called "Pat," written by John Hegley:

I said Pat
you are fat
and you are cataclysmically desirable
and to think I used to think
that slim was where it's at
well not any more Pat
you've changed that
you love yourself
you flatter yourself
you shatter their narrow image of the erotic
and Pat said
what do you mean FAT?

I love the poem because it addresses the body image side of weight loss. Until we accept - no embrace - our bodies, we can't move from this spot. I often hear clients talk about how they are motivated to lose weight because they can't stand how they look. Self-disgust is a shallow pool to draw motivation from.

Health fears are also trotted out as reasons to pursue weight loss. Yes, and... And, we're worth so much more than that. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer -- all linked to (that dreaded word) obesity, yet threats actually make us dig in our heals even more. Remember when an authority (say a teacher) told you if you didn't do X, then BIG CONSEQUENCES! Didn't it make you want to do the opposite of X?

Look at where you want to go, what's the destination you have in mind? When you reach your goal weight, what does that enable in your life? What does it bring you externally, internally and in the bigger picture? One of my former weight loss coaches, Kathrine Brown, used to ask me this question, and it really hit home for me. Instead of focusing on where you're leaving, put your attention on where you're going. Look forward.