Tag Archives: mindfulness

Getting nutrition facts and judgements confused

December 19, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

This is what nutrition science can tell us:

  • The average nutrient content of a particular food, and the average effect a food or nutrient has on particular health biomarkers for a group of people under experimental conditions.

This is what nutrition science can’t tell us:

  • That a food or nutrient is good or bad.
  • How you should and shouldn’t be eating.
  • That you can’t eat a particular food or nutrient if you want to.
  • That not eating a certain way means you have failed or are wrong.
  • That physical health must be your most important life value.
  • That a lower body weight is superior to a heavier body weight.

[Note: Overeating, food cravings, meal skipping, eating disorders and feelings of stress around food often start to resolve, once we stop confusing the two.]

The comfort zone paradox

October 18, 2016 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Is that the people who make it a habit to step outside their comfort zone – who say yes to experiencing fear and discomfort – are the people who live more comfortably.

They are more happy, less stressed, have better health and a higher quality of life.

Why?

First, staying within your comfort zone means you hide, of course, from the very situations, people, experiences and places that make life joyful, rich and meaningful.

Some examples:

The person who isn’t their true self because it feels scary, risky and uncertain, also misses out on excitement, purpose and growth.

The person who doesn’t show vulnerability because it exposes them to fear, rejection and hurt, also misses out on belonging, creativity and courage.

The person who doesn’t allow their self to fall in love because it’s scary and exposes them to conflict, pain and heartbreak, also misses out on joy, meaning and connection.

Second, and this is most important: your comfort zone isn’t actually comfortable.

That’s right. It’s a myth.

Sadness, stress, setbacks and conflicts are a package deal that come with the gift of living. The truth is all of us experience discomfort, irrespective of how much we live in our comfort zone.

And if the comfort zone isn’t comfy, where are you going to live?

How to deal with difficult emotions

August 18, 2016 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Here’s an exercise I recommend, that takes just 5 to 10 minutes to complete:

Step 1. Sit or lie down, with your eyes open or closed, and focus on breathing deeply as you call to mind a difficult emotion you experienced recently.

It may be anger, greed, jealousy, fear, grief, or anything similar.

Step 2. Notice and reflect, for a couple of minutes, how you feel about this emotion.

Are you uncomfortable? Do you dislike it? Do you wish you could have prevented it from arising? Do you feel ashamed, or consider yourself wrong, for having this difficult feeling?

Step 3. Spend at least a minute observing what happens when you translate this emotion to a state of pain and suffering.

How does this state make you feel? How does your body react to it? Does it feel overwhelming? Is it something you want to avoid?

Step 4. Now, for at least 2 minutes, if not more, take that pain and suffering and observe it being held and surrounded by a sea of kindness and compassion. 

If any uncomfortable thoughts or feelings about having this emotion come up, notice them for a moment, and then return your attention back to the ever-flowing sea of kindness and compassion.

What does this feel like in your body? How does your body feel differently about this difficult emotion now?

This short exercise forms part of a scientifically proven program that can be used in combination with journaling and sharing how you are feeling with another, whenever difficult emotions arise.

Well worth understanding, too, a couple of the reasons why this exercise works:

  1. Unlike other strategies you may use (such as trying not to think about it, or avoiding the situation where the feeling comes up), it does not try to control the arrival of these difficult feelings.

We must remember that difficult feelings arise naturally, in all of us, as certain events unfold in our life. Judging them, or ourselves, is unhelpful. Avoiding them is impossible.

Indeed, I believe most difficult emotions are actually pre-requisites for experiencing more joy, growth and expansion in our lives.

  1. It teaches you that you don’t need to be overcome by, defined by, fall into, act from, or avoid any difficult emotion.

Because whilst you cannot prevent them from arising, you can commit to recognising them, having kindness and compassion for them, and letting their hold over you go.

No, you can’t always choose how you feel.

But yes, you can always question how you choose to feel about how you feel.

6 practices for anyone who has ever struggled to accept who they are

August 4, 2016 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

1. The practice of self-compassion.

I believe that you are loving and beautiful. Yet when you believe the words that you (or others) say, it can be easy to see differently.

To practice self-compassion, you must understand that a perception of you does not make it true.

A perception is only a reflection of one’s unique beliefs and experiences, and so no 2 people will ever perceive the “same” thing about you in the exact same way.

Some examples:

  • Someone says you are impulsive; another says you are spontaneous.
  • Someone says you are always too quiet; another says you are an excellent listener.
  • You say you are unattractive; another says that you are beautiful.

Self-compassion is seeing who you are in this moment with a loving perspective.

Even if it differs from what somebody else – including yourself – may have told you is true.

2. The practice of authenticity.

Your feelings and beliefs are an important part of who you are, and hiding them a recipe for grief, anxiety and self-loathing over time.

To practice authenticity, you need to accept the fear and risk that comes with exposing yourself to what others may think.

To help you to do this, consider:

  • Being inauthentic directly harms your body and mind.
  • Praise, when you are not being you, can not make you feel better about yourself.
  • You appear more charismatic, courageous and authentic to others when you share your true self.
  • You admire authenticity in others, so why wouldn’t others admire the authenticity in you?

Authenticity is having the courage to live in alignment to your true self.

Even if it means being judged by another.

3. The practice of failing forward.

We all make mistakes. And mistakes often lead to despair, feelings of failure and giving up.

Yet mistakes are not only OK, they are essential for your personal growth and development.

This practice requires you to stop saying, “I am a failure because of my mistakes”, and to start saying, “I am grateful for my mistakes, because I have learnt and grown from them”.

Failing forward is trusting your past has been exactly right for you.

Even if you think that you have failed.

4. The practice of worthiness.

We’re surrounded with images of “perfect” bodies, millionaire celebrities and people living in fancy houses or going on luxurious holidays. Constantly comparing can leave us feeling inadequate, especially if we perceive their position as unattainable.

When you next compare, it is important to remember:

  • Comparison is a game you (and every single other person!) can never win. Everyone can find someone who appears more successful, attractive or intelligent if they look.
  • The images you see never tell the whole story. For example, that person with the expensive new house may also work 12 hours a day, and sacrificed their health, relationships and happiness for it.
  • No comparison is ever valid, as that person is on a different journey with different experiences, opportunities and genetics to you.

Worthiness is affirming your self-worth can never be diminished by somebody else.

Even somebody who appears to have it much better than you do.

5. The practice of embracing all of you.

There are so many things that make you the unique person that you are.

But whenever you become fixated on just one, your self-acceptance becomes highly fragile.

Some examples:

  • A leading executive attached to this identity struggles with self-acceptance after their redundancy.
  • A model attached to this identity struggles with self-acceptance as they grow old.
  • A housewife (or househusband) attached to this identity struggles with self-acceptance when their partner leaves them.

We play many different roles in life (a son, a brother, a friend, a pet-owner, an amateur chef, a soccer player, a blog writer, …), and each of them contributes to our growth and fulfilment.

Embracing all of you is loving all of the qualities that lie within you.

Even when you feel pressured to focus on just one.

6. The practice of being the creator.

The final practice is knowing that you are responsible for the life that you are living right now.

It is understanding:

  • You are the sum of your choices, and
  • If you are unhappy with where you are today, you can go and change that by making a new choice.

Being the creator is feeling empowered that you can create your world to be an even better one.

Even though it’s easier to tell us why you can’t.

Relearning food and nutrition

June 13, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Instead of learning about the right and wrong foods to eat, let’s learn instead about the many different foods and diets each compatible with healthy living.

Instead of learning to change what we eat according to a new diet, let’s learn instead to modify what we eat according to our internal hunger.

Instead of learning to stop eating the foods we love, let’s learn instead to eat them in the amounts that provide us with long-term enjoyment and satisfaction.

Instead of learning to eat by following all of these rules and restrictions, let’s learn instead how to eat with freedom and by following our intuition.

Instead of learning that eating is a practice done primarily to lose weight, let’s learn instead that it is a practice done primarily to nourish the billions of cells that contribute to the optimal functioning of our mind and body.

Relearning food and nutrition matters.

It matters because eating within the context of diets, judgements, rules and restrictions is highly stressful. This stress is not just damaging short-term, it too has long-term impacts on our hormonal, neurological and digestive systems.

Eating in a stressful state can:

When we approach food and nutrition with a different mindset, we can help to undo these physiological effects. Research shows that eating more mindfully and with self-compassion – being aware and attentive to our eating, without judgement – promotes healthy weight management.

Indeed, our eating mindset is proposed as a better predictor of weight management than any specific combination of foods or nutrients is.

The most common question I get asked as a nutritionist is, “Is this food healthy?”

My most common answer is, “That depends, largely, on how you eat it.”

I will be happy when…

November 5, 2015 By in Boost your happiness Tags: , , , Leave a comment
  1. I get that pay rise.
  2. I have that house.
  3. I lose those 5kg.
  4. I win that award.

Of course, it’s all a lie.

Once we get that pay rise, have that house, lose those 5kg or win that award, we celebrate, but are soon right back to where we started. We just go looking for the very next thing that needs to be ticked off from our list.

The truth is, long-term happiness isn’t found from the outside.

It comes from how we view and interact with the world, not about what the world gives back to us. Scientific research suggests just 10% of our total long-term happiness is influenced by our life circumstances.

When we instead practice the art of embracing the strengths that we have today, cultivating the relationships that mean the most to us now, contributing to something greater than ourselves and having gratitude for what we have already got, we give up our search for happiness by looking into the future.

And this allows us to appreciate and find happiness in the present.

Increasing the ratio of positivity to negativity in your life

August 17, 2015 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Negativity usually arises from an attention to the past or future.

When we attend back or forward in time, we often reflect about how it could have gone better, or anticipate how it could still go wrong.

Positivity, on the other hand, usually arises naturally from an attention to the present.

When we look around us in an accepting and non-judgemental manner, we allow ourselves to notice and savour the little things that help make life beautiful, wondrous and up-lifting.

Whether it is the song of a bird, the blossoming of a flower, the sound of our own breath, or the smiling face looking back at us, the present moment is almost always filled with positivity.

If you want to increase the ratio of positivity to negativity in your life, it starts simply by being conscious about where you are placing your attention.

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