Try this 1-2-3 punch on your IE journey

Happy post-Thanksgiving. I hope your holiday was peaceful, delicious, and safe. Perhaps you found yourself dealing with an obstacle or two or questioning your judgment along the Intuitive Eating path. This is good news! The holidays can be a wonderful time to practice IE with all of their intensity and variety. Here's a little approach I use myself and with my clients whenever obstacles arise along the way.

1. Normalize - changing neural pathways is HARD work. Particularly during this year of having the rug being pulled out from beneath you again and again, creating new ways of thinking and behaving is especially challenging. Could you normalize for yourself that becoming an Intuitive Eater - that shifting the allegiance of your body, mind, and heart to yourself over some supposed external expert, maybe after decades of dieting - is not an easy or linear path and that whatever you are struggling with, countless others have struggled with as well? Say to yourself, "This is hard, it doesn't feel good, but I'm not alone in this struggle.".

2. Rouse self-compassion - when you acknowledge the common humanity of your struggles when facing Intuitive Eating obstacles, it becomes easier to offer yourself compassion. In fact, acknowledging the common humanity of suffering (as opposed to feeling isolated and alone) is one of Kristen Neff's three components of self-compassion, along with kindness (instead of judgment) and mindfulness (versus overidentification with passing thoughts). To rouse self-compassion, speak to yourself as if you would someone for whom you feel pure unadulturated love. You might say, "My love, you are struggling right now and of course that doesn't feel good, but you are doing your best, and that is all anyone could ask of you. It won't always feel this way.".

3. Tend to your present-moment body - take the next right step by tending to your body. What are you feeling and what do you need right now? Do you need sleep? Food? Water? Connection? Rest? Soothing? Distraction? Touch? Fresh air? Pet therapy? Music? Movement? Your body is always communicating with you; once you take that step to listen, it opens up a whole new world.

Let me know how it goes!