A Weighty Issue - Part I
Tip the Scales in Your Favor
As a personal trainer and yoga instructor, my job is to aid my clients and students in achieving their personal goals. Most of these goals center around changing how they look, what size they are, and ridding themselves of excess body weight.
On paper it seems easy, if you want to weigh less just intake less calories then you expend, that’s the bottom line. However we as human beings, live in a world with freedom to choose our own paths, but because of either how we see ourselves or events that have happened in our past we identify our happiness with external sources. Once we understand that our happiness comes from within, and that the items around us cannot bring us true happiness then we can break free from what is weighing us down and find “our healthy”, our happy.
"Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole. So they strive after possessions, money, power, success, recognition's…basically so that they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to be identified with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly.” – Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now
It’s Not Just the Food
- Often times we find that when we have attachments to food we also have attachments to other things, we have an over-abundance of possessions we are over-consuming just as much as we are over-eating. We perceive ourselves as being incomplete and we look outside ourselves for that which exists within. In my experience the hold that food has on us is the hardest to break and that sometimes if we focus on ridding ourselves of our non-food possessions will then make us strong enough and light enough to conquer our food attachments.
- We need to find the areas in our life where we are carrying extra weight, where we feel heavy. Working on those areas can help us in achieving lightness. This shedding of material possessions can be extremely liberating; spreading that surplus (our over-abundance) to those that are living in scarcity. We can shed weight and help others out. If you’re having trouble staying healthy, know that being healthy….truly healthy includes being happy.
Reality Check
- Take a few minutes to evaluate the areas in your life where you feel unhappy and/or heavy. Is it at work, or at home, does being around certain individuals bring on the feeling of heaviness? Now honestly, and I am speaking from experience you can change anything in your life, you are meant to be happy and light, and if you can’t remember the last time you felt happy then know that you are not alone, and also know that you have the power to be happy.
- One of the easiest tasks to help kick start your road to lightness is to rid yourself of those items that you do not really need. (I can hear you groaning and moaning, so stop, smile pleasantly and read on). Recently, I took my own advice in this when I was having a difficult time (read the Gratitude entry) and this helped enormously.
- It started when I came across a documentary on minimalism, and the idea that we hold onto to so many things, as if things will truly make us happy. “My job sucks, but look I have 3 coach purses (yes that was me), I’m unhappy with my weight but my feet are small so I’m going to buy more shoes (once again me), but this was a wedding gift from someone that I care about, I know I’ve never used it but I mean it was a gift I can’t just throw it away (yup me).” Listen if you’re not using them, if you really have more than what is needed then do not hold on to them, if they’re not useable then recycle or toss them, but if they could be used by anotherGIVE THEM AWAY. I know what you’re thinking, I can’t give these away, they mean so much to me, but most likely all of these items that you never use or wear are making your life more difficult then you realize.
“Throw out the clutter, let some air in….this will not only help to keep your frequency high, but it will alert the universe that you’re not screwing around, that you’re doing everything you can and are waiting for further instructions on the how.” – Jen Sincero You are a Badass
See it for What it Really is
- Take a look in your kitchen, open up some drawers, and cupboards, if yours are like the way mine were, if things aren’t put away just right, a whisk will get caught and the drawer won’t close, or to get to a certain casserole dish, you have wade through a blender, a food processor, oh and another blender…and we’ll just skip the whole Tupperware cabinet.
- Now take a walk to your closet, ever have one of those times were you’re trying to find one of your favorite shirts but you have to rummage and dig through ten other shirts that you never wear to get to the one you want and on your way there you rediscover one that you completely forgot you had. We all take this as normal, we don’t even stop to think about why we still have these items that we never use and instead just push around and you make these items define our worth. Purses, shoes, shirts, casserole dishes do not define your worth, in fact your worth is from within you and it is weightless. These items are not just weighing you down, they are creating undue stress, stealing time and you are allowing for this to happen.
Get to Work
- Make a list of areas you need to go through, put a date next to them, and then adhere to that date. Make the ones that will be easiest for you to do first. Then get down to it, make it fun, play some music, find an organization that will benefit from what you may have cherished once, it will make it easier for you to know that someone in need will be benefiting from something that once made you happy.
“Giving is one of our greatest joys….it’s also one of the most fearless and powerful gestures there is. When we’re in fear, we hold on to what we’ve got because we don’t trust that there’s more.” – Jen Sincero You are a Badass
- When I did this with my husband we ended up giving away about 600lbs of items. We literally shed 600lbs in just a few weeks *poof* gone. We gave 6 trash bags full of clothes and 3 boxes of kitchen wares to SMOC (see below for additional information), along with 9 containers of books to our local library. I am telling you it is liberating, it will make you feel lighter because you will be! I smile now when I open up my kitchen drawers and they opens easily, and the fact that it is so much easier to find clothing now, no digging. Above all I know that everything I have I made the conscious decision to keep, I know that I am still using these items, and they are my favorites.
Coming Soon: A Weighty Issue Part II – Stress and Emotional Weight
SMOC – South Middlesex Opportunity Council Mission Statement
Mission Statement: To improve the quality of life of low-income and disadvantaged individuals and families by advocating for their needs and rights; providing services, educating the community; building a community of support; participating in coalitions with other advocates and searching for new resources and partnerships.
To Donate – Come to the Women’s Wellness Fair at The Cafe at 7 Bishop St. Framingham MA on June 26th, 2017 from 4:30pm to 6:30pm