How you show up for yourself matters

I just finished a call as a panel of experts helping women who want to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way. (Remember that email I sent about Pamela Pedrick's Holistic Health Docuseries taking place this week? It was part of that.)

One of the women asked the panel how to get rid of her stubborn visceral fat. She thought was doing everything right – trying to maintain a healthy diet, yoga practice, all her tests had come back normal, the list of what she had already tried went on and on.

As the panel experts offered her suggestions, she quickly added that she was already doing all of that. She really had been doing all the things... (Besides still living a very stressful life!)

To me, it actually sounded like too many of the things.

I didn't get to talk to her individually, but I'm guessing if I had, I would have heard a lot of frustration and maybe even resentment that she had made such efforts to get rid of this part of herself that she didn't like – and it wasn't working.

Sound familiar?

How many times have you tried to get rid of a part of yourself (maybe hair pulling, skin picking, or staying up too late) and just become more frustrated when nothing changed? What the hell??

Here's the thing: HOW you show up for yourself matters.

• Eating ice cream from a place of pure enjoyment is better for you than eating a salad out of fear of weight gain.

• Forgiving yourself after you pick or pull is better for you than using a fidget out of resentment towards your BFRB.

• Setting limits on social media apps to support your goals is better for you than removing them all from your phone as a form of self-punishment.

• Leaving a gentle reminder for your future self is better for you than beating up your past self for the things you forgot.

Bottom line: behavior change is more successful and more sustainable when we approach it from a place of compassion rather than fear or frustration.

The more you try to shove the things you don't like about yourself out of your life, the more sticky or stubborn they will become.

New direction: Come back to yourself. Ask yourself what do I need right now? If needed, ask the part of you that keeps pushing the agenda (weight loss, quitting your BFRB, unrealistic efficiency) to give you some space for a moment, then listen again for an answer.