At the start of quarantine, I had a beautiful emotional release. I felt all of the feels I had been too afraid to dive into as a result of this pandemic. So much came through me once I felt into my fear and uncertainty what I was left with was a sense of ease, calm, and safety. I then wondered why I avoided feeling my fear to begin with when the reward of turning towards my denser emotions has always lead to a deeper understanding of myself and a greater capacity to hold all emotions across the spectrum of sadness to ecstasy.

Some questions that came through during that process session:

How can I use rituals to be present with myself even more?

How can I stay informed while maintaining my energetic boundaries?

How can I surrender and accept uncertainty?

How can I validate these heavy feelings even more?

Years ago my way of dealing with the very natural emotional roller coaster that goes along with living in a pandemic would’ve caused me to abandon my body each day behind that numb sensation I got from binging on food till my belly was rock hard and I could barely breathe. Today my relationship with food and myself look drastically different. I no longer need to avoid myself with food and have actually been able to turn to food for authentic comfort, safety, and immense pleasure through ritual eating during this time. I’ve found that through intention anything can be offered as nourishment to the body. With this in mind, I’ve created a list of ways to invite more ritual into your life that help to soothe and calm your nervous system and perhaps support you in relating to food differently.

Practical Rituals for Self-Love/ Honor/ Space Holding in the Wake of COVD-19.

1) Stand naked as you brush your teeth and bless one aspect of your body with unconditional love

2) As you wash dishes - use the time to praise yourself for things you did that day you’re proud of

3) Practice sitting with fear and uncertainty with patience and compassion as if they were scared children

4) Read love poetry to yourself ( I personally prefer Rumi)

5) Bless your food to support you in feeling safe and nourished

6) Anoint your body with oils with a loving intention

7) Lose yourself in dance and offer it as adoration to your body

8) Go for a walk in nature and bless the plants for being

9) Stretch and feel as you bless your tendons

10) As you work at your desk congratulate yourself for taking care of your work

11) As you rest thank yourself for giving your body what she needs

12) Get dressed even if you’re social distancing

When were working to enlighten our relationship to food, shame has it's way of keeping us trapped in the same repetitive loop that prevents the necessary forward momentum needed for self-transformation to occur.

This can look like feeling guilty after eating something, then having a negative internal dialogue about it that feels more critical than constructive.

These negative emotions culminate to a craving for more mindless eating. And the cycle continues over and over again.

Through our awareness we can interrupt this cycle with the divine voice of self-compassion. The divine compassionate voice is warm, gentle and tender. It looks to exhale rather than diminish. It leaves you feeling filled up and focused rather than heavy and depleted.

Challenge: the next time you eat something and you notice the voice of your inner critic, gently interupt it with your divine compassionate voice.

3 words: Core Limiting Beliefs.

Most people gain the weight back because they are attacking the habit of overeating, binging or emotional eating from the outside in with diets, restrictive behaviors, over-exercising, etc. These methods may lead to weight loss but since they don’t also address the core limiting beliefs that contributed to the weight gain in the first place you’ll likely gain the weight back.

The first step to changing beliefs is to become mindful of them.

Take a moment to think of any limiting beliefs you might have about your relationship to food.

Once you know what your core limiting beliefs are, genuinely ask yourself, “Is this true” and “is this serving me”. List all of the ways it’s not true and how it’s not serving your health goals.

Once you can clearly feel how the core limiting belief is not true. Replace it. Think of a belief that is the exact opposite and it also in alignment with your wellness goals.

Once you do this you will have begun the work of resetting your RAS, thereby making it easier for your mind to notice the evidence of your new enriching belief. As your RAS is resetting itself, reward yourself for making new choices that are in alignment with your wellness goals and your new beliefs. Over time you will create new neuropathways and a mind that is designed to help you maintain your ideal weight instead of a mind that is set at keeping you stuck.

The way to permanently lose weight and keep it off is to work at knocking out every single limiting core belief. When you are free of these beliefs and replace them with life-affirming ones, you’ll also free yourself of the excess weight.

The Reticular Activating System “RAS” is basically the filter for our brain. It saves us time in processing our experience by filtering our world to suit what we routinely think, speak and do. This is why it can be difficult to introduce new habits. We all know that what we resist persists (thanks RUMI), the RAS makes that possible. For example, you're having a crappy day and it feels like everyone is being rude or inconsiderate but then you see a puppy and you start seeing and experiencing other things you like.

When we train our mind to work with us, or rather when we put a new filter on our RAS, it gets easier to experience a world that we enjoy living in because our RAS will only filter experience into our reality that supports our desire for authentic pleasure.

Think about how you routinely relate to food and your body. What kind of filter (thoughts and emotions) do you have when it comes to being around foods that are “triggers” or “tempting”? Then ask yourself, is this supporting the new relationship with food and my body I am working to create? Exploring this dynamic and getting really clear on what the current setpoint is for your RAS can help you determine where you need to shift your filter.

This is why I focus on pleasure with my clients rather than willpower. Willpower is great to begin a new habit but it’s not a sustainable resource for long-standing change. But it’s pretty evident that we all want to experience pleasure. When we focus on increasing pleasure, it becomes natural to move towards foods and a way of approaching life that is in alignment with pure pleasure.