Presence. That is it, nothing else. No amount of knowledge, book reading, spiritual and/or self development, energy clearing, yo-yo dieting will work more effectively than presence.
So what the heck is presence and how do you get there?
Presence is embodied, simply put. It can not be explained, it can not be understood by the ego, it has to be felt. The heart does not focus on the past or the future, it is present right now and everything relies on it’s capacity for presence.
Presence means to inhabit the body. To be with one’s Self, to experience one’s Self. How do we experience one’s Self – surrendering into what is, in an embodied way. There is nothing else, outside of presence.
How do you get to a space of presence? Start by giving up your stories, stop arguing with yourself, stop fighting with yourself, getting yourself all confused. There are many different modalities that support presence… such as movement (i.e. yoga), meditation, breathing, coaching, facilitation, somatic, nature-based, play-based, quantum-light, kundalini, nutritional based, etc. And what gets one person to a place of presence may not work for others.
In other words, create a lifestyle that facilitates presence and integration. That may also mean:
1. Lovingly learning to witness yourself with your cravings. And that doesn’t mean torture yourself by eating foods that trigger you constantly. It means learning tolerance with what-is. If you’re cravings are so intense that you can’t witness yourself, ease off on eating the foods that are activating these cravings and find foods that help you feel present inside.
2. Lovingly let go of the significance around food and weight. Significance does not exist in presence. (And it overwhelms an already overwhelmed nervous system).
3. Learn to manage the mind. It does not have control over you. Take your power back from mental rumination. Admit that you, the ego part of you, has no clue as to how to heal yourself and open to higher guidance.
4. Lovingly surrender to what is happening in your body, while connecting to your greater Self. It might be tough, because there may be so much repressed trauma, conditioning, feelings of unworthiness and neglect, pent up rage and stress. In fact, you might feel like you are falling apart. Which is exactly what will happen. You lose your identity. You stop attaching yourself to food and weight, so something new can emerge from within. And it is not clean cut, it is messy and can make no sense while you are going through it. (ps. Thank you for feeling you)
5. Do not identify with the conditioned response that tells you to eat. It is just a neuro-network in your brain. But to change this neuro-network requires presence! It requires that part of you that knows the higher truth (that the urge to eat is not real, it is just a bunch of neuro-peptides) and be willing to hang out with the discomfort, as those neuro-peptides dissolve themselves. (Controlling the mind is important here.)
6. Nurturance. Many of us have wounds related to nurturance, to the point where ‘Nurture is a Threat’. Thus it an be a struggle to have embodied presence, because embodiment allows for the receiving of nurture. Food is nurture, people, place and things are nurture. So if nurture is unconsciously seen as a threat, food will be a threat. Heal this wound to deepen your capacity to receive nurturing presence.
7. Power. You can take your power and destroy yourself and/or others with it. Or you are use your power to cut through to the truth of your light and love. As one of my mentors has suggested: “Which wolf would you like to feed?”
Yet, these suggestions are not the answer. You can take any one of these suggestions and turn them into another means of debilitating yourself. Presence is the answer. And ironically, when you are in presence there is a sense of needing no answer.
Lisa Markham, Certified BodyWay Coach and Jane E. Latimer, M.A. founder of the BodyWay Program have 35 years combined experience helping women with their issues with body and food. Click here to download theE-Book : http://www.janelatimer.com/break-free-from-the-diet-game
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