Mindful Eating Journey

As we say goodbye to 2011

mindfuleatingjourney — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:20 +0000

It’s always Amazing to reflect back on this year and realize how much has transpired! Pam and I always comment on the power of the group and how much we learn from one another.
Every week the girls show up and share their successes and hardships. Everyone listens mindfully and offers support and love. Pam and I offer support and helpful ideas but mostly we just listen. We are amazed at how much wisdom each girl has to offer when speaking from their own experience.

When we meditate together the energy in the room is palpable. We encourage the girls to meditate at home and reach out to one another.
We can feel how connected they are to one another. They access the various tools they’ve learned, I.e.”riding the wave of their emotions,” journaling, self-compassion, etc.

The most powerful aspect of the group is that everyone shows up! We’ve been going strong for 2 years and look forward to another year of mindfulness and love. Wishing everyone a Healthy and Mindful Year!
Lea and Pam

The Group Members teach DBT skills

mindfuleatingjourney — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:22:29 +0000

The last 3 weeks individual group members have been teaching a different DBT (dialectical behavioral) skill to the rest of the group members. DBT applies a broad array of cognitive and behavior therapy strategies. Marsha Linehan developed DBT to treat Borderline Personality Disorder. Four skills training modules have been developed for DBT. These skills incorporate core mindfulness skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills, emotion regulation skills and distress tolerance skills. All of these skills are extremely effective for groups working with eating disorders. The girls are extremely responsive to using these tools such as Wise Mind, Riding the Wave and Turtling. (see previous blogs) It’s amazing to watch the girls teach these skills to one another and share how they have used these skills to work with the challenges of standing up to their eating disorder voices.

Please be sure to read the previous blogs.

Lea and Pam

Creating a tool box!

mindfuleatingjourney — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:14:41 +0000

Creating a tool box is easier than you might believe – we listed all the various tools that the girls have acquired including reaching out to one another! That is the beauty of being part of a group. Each girl had an index card that they could carry around with them so that they could refer to the top 5 tools that they incorporated in their lives. Among the most popular were, of course, mindfulness meditation, journal writing, reaching out to a friend, bibliotherapy – referring to all the wonderful books that offer support for ED – and exercise. Yoga is a wonderful way of combining body movement to breath! You could go for a mindful walk in nature or have a nice, warm cup of tea. The list is endless.

Create your own wonderful tool box that you can refer to when you’re struggling with ED! Having a plan to keep you safe when you’re having a difficult day can help prevent a downward spiral. Call a friend, listen to a mindfulness meditation, go to a yoga class or take a walk. Think about what works for you when you’re trying to stand up to ED.

Just remember, you’re not alone!

Don’t let Ed beat you down - you do have options!

Lea and Pam

Have a good week!

Lea and Pam

Working with pain!

mindfuleatingjourney — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:52:43 +0000

Last week I borrowed an exercise from Susan Smalley’s book “Fully Present” call The Ice Cube Exercise. Each girl held a piece of ice while I led them through a short meditation asking them to notice what physical, emotional experiences they noticed. In addition, what was their individual experiences in relation to pain. Did they relax into it or did they hold onto it.

There is a quote in the book which states that “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” This is what we learn from practicing mindfulness – when the pain gets too great we can choose to focus on something that is not painful. We can breathe with the pain or find something else to focus on. We can also send loving kindness towards ourself.

It was extremely interesting to see how the girls reacted – two of the girls felt anxious about holding the ice – they did not like feeling cold. However, as the meditation went along they were able to move from the feeling of cold to noticing other parts of their bodies that felt alright , i.e their feet on the ground. They were able to forget about the coldness in their hands. That’s not to say it’s always possible to not feel our pain – it’s just an option of how to work with the pain.

We can learn a lot about ourselves when we experience pain – either emotional or physical – how we “hold” the pain or how we judge it or react to it. By breathing into our pain we can learn about our own patterns of holding or letting go – try it for yourself!

Until next time.

Lea and Pam

More about journal writing…

mindfuleatingjourney — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:17:01 +0000

The great part about writing in our journal is that it’s just between us and the privacy of our journal!

Pam and I asked the girls to write a letter to their body. Pretty amazing things came out of that exercise. After years of ED being in control of their lives, their bodies, the girls are starting to stand up to all the negative messages. As we begin to bring mindfulness to everything we do, we can pause and reflect on our actions.

Then we had the girls write their body’s response to them! What did their body have to say about how they’ve treated their special gift of having this unique body that’s always there for them. A lot of the girls could begin to appreciate their wonderful and unique body. After all this, we requested that they make ammends to their body. All this writing helped the girls to begin to send lovingkindness toward their bodies and themselves. It’s a great exercise. Why don’t you give it a try?

Lea and Pam

A Special “Mindful” Visitor

mindfuleatingjourney — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:57:44 +0000

Last night we had a very special group. We were delighted and honored to have Susan Smalley come and speak to us. She is the founder and director of the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA (www.marc.ucla.edu) which is “dedicated to increasing self-awareness through mind-body practices(such as meditation) as a means of enhancing health and well-being and promoting a more compassionate society.” Susan spoke about her life journey and how she has been able to find peace and happiness using mindfulness meditation and other mind-body practices. She led us in a short meditation where we focused on the soles of our feet as they touched the inside of our our shoes and the floor and commented on how the practice of feeling her feet in soil/earth was a powerful healing tool for herself. She pointed out how this type of meditation has been shown to reduce anger –a very interesting and useful fact. Lea and I were concerned that having a guest might inhibit the group members from being open about ED and their struggles, but this did not happen. The group members were inspired by Susan’s life story and her work and felt safe and open in her presence. What an incredible experience for all of us. Thank you again Susan.

Sending lovingkindness to a difficult person in our life!

mindfuleatingjourney — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 04:17:59 +0000

Last week the group focused on lovingkindness meditation. Each person was asked to think of someone in their life that they’ve struggled with in some way. Now I know we can all think of someone without fail! How are we expected to send lovingkindness to that person that has been challenging to us ? If we begin to realize that everyone struggles with their own demons, we can tap into our own compassion for their pain. Some of the girls were able to do this and others found it challenging. I know that the person I had in mind has been an extremely difficult person in my life. However, I now know that she is in a lot of pain herself and that has helped me be more compassionate towards her in recent times.

We began the mindfulness meditation by sending lovingkindness to ourselves. It’s important to be compassionate toward our own pain and suffering so that we can then send the same wishes out to others and then the universe. So we began with, “May I be safe, may I be Happy, May I be Healthy, May I live with Ease.” (We used Sharon Salzberg’s lovingkindness meditation) .

I find these words extremely comforting and helpful. No matter what I’m doing during the day, I find myself saying these words to myself. Frequently when I”m swimming outdoors and the sky and clouds are overhead, these words of lovingkindness come to mind and support me through my swim. You can, in fact, say these words to yourself or outloud anytime of day or night!

The more you practice self-compassion, the more you can be kind and forgiving towards yourself first of all, and then to others – yes, even to those difficult people in our lives! What I’ve noticed in my practice is that the biggest challenge clients face is practicing compassion towards themselves. When I’ve given them these words, May I be safe, May I be happy, May I be healthy, May I live with ease, tears frequently come to their eyes. Those words seem to evoke such pain for them.

So today, why don’t you try this practice for yourself! May you be safe, May you be happy, May you be healthy, May you live with ease!

Lea and Pam

Mindful meditation workshop with Sharon Salzberg

mindfuleatingjourney — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:48:16 +0000

Pam and I are looking forward to a mindful meditation workshop this Saturday given by Insight LA. Sharon Salzberg will be presenting and it should be extremely enlightening. Can’t wait! Since we advocate mindful meditation for the girls with eating disorders, we also encouraged the girls to join us. Some of them may be able to participate.

The workshop will be held this Saturday, Febuary 26 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. @ the First Methodist Church in Santa Monica.

The capacity for attendance is 500 so I believe it will be full house! Naturally, we want to practice what we preach and we definitely need to practice mindfulness in our own lives so that we can be more present to ourselves and our clients. Speaking for myself, I know that my own practice has made a huge dfiference in my own life and in my life as a psychotherapist. I know this holds true for Pam as well.

In that light, the current group is especially bonded and all the girls are working hard to stand up to their eating disorder. They are practicing mindfulness meditation and reaching out to each other for support.

It’s so exciting to witness this process and also to support the girls in using all their tools to overcome ED! Right now I am happy to say that the group is full – we are starting to create a waiting list so don’t hesitate to contact us! We will always welcome newcomers as long as we have room! Stay tuned for upcoming events and news!

Lea and Pam

Hunger scale 1 – 10

mindfuleatingjourney — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 05:00:20 +0000

Being mindful includes checking in with your hunger cues – frequently when we’re struggling with ED we no longer know whether we’re hungry or not. This week we looked at checking in with yourself – is the hunger in your body or in your brain? By acting out with binge/purge behavior or restriction we’ve disconnected from our natural hunger cues. Try to ask yourself next time you crave food – is this hunger or is this habit? Am I really hungry for food or what am I really hungry for – perhaps a hug or a friend? Whatever it is, perhaps you could use other tools besides food ( if you’re indeed not hungry) to get your needs met.You could journal, call a friend, do something nice for yourself.

Mindfulness meditation allows you to check in with what’s going on in the present moment. A simple mindfulness meditation exercise is the 3-minute breathing exercise: check in with what you’re thinking, how does that translate to what you’re feeling, and where does this reside in your body? All the while you focus on your breath and use the breath as an anchor – the thoughts, feelings arise and you sit with them while focusing on your breath. No need to push the feelings away since they’re already here! Welcome them and accept them without judgment.

The more you practice this breathing meditation, the more you will be in touch with your true feelings – by sitting with them you may not have the urge to act them out with ED. So next time you decide to head for the food – Be mindful, ask yourself, what am I really hungry for?

Just a Cup of Tea

mindfuleatingjourney — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:47:07 +0000

This past week we served tea in a mindful way – enjoying the smell, taste, warmth and being soothed by the warm liquid as we sipped mindfully! How many times have you had a cup of tea and not even noticed you were drinking while mindlessly doing some other task? The girls all agreed that this was a very common occurrence in their lives – they really enjoyed having a mindful experience while sipping tea and focusing on their breath! Pam read a lovely poem by Steve Levine which noted how “just a cup of tea could stop the war” – the war being whatever it is we struggle with, such as ED , our eating disorder!

So, it’s so amazing how a simple cup of tea, can influence how we feel!

So remember, continue your mindfulness practice, formally or informally!

Lea and Pam