Hello love,
Today I wanted to share some tips on how you can start to connect toy your body. This is especially important if you have been disconnected and untrusting with your body.
It has been coming up a lot with clients and it’s quite prevalent in our society and we are disconnected from our bodies. We tend to look to external sources like diets to tell us when to eat. There is a lot of fear around the physical sensation of hunger. We prepare ourselves to avoid hunger by eating prematurely or just in case. This shows me how disconnected we are from our bodies.
I totally get it. I didn’t know what hunger felt like, it also felt uncomfortable to be hungry. At times I didn’t know if I was really hungry or if it was just a stress response.
So, today I want to share 3 simple ways to tune back into your body to begin to trust it. This takes practice and consistency. Sometimes we hear simple tips and think that will never work but over time these tips come together and create a new habit and way of being.
On to the tips.
-
Accept your body
This isn’t about liking or loving your body, this is about accepting your body wherever it is at. Acceptance is a baseline from which to create change. Acceptance helps us to see the reality of the body. Here is a blog post with a simple acceptance exercise that walks you through how to do this and to clearly see your body. This exercise isn’t about liking or loving your body. I don’t want you to delude yourself when you are not there yet. Acceptance helps you to see the body with clarity and to start from there to create a true connection to your body and not a fantasy relationship.
2. Tuning into the sensation of hunger
A lot of us are afraid of feeling hunger. Feeling that sensation is uncomfortable because we are not taught how to feel this. If you are an emotional eater you might not know what hunger is because you use food to cover up emotions and to feel good. When we feel hunger tune into the body, physically feel into the stomach to feel the grumbling etc. Here is a blog to help. We are told to eat instantly that our blood sugar might drop but I have seen this promotes a fear in the mind and we begin to stress out and become anxious. Of course if you have a specific medical condition this may not apply.
If you begin to feel hungry, have a glass of water to see if your stomach is truly hungry. This will help you to tune into your sensation of hunger – which is a good thing!
3. Breathing deeply before meals
You can use this tip of breathing to connect yo the body and switch the nervous system to rest and digest. You can breathe deeply for 3 counts (all the way to the bottom of the lungs) pause for a count and exhale for 3 counts. Do this for about 2-3 minutes. This is great to do before a meal. You will be able to digest your meal and connect with your food, see if you are hungry and when you are full. This can help with intuitively eating.
I hope these tips have helped you. these are simple ways to help you tune into the body and to start trusting it. The more we are tuned into the body we can choose foods more intuitively, eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full and even if we are eating from stress and emotion rather than from a calm place.
Try out these tips and let me know how you feel!
To connection,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist.
