Where Hunger Ends And Life Begins

Enjoying my morning apple

Recently I was watching a certain doctor on daytime TV, not by choice.  It was playing in the waiting room that I was…well, waiting in.  The topic of the show was how to reduce belly fat.  There was a grandiose demonstration of what happens when we pour things like soda, fried chicken, coffee, M&M’s and the like down our gullets.  They had a giant mock belly onstage that inflated as each item went in.  “Now, would you like to hear the solution??” the Doctor shouted like a preacher at a revival.  “YEAH!” the audience cheered.

At this point, even I was on the edge of my seat. Being a woman who has a magnificently round belly, this got my attention.  Number one, because anytime there are messages going out to womankind about their bodies I’m intrigued at what the message really is.  Number two, well, I hate to admit it girls, but I have to really work at loving my belly.  As the body love queen this is a soft spot for me.  When I look in the mirror I still have to do real mental and physical work to generate feelings of love towards my belly, rather than the knee jerk feeling of hatred I have been taught by the culture. 

So, back to the set.  The solution everyone!! Hallelujah! I would like to say I was shocked by what was revealed, but I was not.  The solution included three things: eat fennel seeds to reduce bloating, drink slippery elm tea to stimulate better bowel movements, and a bunch of other poppycock that involves spending more money on more things that don’t actually address the problem.

What is the problem? At face value, we might think it is the soda and fried chicken.  Just replace those things with kale and carrots, right? Then you won’t have a fat, bloated belly.  But it is not that simple friend.  I seriously doubt there is a single adult in this country that does not already know that carrots will make your tummy less bloated than fried chicken.  We have so much knowledge about health nutrition that we are literally drowning in it.  The fried chicken is not the problem. The problem lies in what causes us to choose the fried chicken in the first place.

My husband is very passionate about food and politics.  I have learned so much from him about why we eat what we eat from a socio-economic and political standpoint.  There are so many forces at play that many of us don’t even know about.  I won’t try to address them all in this blog. What I will share is the resources that have helped me to weed out my truth around, food, eating, and hunger.

 

At the end of the day, there is some truth to every nutritional concept and theory out there.  But the only way I think a person can really get to health is by trusting the voices inside, instead of the voices outside.  The voices outside can provide guidance and wisdom, but it is our bodies that know what’s up.  I hope these resources are helpful for you. Please know that trusting your cravings - the ones that go beyond your taste buds straight to that which will nourish and satiate your soul - in my experience this is where hunger ends and life can begin.

Books

• Fat Is A Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach - a must read to discover what really drives you to pick up food, even when you think you don't want to
• Women Food and God by Geneen Roth - I love all of Geneen's work, but this one I find to be truly a masterpiece when it comes to intuitive eating
• Eating In The Light of the Moon by Dr. Anita Johnston - this book changed everything for me with regards to listening to my hunger, and understanding what drives it. There is not a line that has gone un-highlighted by me in the entire book!  I read from it all the time.  This one is truly a winner.
• Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet - don't be scared off by the diet part.  This book is really about taking on a lifestyle that is rooted in self love, living life as you want to live it, and letting your health practices be a reflection of that. 

Movement

Qoya is a movement class founded by Rochelle Schieck that has completely and utterly changed my relationship to exercise, my body, and my life.  Qoya is based on the idea that through movement, we remember - we remember that as women, our essence is inherently wise, wild and free.  Do you ever have moments in your day where you forget that? I do. Qoya draws from the wisdom of yoga, the wildness of creative dance, and the freedom of sensual movement.  The whole point of Qoya: feeling pleasure.  It’s not about feeling the burn, though you do.  It’s not about toning up, though you will.   It’s about listening to your body, rather than telling it what to do. We dance to playlists that take you from the ocean caves of a desert island to the Lower East Side of NYC, up to the clouds of heaven and back down to the dance floor of Soul Train, all at the same time.  The music is as much of a teacher in Qoya than the actual human teacher.

When I dance Qoya, I close my eyes and it is like going to Disneyworld within my very own skin. It is the deepest state of meditation I can imagine.  My head lets go, my body takes over, and I receive deep insights through just feeling, rather than thinking things through. In Qoya we dance it all: our love, our loss, our understanding, our confusion, our gratitude, our frustrations, our ecstasy, our devastation…everything.  All of it is left on the sacred dance floor and blends into the most beautiful mosaic that grounds us into our power as women, our intuition, and brings us a deep state of bliss.  To dance Qoya right now, go to www.embodyqoya.com.  You can also come to my Qoya class every Tuesday from 7-8pm at The Yoga Collective, 135 W.29^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues in NYC.

Programs

Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts is a place that teaches women about using the power of pleasure to have their way with the world.  My life has been profoundly changed by this work, specifically when it comes to realizing what my true hungers are, and going for what it takes to satisfy them.  www.mamagenas.com  

I would love to hear some of your favorite resources in the comments below. Wishing you a happy, peaceful and pleasure filled Thanksgiving.

PS - If deciding what you truly want on your plate, in your life, in your relationships, etc. is something you would like to delve into, there are three spots left in Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice, November 30 & December 1st.  Seduction is all about listening to yourself, and acting on that information. This is the last time I will be teaching this class for a few months.  Grab your spot now, I would love to have you. 

How I lost 30 pounds...(you asked, and it's not what you think)

Thank you all so much for your feedback and responses to my recent blog "I lost 30 pounds...Oh No"! It has been a big leap of faith to live my relationship with my body so transparently and I thank you for all your support. Many of you have asked me, “So...how’d ya do it?”.  Here's the story:

• I went to Costa Rica and became a certified Qoya teacher. I now teach Qoya every Tuesday. Qoya has completely revolutionized my relationship to my body and exercise. Because of that, I now look forward to exercising like I look forward to a massage.
• I read Kris Carr's Crazy, Sexy, Diet, really jived with her philosophy, and have started eating a ton more whole foods, raw veggies, and drinking green juice.
• I really upped the ante of love and passion in my life, my marriage, my friendships and my career. Like, REALLY upped the ante.
• I'm working with an amazing therapist, which has led to more truth telling, and less smiling while flipping the bird under the table.

The list goes on and on. My point is, none of the things on this list, nor the weight loss itself, would ever have transpired without one thing.

Prescription Drugs. :)

Not what you were expecting to hear? Me either. Here’s the story.

My whole life I have experienced moderate to severe depression  (I know, who hasn’t?).  The last few years it got more severe as it began to be served alongside a hearty serving of nighttime anxiety, which led to intense insomnia. Pretty much everyone knows what it feels like to be depressed, but this was depression resulting in an average of 4-6 hours of sleep every night for a good three years.  I would sometimes catch up on weekends, but most of the time I walked around in a state of bitchiness at best, what-the-fuck-is-the-point of-even-living at worst. It was like I had forgotten how to sleep.

Sleep is an essential bodily function, like being able to pee.  Imagine if you just somehow forgot how to pee. The thing about sleep though, is you can survive without it, unlike being unable to pee.  So for a good two to three years I would chase my tail each day and night, lying awake, praying for sleep.  I’d wake up a few hours later in an absolute panic that I hadn’t slept, terrified that I wouldn’t be able to sleep again that night, and the cycle would repeat. This fear would paralyze me throughout the day, and the lack of sleep made me an absolute grouch, anti-social, and opened the door for severe depression.

I tried everything I could think of. Therapy. A new king size bed.  Quitting my corporate job that stressed me out so much.  Rescue Remedy.  Gemstones under the pillow.  All of these things would help temporarily, but each time it was like getting a taste of my tail only to have it slip through my teeth once more, when I’d find myself wide eyed and awake at 2am yet again.  

Now, you might be thinking, “girl, go to the doctor!” I wasn’t raised by hippies, but I do seem to have this gene that leads me to believe I should be able to fix everything with my mind and behaviors (or at least by taking some herbs).  If I just started eating right, exercising each morning, taking the right supplements, meditating, doing the things I really wanted to be doing with my time,  took a watercolors class, did a cleanse at an Arizona spa...I’d be able to work it all out.

Thank God for my husband.  Imagine this poor guy having to deal with a cracked-out insomniac, clinging to her gemstones and chamomile tea as he gently nudged me for two solid years in the direction of getting medical help.  

Sleep aids? I think not.

Antidepressants? Oh no, I am not letting the pharmaceutical companies catch me like a fly in their spider web.

Seeing a psychiatrist to examine my family’s history of depression and mental illness? And then take some magic pill to make it all go away? No thank you.

Wait a minute.  What if there was a magic pill that could make this all go away? Not exactly make it all go away, but at least get me sleeping again. If I could sleep maybe I would have the energy to do something other than barely survive.   And what if there is something going on in my body where I was not getting enough serotonin or whatever.  I mean, even my therapist told me it is not normal to wake up every morning with a feeling of absolute dread.

So finally, I surrendered to the experiment.  I moved the gemstones to a pretty bowl on my nightstand and I went to see a psychiatrist.  After a two hour evaluation, his response was basically, “How has it taken you this long to come see a psychiatrist?” He gave me some Prozac and Klonopin and told me to come back in a month. I figured, let’s give this a go for a year or so, and see what happens.  It can’t get any worse.

That was about six months ago.  I’m happy to say, the experiment is working. I sleep like a dream now. But not a drugged-out, “Can’t sleep without me pills!” sleep.  I am back in the pattern of going to bed, reading or watching Downton Abbey repeats, and just nodding off.  I wake up refreshed and ready.  This morning I have already practiced my Qoya routine for tonight’s class, made lunch for this afternoon, and a green juice for later.  I’ve dressed cute for the day, and I gave myself the luxury of 30 minutes of writing instead of 30 minutes of Facebook.  Because I am rested I now have the energy now to do all the things I described in the bullet points above which, yes, led to my eventual weight loss.

Now, let me make one thing VERY CLEAR.  This is not an ad for prescription drugs. I am not saying that everyone should go get some Prozac and in turn we’d create world peace.  It is simply a transparent account of my journey with my health.  And how interestingly, the thing we resist the strongest, even if that thing might be the easiest way out, is often the very thing that will create real, lasting change. Again, I’m not saying it takes the pharmaceutical industry to create lasting change.  I’m simply saying that this step, which I resisted for so long, is the one thing that has finally worked.    

There will come a day when I’m ready to stop taking these drugs, and I will probably resist that for way longer than I need to as well.  But this has been a powerful learning experience: the thing you think is the last thing you need is at least worth a try.  

I know this is a charged topic.  And I want to hear from you.  What has been your experience with making big life changes you resisted for a long time, and what finally worked? Leave me a comment below.

There are two more chapters coming on this topic. The next is how you can use the art of seduction to make those big life changes with ease and grace.  But that one my doves, you will have to wait for. Unless you want to jump right in with me in September's Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice.

Sunday Morning

Feeling so grateful this morning. Yesterday I taught my Holiday Charm and Cheek 101 to an incredible group of women.  It is always so powerful to see the moment when a woman forgets about getting the dance moves right and just has fun with her beauty.  When you can see on her face that she couldn't be more pleased with herself, and nothing has changed on the outside. Imagine seeing that look on the face of every woman in your subway car in the morning? That is my dream. 

This Sunday morning I woke up early and put the lights on our little New York City apartment tabletop tree to surprise Kev when he wakes up.  I flipped channels between Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Cancer and The Birdcage while drinking piping hot Earl Grey tea. Today we will decorate the tree, and Kev will slow roast something, his favorite thing to do on Winter weekends. Then I will head over to my dear friend Dara's studio - Sacred Brooklyn - to teach another Holiday Charm and Cheek 101.  I love teaching striptease over the holidays. The two go together like eggnog and nutmeg, really.

                                                          What are you doing with your Sunday?