Be Light: A Love-based Approach to Life and Weight Loss

By David Miller

Weight loss is a charged subject for me to write about as it’s been something that I have struggled with off and on throughout much of my life.  From my teen years on, my weight and self image has fluctuated dramatically.  It can be easy for me to cast the situation from a sociological standpoint and argue that what is considered overweight now was once the height of fashion and that our society has an unhealthy obsession with looking like stick people.  That argument is nice from a philosophical level but it doesn’t hold water when I’m actually looking at myself in the mirror.  This reaction my mind has to the image of my body is the only issue inside of weight loss that means much to me.  All other viewpoints regarding weight loss and body type can be interesting intellectually but don’t really matter.

Before getting to this reaction I would concern myself primarily about how I look to others but I will never be sure that I’m good enough.  Even if people tell me that I look good, there was always be a part of my mind that doubted them, after all people lie all the time to make those around them feel better.  As for health issues related to weight, I might get wound up in the fear regarding health and weight when I’d feel short of breath or heavy after eating fatty food but as soon as I started to feel better the health concerns evaporated more quickly that spilled water on a hot day.

Eventually I uncovered the core situation that I was dealing with and that was how my own mind reacted to the image of my own body when confronted with it.  I then broke this further down to its most basic components: mind and body.  I’d go so far as to say that mind itself was a more surface layer and going deeper the real issue was one of heart and body.  Certainly, I had numerous negative mental loops about the state of my body, but these thoughts were largely the result of the primal emotional response my body evoked.

At first, I worked to “fix” these basic responses.  This was generally unsuccessful and what little success there was turned out to be short-lived.  So I decided to radically change my approach, instead of deciding how I should react I took the Zen approach and chose simply to observe the reaction.  I chose to stop avoiding my image as I’d previously done and instead sit and stare at myself intently and to allow whatever feelings needed to rise up to do so.  Many of these feelings weren’t pleasant.  I saw my body as the end result of all the aspects of myself I didn’t like and it was easy to justify the fat and stretch marks as my karmic “just desserts”.  However as I stared long enough and found it impossible to be completely negative all the time and eventually I started to see signs of things inside me that weren’t so dire: the twinkle in my eyes when I smiled, or even my face when I contorted it into a goofy form.  Slowly but surely, I began to really and genuinely feel love towards myself and more specifically, towards my reflected presence in the mirror in front of me.  I was able to look myself in the eyes and said “I love you David Miller” and really mean it.  From that point on I could not simply see my body as an only terrible thing because I could recognize the light and life inside of it. As grew the recognition so too grew the love.

Then something very interesting and quite radical began to happen, as I changed the way that I looked at my body my body began to change the way it looked.  Let me repeat that and break it out from the paragraph so that you get just what a far out and amazing living concept we’re dealing with here:

As I changed the way that I looked at my body, my body began to change the way it looked.

I lost weight and it stayed off in a way it never had before.  Was this weight loss magic, or was it tied to better eating and exercise choices?  Of course it wasn’t magic, but I had tried those same eating and exercise choices before but they’d never stuck because deep down I didn’t think that I was worthy of a body that looked and felt healthy.  Since that time I’ve lost some 70 pounds. That number has fluctuated to some degree but it has never gotten up even close to my peak and this powerful change all started with something so simple and easy.  It started first with observation of my reaction and then grew when I started looking myself in the eyes and loving what I saw.

Normally we go through this process the other way around, we think “Once I’ve lost x number of pounds then I’ll be able to be proud of how I look in the mirror and until that point, I’m just going to have to go through life looking like a complete mess.”  We set up the mental state that the body looking anything less than our imagined ideal is hideous.  I believe that this way of thinking is a mistake in that it creates a baseline viewpoint of the body as something bad that needs to be brought to a place where it can finally become good.  Suddenly all the work we do towards helping along our body becomes very HARD WORK.

Some of us are well able to buckle down and DO HARD WORK, others of us less so.  The problem with viewing your body as hard work is that even if you look great there is an underlying tension that will always be present for you inside your relation to your body.  Yes, that frustration can bring pride to those of you who are fit but even that pride will cause pain.  And yet with love we can bypass this frustration, find true and abiding love for our physicality and that love will allow our own best weight to naturally arise.

One final note, what if you try the method of looking yourself in the mirror in the eyes and saying that you love yourself but you really cannot feel it?  What do you do then?  Then you fake it until you make it.  Do the work, tell yourself that it works and then watch to see if it actually does work.  Be sure you actually look yourself in the eyes and not just a general staring off to the side of yourself.  Almost anyone’s eyes can become quite radiant and if you stare at them long enough, there’s a good chance you’ll begin to genuinely see that radiance.  How long should you stare?  I’d say at least 5 minutes.  You need to stare to the point that you move past the point of the staring being awkward. You have to stare until you actually begin to see.

You already are the beautiful and radiant person that you are working towards.  You don’t need to create a new self.  All you need to do is to recognize the radiance of the self that already is.

In love and light,

David Miller

http://jaifive.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1420226318

David Miller is a yoga teacher, a teacher training and also the manager of the Huntington Beach CorePower Yoga (http://www.corepoweryoga.com/classschedules/california.aspx?location=24) He is blessed to be working around his true passion and is reminded of just how lucky he is almost every day.  Any correspondence can be addressed to david.miller@corepoweryoga.com.

As I watch this show I notice some very important facts that are closely related to weight loss. Therefore, I will tell you how to lose weight just as this show tells you what to wear.

1. It’s Not About Fixing

You will notice that Stacy and Clinton never try to fix anybody. It doesn’t matter if they weigh 100 lbs or 300 lbs, they show you how to make your body look fabulous just as it is. This is a huge differentiator between myself and the dieting world. I never try to fix my clients, I always accept them as is. The dieting industry gives you 100+ ways to “fix the problem of weight gain.” I don’t want to fix you I want to enhance you, just like a V-neck, knee length, belt wasted dress enhances a beautiful curvy body.

2. They Take A No Excuses Approach

Stacy and Clinton don’t allow any person that walks in that studio to live small. They trash their clothes, get honest with their insecurities and force them to live a huge, fulfilling life. This is exactly how I approach weight loss. The dieting industry won’t hold you accountable to live a fulfilling life, it will only hold you accountable to something forced or unnatural. It doesn’t matter how many excuses you have about not living big, I will not allow them into my studio.

3. Bring Out The Feminine

You will notice on this show they always ask women if they feel beautiful, sexy, vibrant, confident, etc. This is because most people that are hiding in their clothes are also hiding in life. The same is true for weight loss. If you are hiding on the couch or in the pantry, under hard masculine expectations or movements you are not embracing the feminine. It is about feeling sexy, vibrant, womanly no matter what size or shape. Then if you so desire, the weight will just melt off your feminine body.

4. Mixture of Education and Implementation

Before you are sent on your own to go shopping you are given a ton of education and hand holding. Without which you would walk aimlessly in the store picking up all the same clothes you previously were purchasing. When you pick up the next diet you are being educated by the very company that is profiting on your inability to succeed long term. When you work with a coach you are receiving education from the actual person that designed the program and lives to help people live more fulfilling lives. Stacy and Clinton’s entire job is to help people dress in a way that brings out their inner personality just as my entire job is to help you embrace your inner personality so much that your body can release any unwanted weight.

If you have never seen the show I highly recommend it (even you guys out there!) The show does a great job of showing people transform before your very eyes. It is literally what I live for and I can’t wait to take more people on that journey with me. If you haven’t already signed up for my complimentary webinar to learn all about the dieting industry and how they are brainwashing today’s society, please stop by over here: www.michellehastie.com and jump on the list.

Want To Include This Article In Your Ezine and/or Website? I Would Be Honored! Please Include The Following:

Michelle Hastie is a completely different kind of weight loss expert. She will help you identify and live your ideal life so that you can then live in your ideal body. She will educate you on why diets don’t work, give you tools and private coaching around mental and emotional health setbacks and even create your entire fitness program without extreme exercise and punishment. It is absolutely possible to live a life naturally thin, are you ready? If you want to learn more, please sign up for Michelle’s weekly Ezine at www.michellehastie.com.

It is absolutely easier to be lazy. If you don’t have to work at anything, if you don’t have to fail or succeed life would just go along on it’s way, BUT, you would be miserable. Your body doesn’t want to take the easy way out, it just doesn’t want to struggle. Meaning, if you want to lose weight, sitting on the couch isn’t going to get you there, not because you burn little to no calories but because then you wouldn’t be living. You would be miserable and your body will never respond to miserable. If you believe that sitting on the couch doing nothing sounds absolutely fabulous you might need to do just that, however, if it becomes your everyday thing ask yourself how happy you really are.

Life requires living and therefore weight loss requires living. You don’t need to beat yourself up at the gym 7 days a week to lose weight, you don’t need to force yourself to eat under 2000 calories to lose weight, all you have to do is live. Your body will be overjoyed if you shift your focus from weight loss to living. So many people out there could lose weight simply by taking part in more soulful hobbies or working out less or eating more.

Ask yourself this question, on a scale of 1-10 how much am I living today? If it isn’t a 10, change something. If you want to lose weight, focus on living your life at a 10 each and everyday and watch the magic unfold.

It’s not about dieting to lose weight, it’s about living. If you want to learn more about how these diets suck the life out of you, please sign up to be at my complimentary webinar “7 Reasons Why Traditional Diets Don’t Work.” The date will be coming very shortly so add yourself to the list and I will keep you updated.

1. You don’t have a willpower problem

This is the most common reason I hear for overeating. There are organizations and products created specifically to aid in overeating. We are told that we are weak and pathetic if we can’t stop putting food into our mouths. We are also told that based on the type of food (like carbs or sugar) we simply have to give in to eating more. This is so ridiculous, so what about all those people that don’t have an “overeating” problem and eat all the carbs and sugar they want and don’t gain weight? They are just special? Absolutely not. Overeating occurs because of lack of awareness before, during and after your meal. It is that simple.

2. “Diet” products have NO research proving it aids in weight loss

This is by far my favorite because I know how popular Diet sodas are. Diet anything really seems to get a lot of attention. People pay $5 for a lean cuisine, couple bucks for a diet soda and are convinced that this is the answer to their prayers. Try to find some research on diet sodas. See if you can dig up the studies that show it helps in weight loss. Guess what, they don’t. However, if we took them off the shelves, or exposed their truth, how much money would these people lose?

3. Fad diets are not supposed to work long term

I don’t know about you but I am not very comfortable buying into products that bank on the fact that we will have to revisit them in the future. As someone that helps people lose weight, what makes me more money: Helping people lose weight for 6 months so that they can live a life free of weight gain forever OR creating a product that makes them work with me for the rest of their life or at least come back in a year? Luckily, I practice integrity and I don’t want people relying on me the rest of their lives, but which one does the dieting industry operate by?

4. Diet and Exercise play little to no role in weight loss

This calories in versus calories out model is utterly ridiculous. I’ve got news for you, if this really worked, all your skinny friends that stuff their faces and don’t gain weight, would be fat and all dieters out there, would be thin. It doesn’t work!! Don’t waste your time counting points, carbohydrates, calories, fat grams or anything else. Weight gain and weight loss are so much deeper than food and exercise. The issue doesn’t lie in lack of movement and overeating those are just some ways in which a deeper problem is exposing itself.

5. Inability to lose weight is really just lack of information

Weight loss starts from within. It is that simple. If the dieting industry told us that weight loss had nothing to do with diet and exercise, if they educated us on how it really worked, they would be broke. They are operating from a place of brainwashing all people who want to lose weight because they understand that weight gain is emotional and they take advantage of this desperation. There are people out there that are educated on the proper way to lose weight. I searched, and searched, and searched for the real answers and so I found them. My job is to help educate everyone out there that is tired of being told that they need to move more and eat less in order to lose weight.

I have officially taken on this mission. I would love to see your names on my list for my complimentary webinar where I will be going into much more detail about the reasons why traditional diets don’t work. Oh and bring your friends too! You can sign up over here: www.michellehastie.com. It is time to start a revolution, are you with me?

1. Relationship/Love stuff
2. Career/Financial stuff
3. Weight/Body stuff

Usually we have one, two or all three categories going in a direction we are not so fond of. The interesting thing is when we focus on changing or improving one area of these categories the others just tend to fall in place.

Example:

Jenny is 36 years old. She wants to lose weight because she hates her body. She also is newly unemployed because “the recession” is out to get her. Just so happens that she is single and her clock is ticking away. Jenny thinks she can’t possible hire someone to help her lose weight because she has no money. So she tells me thanks but no thanks.

OR

She understands that if she receives help with her body image and weight she will automatically raise her state of attraction and not only attract the ideal career and pay but also the most amazing man. Was it scary to pay the money not knowing where it was going to come from? YES! Could she have chosen to not pay the money and stay stuck? YES! However, a little fear never hurt anyone…oh and by the way FEAR= False Evidence Appearing Real.

The point of all this is that our lives are all intertwined. If you hate your body, you’re worried about finding the perfect mate and you want more money you have a choice: Continue living inside of all your “stuff” or picking yourself up, dusting off, maybe hiring some help and moving into the life you desire.

You don’t have to know how you are going to get the perfect relationship, you don’t have to know where your prosperity is going to come from and you don’t have to know how you are going to lose 50 pounds without calorie counting. You just have to align yourself for what you want, then take action. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, the universe is abundant, it will always have enough of whatever you want; money, health, happiness, love, or prosperity.