Some Articles and Conversations

BE.YOU.Tiful

You are beautiful. You are perfect…Just as you are.

We have become a very judgmental species. We obsess over any imperfection…We are competitive and constantly looking at each other and…rating all the time…We have constructed a massive judgmental lens through which to view everything and everyone in the world, including our own bodies. There is no other species on the planet as critical, insecure and judgmental as the human race. A dog never sits in a corner and cries because he can’t meow like a cat. A tree never sulks because its trunk is much bigger than the neighboring willow. It is no surprise that most of us have issues with our body image!

Watch the workshop session with Angela:

the masks we wear

A client shared a photo, and the image stays with me. It’s a young girl, standing tall on a balance beam. So proud. So beautiful. I imagine she just danced gleefully, her 9 year-old limbs performing a both exquisite and adorable routine. Although young, she is powerfully connected to her own wild, divine, expressive, true self. She is wiser than she realizes, and the wisest she will be for a long time to come. She smiles to herself and, because she’s 9 and hasn’t learned to be self-depricating, to everyone else watching. It doesn’t occur to her to question herself - her desires, her expression, her body, her worth…yet. For now, she just is.

As she stands proud, planning her dismount, she hears her coach whisper to his neighbor: “She’s already too big to be an Olympian.” For the first - but not the last - time, she reaches inside, finds a false face, and puts on a mask. She smiles externally while inside she cries. Over the next few months and years, she begins to gather masks. She starts saying she doesn't care about gymnastics that much and eventually withdrawals altogether. She loses faith in the wisdom and beauty of her body, and starts to hide, criticize and manipulate it.

recognizing emotional hunger & fullness

We all have at least two kinds of hunger and fullness – physical and emotional. Although weight loss surgery can be great at helping us recognize and honor our physical hunger and fullness, it does nothing to help us with our emotional hunger and fullness.

After surgery, the body may be ready to accept that we have had enough food, but our hearts and minds may still be craving something more, something different, something sweet, something comforting.

What our society as a whole does not understand is that food is not just food. People who weigh more don’t just weigh more because they like food a lot. People who weigh less don’t just weigh less because they have a lot of discipline. These factors may be involved…or they may not.