Wellness and Loving Ourselves

"I celebrate myself, I sing myself," ~Walt Whitman




After reading the above quote, you may be asking yourself, "what does this have to do with nutrition?" I've been thinking a lot lately about the importance (and difficulties, at times) of truly respecting and loving ourselves, and the impact this has on our overall state of wellness. We can nourish our bodies with the best of foods, or physically sculpt them through exercise in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, but if we lack genuine love for ourselves (bodies, emotions, and minds), much of this hard work in other realms of life (nutrition and exercise, for example) is largely undermined. Now, this is not an excuse to eat a package of twinkies if you're having a bad day because it "doesn't matter" (if only it were that simple, right!?). Remember, life is all about balance. So, lets explore one key component to this balance (that I, right along with you, am ever-cultivating), self-love.


We've talked a lot about stress and its' impacts on our mental and physical well-being. Susan Albers, PsyD. in her book Eating Mindfully (see, it does tie into nutrition!), notes that "your mind is in a permanent state of 'go.' Thinking, dreaming, scheming, calculating, processing, contemplating are just a few examples...there is a lot of content or 'stuff' on your mind, but rarely do you slow down and observe what you do with it." For myself, I find that all too often, when my mind is scattered and constantly one step ahead of the present task, a large reason for this occurrence is because it is looking to fill some sort of void. Perhaps it is seeking to fill this void with food, external love or admiration from others, or material possessions. Of course no one can argue that all of those things are important, we all need food, love, and a certain amount of things in our lives. But it is not these things that should create our happiness and sense of worth, this is a state that must be achieved through genuine love and respect for ourselves. This is where emotional eating comes into play, which we'll discuss in a moment. Going back to Albers idea above, when our minds are so constantly on-the-go (and living in a big city makes this hard to avoid) it becomes much easier to focus on our to-do list, relationships with other people, and sometimes even easier to think about what's not going well (or how want it to go) instead of what is. 

Now lets take a quick look at how this relates to eating and health. Albers also makes the astute observation that:

"When you are stressed and emotionally in pain, your body's natural immunity decreases. If you are stressed out about your weight or your out-of-control eating, you may spend more of your time reacting to and dwelling on the painfulness of your problem rather than dealing with it directly. However, resisting all traces of suffering will further limit your ability to overcome stress...there is wisdom to be learned in suffering."


Again, while some of us may "treat" emotional pain (trying to fill a void) with food, others may take this same approach through seeking affirmation from others, accumulation of wealth, emotional detachment, or even obsessively controlling diet and exercise (which could manifest as an eating disorder on one end of the spectrum) I imagine we do this because it's much simpler to control these factors in our lives...wouldn't it be great if we could achieve ultimate joy, happiness and fulfillment by just exercising and eating right? Don't get me wrong, this (for many reasons both mental and physical) can help, but it is absolutely necessary to couple this with a cultivation of gratitude and love for ourselves.

Ok Rachel, this is vague and a little hippy-dippy (get over it, I'm from Portland, what do you expect?). And I by no means claim to be an expert in the field. As I said right off the bat, I am very much on my own path of cultivating these important skills. So what are some tools we can use??

• Create a list of things you are grateful for.
• Consider (and write down) all of the reasons you are amazing, including skills, talents, accomplishments, and mental, emotional, and physical qualities.
• Reflect on your patterns of negative self talk, and ask yourself why you have these thoughts and where they are coming from. Don't judge yourself for having them, but simply observe. Realize that these thoughts are largely untrue.
• Look at your relationships with others and ask yourself if they are mutually healthy and serving both parties. If not, consider why and what you can do to change them. Of course it's not always so simple, but perhaps some of these connections are being held onto only out of self-doubt.
• Consider that, like meditation, cultivating self-love and compassion is a practice that we need to actively work on every day. The first step is recognizing on an intellectual level that some sort of void may exist, but the next (and harder) step is change.

These are just a few ideas that I thought of, and I'm sure you can think of many more! I challenge you (and myself) to really take some time to think about this stuff, as we cannot achieve optimal wellness without knowing we are awesome. As Mae West so eloquently states:

"I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself!"