I mentioned last week that I picked up the June issue of Oprah. And at least one of you (hi Debbi!) took me up on the suggestion to buy it, since it was an issue that focused on the body.

They now have the June issue online, though what’s there is just a few of the articles, and those that are there are mostly excerpts. That said, I’d definitely encourage you to check out Oprah’s regular feature, What I Know for Sure, which she always closes the mag with.

I love the beginning:

Life is reciprocal: The energy you expend always comes back.

I know this for sure.

This is true for all things, including your body. You must nurture it, work it, rest it. If you don’t, the energy spent on neglect will eventually turn on you. It’s not personal, just physics.

Hey, Oprah is a physicist too :). If you’ve been watching the show, you know that Oprah’s been putting on some weight, and this article explains why. Gee, just like me, Oprah has a tough time maintaining her regimen while traveling, and the white stuff she was staying away from while at home became a staple.

She then writes:

When you nurture and support your body, it reciprocates. The basis of that support is exercise, like it or not. The most essential benefit is more energy. The bonus is weight control. Taking care of your body, no matter what your age, is an investment. The return is priceless.

Well, I don’t know that I agree that the basis of this needs to be exercise. Frankly, I think that what you eat is really the basis. But I do agree that the benefit is energy, and that the return on investment is indeed priceless.

As I too have been struggling over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I have a fledgling theory about this that I may write more about if it holds out, but it’s a riff on the concept of inertia involving the law of attraction (probably the metaphysical version rather than the physical one tho!).

But more about the magazine. There’s a great sidebar there about taking your body to work, along with a downloadable plan for a day (pdf).

There’s also an interview with Tara Brach (who teaches meditation in DC area…I must check her out sometime) about tuning into our bodies. When asked what we’re missing by being out of touch, Brach says:

Say we’re thinking about how to get skinnier. When we do that, we’re on our way somewhere else; we’re not experiencing life right here. In the moments that we’re trying to make things different, we’re not spontaneous, we’re not accessing our creativity or intuition, and, most important—because living in our minds keeps us separate from each other—we can’t really feel love. It’s the difference between being locked in our heads and being awake in our bodies, which is what I call embodied presence. You can’t achieve that if you’re always on your way to the next thing.

There’s a bit more to the article than what’s online. This little bit, about how different emotional wounds are associated with different parts of the body, resonated with me a lot:

The primary wound for all of us is that of feeling unloved, and the basic emotion it gives rise to is fear, which in turn gives rise to grief for our loss, anger at ourselves and others for causing the loss, and shame that we are fundamentally unworthy of love.

And also this bit about kindness (emphasis mine):

I’ve found that people never change behaviors in a meaningful way when the change arises from self-judgement. When I’ve worked with binge eaters, the cycle of bingeing is fueled by feelings of shame that follow a binge. “Yes” interrupts the cycle to accept what’s going on in your body with real kindness.

For me, the jury is out on whether the cycle is fueled by feelings of shame or the physiological havoc that bingeing wreaks (after all, no one binges on veggies), but I think the solution is the same: turning to kindness. Just for today, I am trying to fill my day with being kind to myself, to putting positive energy into my life whether it’s what I’m eating, or what I’m doing.

Will it be enough to break the cycle? Tune in later this week and see!