Thanksgiving has come and gone.
You may have had a great time with your family or you may have…
… experienced some family, food, body image drama.
Whatever happened, it’s quite possible you’re experiencing the Post-Thanksgiving Blues right now.
And one of the things that comes with the BLUES is body-bashing, shaming, going on a guilt-trip and hurting yourself in all kinds of wrong ways.
However, you’re smarter than that, aren’t you?
You know that no matter what happened or didn’t happen (the bingeing, the panic, the restriction, the enduring of comments or the feeling of a deep void inside), blaming yourself or your body won’t do you any good.
Instead of choosing pain, you’re going to choose healing and joy.
And the best way to find healing when it comes to food, weight and your body is to embody, to breathe into this vessel that is so very important to your experience of life.
Here are four easy ways to embody your body today.
Breathe
Breathing is the simplest way to get back in your body and ease feelings of anxiety or overwhelm. You can put your hand on your belly and take deep, long belly breathes, noticing the air flood through your entire body, calming your nervous system and grounding you in this very moment again.
You can also try the square breath, breathing in on the count of four, holding your breath while counting to four, breathing out on the count of four and holding your breath while counting to four. Repeat this cycle of breathing for as long as you need and until you feel fully present in your body again.
Use Your Senses
Another beautiful way to come back home to your body and let go of any feelings of sadness or tension is to use your five senes in a mindful way.
Take a moment to really tune in to your body and notice the following things:
I feel…
I see…
I hear…
I smell…
I taste…
Don’t judge what you become aware of and simply focus on your perception of what is happening in and around you.
Tap
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), or Tapping, is a super effective and easy tool helping you to calm your fears and turn your mood around in minutes. Tapping is a combination of Chinese acupressure with neuroscience and it’s pretty damn cool.
We tap on specific energy meridians on our body every Friday in the Escape Diet Prison Tribe in order to support our emotional health and unblock long-held fears, negative feelings and even limiting beliefs that keep us stuck and in pain.
Here’s a beginner’s guide to using tapping as a way to find body-confidence and to ground yourself in who you are.
Feel your heartbeat
Another simple, yet profound and powerful way to ground yourself in your body is to listen to your heartbeat, which is something we never really do, right?
However, once you tune into constant beating of your heart, you’ll be able to de-stress and forget the world around you for a while.
I’ve recorded a free guided heartbeat meditation for you that you can download here.
