Sasha Loring - Eating with Fierce Kindness: A Mindful and Compassionate Guide to Losing Weight

For most people, changing deeply ingrained habits is not easily done, especially with habits that are as personal as those that relate to eating. Research indicates that the approach of self-kindness has powerful and lasting results and supports the kinds of changes that will enable your long-term success with achieving a healthy weight. I like using the term fierce kindness, which is the ability to strongly devote ourselves to changing thought patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that are ultimately not in our best interest, and doing so out of self-kindness, not self-judgment or criticism. The fierceness is the determination it takes to face your personal challenges. The kindness is the act of learning to enhance sincere feelings of warmth and caring toward yourself as you go along.

The story of Rachel is a wonderful illustration of the power of fierce kindness. Rachel was taking an eight-week class that I was teaching on how to apply mindfulness to eating. After the second class she came up to me in tears. I dont think I can do this, she said. I have relied on food for so long that Im really terrified of making changes. After hearing her concerns, I reassured her and pointed out that in fact I had not mentioned changing anything about her food intake. What we had been talking about was how to mindfully observe thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around food, with kindness. Mindfulness, as you will learn in later chapters, is a way of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, with an openhearted attitude. At this point in the class, we were very gently approaching the idea that change is possible, as long as kindness toward yourself is the motivation. A few weeks later, Rachel came in, beaming. I made a commitment to myself to notice my fears, but to also start incorporating the things I am learning, she announced. I have been eating mindfully all week. I slow down, and I pay attention. I actually sit down and spend twenty minutes eating breakfast. Im really enjoying my food and feeling satisfied, and Im sure Im eating less!

This story typifies fierce kindness. Rachel found the courage to recognize the way she was using food to mask her anxiety. She learned and practiced new ways of coping with uncomfortable feelings, and how to make important changes in her whole approach to food and weight loss. She began to make decisions based on her own timetable and inner motivation, with great respect and caring for herself. Fierce kindness is a thread that weaves through all the chapters in this book, and it will be illuminated in numerous ways.

What has been illustrated so far are three qualities of fierce kindness. The first is the willingness to slow down and listen to your own inner world. The second is the act of extending a warm and caring attitude to the parts of yourself that may have been kept hidden or been rejected. The third is the cultivation of the stance of a gentle warrior. This is someone who has a soft heartan open, caring attitude toward self and the worldbut also a firm backthe capability and determination to do what needs to be done.

If you have a compassionate attitude toward yourself and others, kindness will be the resulting way you carry it forward. Kindness is a benevolent affectiona nonjudgmental openness that can form the basis of a deep friendship with oneself. Kindness toward yourself is not about forcing yourself to do something you dont feel ready for, and it is not about having a stiff upper lip or trying to bully yourself into shape. Instead, self-kindness involves forming a firm, comforting, and consistent attitudinal foundation that allows for a caring stance when times are tough. From this basis we can openly investigate what our needs are, how we are trying to meet them, and how we can stop sabotaging ourselves with ineffective strategies. We can accommodate the difficult parts of ourselves rather than trying to suppress, ignore, or push them away. Befriending yourself involves treating yourself with the same kindness and compassion you would extend to another person.

In describing these aspects of kindness, we might use a word that comes out of the Asian meditation tradition, metta, which means gentle and friend. Mettas quality of unconditional self-compassion allows us to fully acknowledge what is happening, with an attitude of acceptance rather than judgment. This does not mean pretending everything is fine; instead, it allows for full recognition of the facts without condemnation. For example, I can recognize that I made a mistakeperhaps I spoke without thinking and hurt someones feelings. Acknowledging a mistake, and even regretting that I made it, is very different from feeling shame, humiliation, unworthiness, and general negativity about myself as a person. Each of us has value and dignity as a human being, even though some of our actions may be ill considered. Metta, the willingness to make friends with ourselves, as we are, is the foundation of fierce kindness. You will have many opportunities throughout this book to contemplate and cultivate metta. As we shall see in this and later chapters, self-kindness is a learning process that takes practice, and it results in improved mental and physical health as well as positive changes in behavior.

The fierce aspect of self-kindness will be called forth when obstacles in our path toward well-being arise. As is the case with any arduous journey, we can expect to have times when we feel discouraged, and we can expect to experience a whole range of emotions as we go along, but we can still keep focusing on positive ways of moving forward, knowing that we can learn to access our own deep and abiding sanity and wisdom. Fierce in this context does not mean aggressive or threatening. It refers to being determined and steadfast as you protect your own well-being. With practice you can become your own fierce protector, guarding your mind from habitual harshness or negativity.

People who want to change habitual patterns face three common obstacles. The first is loss of heart. This is when we make up an end point, some ideal version of where we want to be. We then overwhelm ourselves by imagining what it might take to get there, and give up. Loss of heart has a feeling of heaviness and failure. Ill never get it right, we tell ourselves. Ill be like this forever. There is something wrong with me, and so on. We tend to look at small successes as meaningless and miss opportunities to give ourselves the credit we deserve for our efforts.