Understanding My Physical Body - Day 80

A few points have come up for me recently which tie together in the point of understanding my physical body as how it functions and operates.


Firstly I have been "struggling" with acne on a more pronounced level over the past 3 months, and although a month or two ago I decided to "stop" judging myself for it and simply accept it as "who I am" within my physical body, I have nonetheless continued to pick at it to the point of bleeding or even somewhat gaping wounds, always making it worse, and also to try various techniques that friends have shared or that I have found online, and also to look at the skin on my face up very close (like within 7 inches) in the mirror, examining and scrutinizing it, pretty much any time that I am in front of a mirror. And then I realized last week that I don't even really understand what acne is, why it forms, what causes it, what prevents it, what is best to be done "with" it if one wishes to heal it, and yet I have come at it like attacking my own skin in attempts to eradicate the appearance of it, not understanding that it is not only skin deep. Obviously here there is still self judgment in terms of wanting this feature which has surfaced on my skin to change and go away, and acne is not really a "bad" thing to have except that it can leave scars and therefore can be permanent, although even this is not inherently objectively "bad." But it can also be painful which is one of the primary reasons that I wish to change this aspect of my physical appearance, as well as my belief that it is ugly and unsightly, for which I will walk self forgiveness. It also seems that acne could be indicative of the lack of support I have been giving my body through my self-care.

So here I see that I need to investigate what acne actually is and investigate how I have been caring for my body in ways that have produced this acne, especially this spike in how much acne I have been experiencing, and investigate how I can actually physically support myself as my body to heal the acne blemishes and prevent scarring.


Secondly I have continued to see myself in my relationship to food and just last night in particular I ate something quite unhealthy simply because I "wanted" to (so the point of compulsive eating still must be walked in more detail), and then I noticed that I felt sick and had indigestion. And then I imagined all of this food I had just consumed not only beginning in my mouth and being chewed -- which was an interesting practical point to open up -- but then traveling through my digestive system, through my stomach, through my intestines, being processed and absorbed into my blood stream, where here this whole process is in place in order to literally feed my body, to provide it with nutrients and sustenance. And so here it is like my body as this machine is trying to get whatever it can from this food, this sustenance, to support itself, and here I have fed it shit, basically. And I often feed my body proverbial shit, and this time my body actually told me about it through the physical feelings of sickness and indigestion that I experienced.

So in this awareness of my body's physical reactions to what I feed it and the realization/understanding that when I feed myself I am feeding my body in order to keep it running properly and support it in its physicality, I see that it is important to investigate further the process of digestion and also to learn about nutrition and how to support my body to operate and perform optimally in good health to support myself as life.

This point is also multi dimensional in that it relates closely to the self abuse as my participation in an "eating disorder" many years ago, the consequences of which have lingered as my thoughts/beliefs about myself as my body. So within my relationship to my body within my desire to be "thin" I have taken short cuts and round about ways in order to achieve this superficial goal without actually practically supporting my body or myself as my body to be healthy and to get the nutrients I need to function properly and to sustain myself as life.


So I will open up on these points more specifically in the future as I continue to educate myself on these aspects of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to "solve" "problems" in my body without understanding my body and how it works and what it needs and therefore I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to undermine my body as what it needs to function in order to manipulate it and achieve superficial or experiential results which I desire without considering my body as a physical substance which requires practical physical support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek out "solutions" to "problems" in my body without first seeking out an understanding of my body as it actually physically exists as its processes and needs for subsistence and sustenance and thriving.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to test out potential "solutions" to the "problems" of my body, where within this I have experimentally probed my body and have placed myself in opposition to my body where it is like my body is this unknown mysterious test subject and that I must use trial, error, and hope to find "solutions" to the "problems" that I perceive in my body. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself as my body through approaching these "problems" with my body as a kind of guinea pig where I have not investigated the actual practicality of any of the methods I have inflicted on and exposed my body to but instead have simply tried them and have also hoped that they will work and then have judged my body and myself as my body when they do not work, becoming "fed up" with the way that my body is reacting to its environment or to the stimuli to which I expose it, becoming "fed up" that my body is not doing what I have wanted it to do within and as my mind but that I have not actually practically physically supported it to do.

I commit myself to continuing to educate myself on understanding the actual physicality of my body, what it needs, how it works, what its processes are, and what the physical consequences are when I do things to manipulate my body, or even when I think/believe certain things about my body or myself as my body. I commit myself to investigating how I can support my body in its physicality as life as the vessel which physically moves me through and as life. I commit myself to opening up on these points and investigating who I am within them, why I have identified various superficial/experiential results as ideal, and how I can unite myself within and as my body, accept my body as myself, and support my body as myself as one with and equal to all life, as what is best for all.

Conscious Eating - Day 72

Today at work I brainstormed with my client about conscious eating, which is something he has developed an interest in of his own volition, which I think is very cool, among others of his qualities.

I drew up a chart to list out the "How"s and "Why"s of "Conscious Eating" and we also wrote a list of why we might eat mindlessly/too fast. One of the "how to" points for conscious eating that we talked about was to count how many times we chew our food before swallowing. This is a practical step because it is quantifiable and so during lunch I practiced it, and realized that I tend to move my tongue and jaw around in such a way that I start to swallow my food after chewing only about 7-10 times, whereas it is suggested by some sources that one should chew anywhere from 20-40 times before swallowing. I realized that even in trying to count out my chews before swallowing, the way that I was moving my tongue and jaw facilitated swallowing before I had reached these counts, so that here I have developed a pattern of chewing that moves food which is still unchewed to the back of my mouth and down my throat while leaving some food toward the front of my mouth still between my teeth.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat mindlessly.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stuff my face with food.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to rest between bites.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to chew my food completely before swallowing.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take bites which are arguably "too big."
I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to be aware of the taste and texture of the food that I put into my mouth.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to pause for a breath or a drink between bites.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to be aware of and pay attention to my body's responses to the food I consume.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat too fast.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat in order to distract myself from my responsibilities or my emotional state.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat when and because I am in a negative charged emotional state.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat compulsively.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy the act of eating.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy the act of putting something in my mouth, of having tastes and textures in my mouth.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy the sensation of swallowing.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of my belly filling.
I forgive myself that I have in the past accepted and allowed myself to hate the feeling of my belly filling.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy all of this and yet to not savor any of it, where I rush through the process of eating, eating quickly as a way to distract myself, or because I am in a negative emotional state or am anxious, or because I am bored, or simply out of habit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to complete the process of eating in only a matter of minutes so that by the time I am done, I am not satisfied, because I have not even really allowed myself to have the experience within awareness and so it's like it's gone before I even became aware that it was here, and this enjoyable experience could have lasted much longer if I had simply directed myself to slow down, savor, and enjoy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, when I am finished eating, seek out more eating, to indulge in over eating, to compulsively eat more, to binge.

I forgive myself that I often accept and allow myself to finish a food item or an entire meal and then to get up and find something else to eat.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think about what I can/will eat next while I am still eating the first thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe, "Just one more," which turns into 5, 10, 20 more.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to be aware of each bite that I take, aware of the food itself, aware of the nutritional value or lack thereof, aware of what it is that I am putting in to my body to feed my body to feed myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to eat slowly, to chew my bites carefully with patience, to allow myself to grind the bites down to appropriately small sizes so that when I swallow the food it can travel through my esophagus and into my stomach with ease and it is read for optimal digestion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat in such a way that causes indigestion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat until my stomach hurts.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to eat slowly and "mindfully" so that I can be aware when I am full and when I practically realistically do not need any more food to fuel my body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat so mindlessly and compulsively that even when I do notice that my stomach feels full, I still want more, and so I eat more. So I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat beyond the point that my stomach is full, to eat until my stomach physically hurts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to come up with justifications for this eating behavior or to block out of my mind and my awareness how much I have already eaten and of what, so that I can pretend like I am not really eating that much, but then if I think back on what I have actually consumed I realize that I have eaten more in one sitting than many people eat in an entire day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create rules or games around eating where I have specified for myself specific patterns of consumption for specific foods, saving certain portions for last, eating before something hot gets cold, or basically just gorging/inhaling food as fast as I can.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop an unhealthy unsupportive relationship with food, where it is no longer simply sustenance, fuel, and nutrition for my body, but a distraction, a coping mechanism, an activity, an indulgence, a reward, or a punishment.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to eat simply to feed myself as what my body needs to survive.


When and as I see myself eating fast and not chewing my bites sufficiently before I swallow, I stop and I breathe. I realize that this has physical health consequences, physical bodily comfort consequences, and consequences for my relationship with food. I commit myself to slow down, to take smaller bites, to chew my food at least 20 times before swallowing, to be aware of the movements of my tongue and jaw, and to be aware of my enjoyment of the food in this process. I commit myself to taking a breath after I swallow, and maybe also a sip of water. I commit myself to not allowing myself to take another bite while a previous bite is still in my mouth.

When and as I see myself thinking already about what I can eat next while I am still eating something else, or in fact impulsively allowing myself to consume more food than is necessary to fuel my body, I stop and I breathe. I realize that within this I am using food as a "coping mechanism" and that here there is something else going on that I am avoiding, or that I am engaging in a compulsive pattern behavior which I have created and sustained through repetition and lack of awareness. I commit myself to focusing on the commitments I listed above to see how these influence my compulsive over eating and how an increased awareness of and active steady participation in the physical act of eating can assist and support me here.


Relevant past post:
Healthy =/= Thin - Day 50