Naked Meditation

The one way to get thin is to re-establish a purpose in life.
- Cyril Conolly

After two weeks of the Christmas season, I now understand how easy it is for normal eaters to absorb many more calories at this time of year. First, you are surrounded by people who are happy to cook their special treats and share them, so you know these treats only come once in a while, which encourages you to have a second (or twelfth) piece to prevent any possible craving next July.

Second, you are busier than average, which means you are likely more tired, and tired brains don’t judge as well as rested ones. I’ve found myself time and again grabbing a cookie on the way to somewhere, and next thing you know, one cookie is four cookies.

The consequence of both of these issues is a more full stomach containing higher calorie foods than normal. You don’t have to be stuffing yourself to be eating significantly more than average.  

How to deal with this? There are, of course, the usual activities of staying more in touch with your hunger and fullness, but that doesn’t really address the emotional part very well. So I’m going to take a page out of Cyril’s book (see quote above), and reframe my life a bit to better enjoy the holidays.

Yesterday I succeeded in putting up some Christmas decorations, effectively dealing with my usual depression over bad Christmases past. I went downstairs and picked out some favorite decorations, then was overwhelmed with some bad feelings, so I took the decorations upstairs, set them down, and did something else for a while. Many hours later I was able to actually decorate a bit, totally without having to “power through” bad emotions.

I also followed some self-care suggestions out of O magazine. Scented candle, nice bath, I even meditated. I like the idea of meditating every day, but rarely do it. Yesterday I went into the bedroom at dusk, determined to meditate for 15 minutes. It was peaceful, as I sat there in my robe after my bath, I was relaxed and accepting of the thoughts that flowed by. Then I thought, “I ought to be doing this naked.”

Flop. Off came the robe and I sat there and experienced naked meditation. It was even better than clothed. This gave me one more good experience at body acceptance, too. Doing the Overcoming Overeating technique of body acceptance can be hard and stressful sometimes, but if you can do something naked, like meditation, you get that added bonus too.