30 Aspects of Being

I have made a commitment to myself to lose weight. And I'm doing it. For me. About me. Because of me. Since the beginning of the year, I've lost 12 lbs and there's more to fall.

Now, I need to be clear, losing weight isn't all about 'looking better', it's about changing how I look at myself and carrying an extra 30 pounds has affected how I feel about myself, and how I feel inside me, how I feel being me and living within me.

Truth is, I want to feel alive, vibrant, light. Being overweight restricts my lightness of being. It limits my sense of well-being because, as one of my daughters commented, 'We want you to stick around mom for a longtime and we worry about your health.'

I don't want my daughters to worry about my health and I don't want to have to worry about it either. Worry is counter-intuitive, counter-productive. To not worry about my health I need to move from worrying into caring. I need to move away from doing nothing to acknowledge the issues to doing something about it.

So I am.

It also means, getting active. Moving from inertia's pull into gravity's weightless grace of moving lightly through the world.

And it means, shifting from seeing it as 'weight loss' to 'wellness gain'. Each fallen pound lightens my body, and my spirit.

So.... here's what I've done. I've named 30 Aspects of Being that limit me. They range from Shame. Guilt. Regret. to Hopelessness. Inactivity. Helplessness.

We each have Aspects of Being that do not support us on our journey. That weigh us down and keep us playing small in the big, wide, world of wonder all around us.

For me, even if I don't consciously feel Shame or Guilt or Helplessness, I know they play a role in my psyche somewhere -- because the words would not have come to me if they didn't. So... what better way to release their power than to consciously let each fallen pound be represented by something in my life that could hold me down?

It's fun!  I'm not losing weight. I'm losing Aspects of Being that would limit my living freely, stepping lightly and shining my light for all I'm worth. Without these Aspects of Being, my light is brighter, my steps lighter and my being is freer to live joyfully in the rapture of now!

Interested in identifying your own Aspects of Being and setting yourself free?

Here's the simple process I created for myself to do it:

1.  Make a list of the positive Aspects you believe/want your being/life to embody. ie. Truth. Honesty. Joy. Beauty. Humility. Patience.

2.  Beside each Aspect, write the opposite.  ie. Lies. Dishonesty. Sorrow. Darkness. Vanity. Impatience.

3. Consciously make a commitment to lose the negatives. For me, losing a pound is analogous to losing one of the negative aspects. I could choose to burn a piece of paper with each aspect written on it everyday, and say a prayer for its release (which, now that I think about it I can still do to symbolize the significance, and the depth of what I'm doing). Or, I could plant a seed everyday, burying the negative aspect into the soil, tending the seed with love so it can grow up towards the light (on the positive side of the earth).

There are countless ways to 'lose the negatives'. Losing them is an opportunity to get creative. It's also a great way to acknowledge the yin/yang, darkness/light of our beings in the world without holding onto the weightiness of the negative as a reason for not stepping into the light.

And a word of caution...... This exercise works best if you don't judge the words -- or try to fathom how they affect you or why a certain word came to you. It's about accepting the positive Aspects you want more of in your life, and acknowledging its negative value and pull, that keep us from experiencing the full power of who we can be in the world when we set ourselves free -- in Love.

Namaste.