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  Watch for resistance in the form of “But I’m not hungry,” “I’m just not a breakfast person,” or “One more muffin won’t make a difference.” Try your best to ignore those voices. Many of us have trained our bodies not to need or want what is actually healthy or to want much more than what is healthy. Try following this simple plan and you’ll be amazed by the results.

  If you’re prone to binge eating, avoid foods that trigger cravings. For some, that will mean foods full of sugar or white flour; others have problems with dairy. All of us benefit—if our budgets allow—from cutting out processed foods that are laden with hidden sugars and additives. If your body-fat ratio is above or below the average range, you may need more concentrated help. Remember, your own assessment may be distorted. For more information on healthy body weight go to, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/index.html.

  When I went into treatment for depression, and health professionals told me to eat three meals a day, I thought they were trying to make me fat. I’d spent so many years avoiding breakfast to try to shrink my stomach for the rest of the day that I thought the act of consuming a bowl of oatmeal each morning would add another fourteen pounds to my weight. But after two weeks of eating three meals a day, I found that not only had I lost seven pounds but also ended the battle that had raged in my head since adolescence. I was liberated from the almost constant “Shall I eat this or not?” debate and free to think about things that mattered far more. Plus, I started to feel a lot more comfortable and at ease with my body.

  —JN

  For most of my life, I have vacillated between carefully watching what I eat and eating whatever I want. The periods where I stay away from sugar and wheat and cut down on or even remove caffeine, I am a calmer, more patient, and kinder human being. When I don’t, I am moody, impatient, and grumpy. It’s really that simple. And it’s my choice.

  —GA

  Physical Exercise

  When we don’t feel comfortable in our bodies, we can view them as separate from ourselves and get stuck in our heads, thinking obsessively about whatever is preoccupying us from one moment to the next.

  For many women, food and exercise have ceased to be forms of self-care and instead become two more levers we pull to try to change how we look. If we can’t starve or eat ourselves into the right shape, then we can exercise our way to it.

  Physical activity is, of course, an important aspect of healthy living. It not only gets our limbs moving but also sends vital oxygen to the brain, helps our organs to function properly and our muscles to stay supple, and maintains bone strength. We know we should do it, but often we either don’t do it at all, or we exercise like crazy, or we swing between the extremes.

  If you find it hard to exercise, starting small can sometimes be the only way in. Committing to just ten minutes a day is enough to make a real difference. Try a brisk morning walk, or, if you’re short on time, get off the bus one stop early so that your exercise uses up time you’d be spending in transit anyway. There are also hundreds of miniworkouts online that you can download for free. It needn’t cost you anything to feel better about your own body.

  If you’re at the other extreme and think you might be overexercising, try cutting back and notice what happens to your anxiety levels. If there’s an increase in self-judgement and panic that you’re going to put on weight, it’s highly possible there are feelings underneath your regimen that you’re suppressing. Again, start small by cutting down on the intensity of your workout or the hours you spend at it per week and see what comes up. This is a good place to start getting honest about what’s really going on for you, because that’s a big part of what this journey is all about.

  Rest

  We know we need rest, but the pressures of modern life often make it impossible to prioritize. It may simply be that we’re working too many hours or nursing a waking baby, or we may resist rest because of our own internal resistance to self-care, but like nutrition and exercise, your brain needs rest to function effectively.

  Do you have enough energy as you go through your day, or do you find yourself feeling sluggish or falling asleep? Do you push through exhaustion so that you’re stuck in an adrenaline-fuelled cycle, or do you take breaks as needed? Do you keep your sleeping space safe from the stresses and strains of daily life? If you have trouble sleeping, is it because you’re using your laptop or phone in bed? That alone can lead to stress and sleep disturbances.

  Even when we know what’s missing, it can still be hard to change our behavior around it. Try to imagine you have a daughter with the same sleep-related issues. What would your advice be? Really think about it. Don’t take your phone or laptop to bed? Head on the pillow before midnight? No caffeine after four in the afternoon? Whatever your loving advice might be, follow it yourself.

  It’s also really important to take at least one break in the middle of the day. If you can’t take a lunch hour, make sure you take a pause of some kind. Notice the sky, notice the temperature, breathe deeply, and center yourself before engaging in your next round with life.

  Appreciation

  How do you feel about your body?

  Try asking yourself that question while standing naked in front of a full-length mirror. “What?!” you might ask. Once you’ve moved through the shock and the fear and are actually standing before your reflection, notice your reaction to what you see. Hopefully, you feel happy and fond of your physical form—that’s certainly what we’re working toward. But many of us are not only uncomfortable but also highly critical. We focus on the parts of our body that we don’t think are perfect—like our thighs, our tummy, our breasts. We feel vulnerable and even ashamed. Our poor bodies endure some harsh judgements, whether we are naked or fully clothed.

  Now take in your whole reflection again, but spend a moment centering yourself by breathing in and out deep into your belly. Instead of thinking about what your body looks like, think about what it does for you. This magnificent vessel before you enables you to live this life. Look at your legs, which carry you every day; your arms and hands, which perform so many tasks; your torso, which contains your vital organs: your heart, your lungs, your stomach.

  This body houses you. It has grown with you. It sounds like an obvious statement, but so often we forget that it is the same body we came into this world with. Would we forgive it more if we remembered our newborn selves? Try to connect with the kindness you’d feel if it belonged to that baby or to someone else you love.

  Run your hand over the parts that you find hardest to love. Breathe deeply, take your time, and consciously release each negative thought that crosses your mind.

  This is a powerful experience. If you can, try to commit to doing it a couple of times a week until the habit of praise for what you have overrides the habit of shame. One day this body will be gone. The time you have with it is precious. From now on, commit to treating it with kindness and care.

  For a large part of my life, I hated my body. Even when I was at my skinniest, which was really underweight, I thought I was fat. At the depths of my despair, I used to self-harm as a form of punishment for being what I thought was ugly. Now I’m deeply happy to be me. I’m older (of course!) and heavier than I’ve ever been, but I wouldn’t be any other way. However, I still have to put in the right action on a daily basis: it takes only a missed meal or too many late nights, and my mental state starts to slide, and suddenly I’m looking in the mirror and checking my tummy to see how many inches I can pinch. Now, though, I know exactly how to get back on track. And I do. Fast.

  —JN

  So many of my living years have been spent engaging in one form of self-abuse or another. I’ve often wished and prayed that it wasn’t so easy to escape. Denigrating oneself is a form of abuse and a way to hide because, in doing so, we refuse to see and acknowledge the beautiful being we are, just as we are. What if we could make a commitment to ourselves and to our daughters that we will stop abusing ourselves and our bodies in thought and in a
ction? When we abuse ourselves, we teach others that we are worthy of being treated badly. We show our daughters that we think we deserve to be abused, and therefore they deserve it too—which is not true. Nobody deserves to be abused.

  —GA

  Beauty Really Is an Inside Job

  A mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually vaccinates her daughter against low self-esteem.

  —NAOMI WOLF, author and journalist

  Taking care of your body will make the work ahead infinitely easier and more pleasurable. When you write your gratitude list each day, find at least one thing you’re grateful to your body for. And as you go through your day, find ways to say thank you to your body through your actions. Notice how your relationship with it starts to shift as a result. You may also start to feel more confident in the process, because you know that you are doing right by yourself. Self-assurance will come more naturally, and your relationships with others will change for the better. If we don’t care for our body, how can we expect anyone else to?

  A woman who is truly comfortable in her own skin radiates an inner beauty regardless of whether she conforms to cultural norms of beauty. When someone is genuinely joyful and at ease with herself, we gravitate toward her—and feel better about ourselves for being in her presence.

  In my twenties, I was quite consistently in the public eye. I remember doing one particular photo shoot for the cover of a magazine and being completely focused on, and distracted by, the fact that I felt fat. It wasn’t so much that things weren’t fitting, which has happened, too, on many occasions—in fact, one time I ended up wearing a tarpaulin over my shoulders because nothing else was working—but on this day, I just felt unattractive in myself, and I remember turning inward and being uncommunicative and allowing my negative thoughts to essentially ruin my (and maybe, for all I know, other peoples’) experience of that shoot. Now, the pictures that were created that day expose not a hint of my inner turmoil—many over the years have been more revealing. Today what I see when I look at those photographs is a very young, fresh-faced, beautiful, young woman who had no sense or appreciation of how lucky she was in so many ways.

  —GA

  Hormones

  For many of us, the onset of puberty marked the beginning of a monthly hormonal roller coaster. Menstruation affects each of us differently, but mood swings, pain, and changes in weight and libido can leave us feeling scattered and crazy each month. In fact, half of all women’s suicide attempts are made during either the four days prior to menstruation or the first four days of menstruation.

  A few pioneering companies have introduced a “period policy,” so that their employees can take sick leave if they need it, but most of us have learned to just “deal with it.” This may mean going to work when we’re in pain, rushing around doing chores rather than resting, or feeling guilty for being bad-tempered. During your next cycle, consider listening to your body more carefully and responding to yourself with more compassion and kindness.

  Pregnancy, miscarriage, oral contraception, and fertility treatments can also create hormonal chaos in our lives. And then, as we get older, there is another journey that we all end up taking as women: the menopause.

  The Menopause

  It’s astounding what a taboo topic the menopause—the cessation of periods—continues to be despite affecting 50 percent of the population. Women commonly enter the menopause between the ages of forty-eight and fifty-five. Each woman’s experience will be unique, but common symptoms include hot flashes, night sweats, difficulty sleeping, reduced sex drive, memory and concentration problems, vaginal dryness and pain, itching or discomfort during sex, headaches, mood changes, palpitations, joint stiffness, reduced muscle mass, and recurrent urinary tract infections. The symptoms often arrive several months or years before the menopause itself, during the perimenopause, and can continue to affect women for up to twelve years after their last bleed.

  For me, the perimenopause was a sudden inability to cope with anything when I had been seemingly used to coping with everything simultaneously for years without many hitches. It came in the form of sudden uncontrollable emotionality and hysteria, and feeling like someone else’s brain had replaced mine. I honestly think I have been in gradual perimenopause since my thirties. When I finally identified and acknowledged what was going on for me—or, I guess, when it finally got so bad that I needed to seek out a solution: bioidentical hormones—I could not remember when my brain had felt that “normal.” I started to realize how long I had been living with some of the symptoms.

  When I began discussing it with my female friends, I was amazed by two things. One, how many women had been through it, but it had never been a part of our conversation. I felt like we were whispering in covens, discussing the best witch doctor to go to in order not to turn into a toad. And two, how many women had no idea it was coming or that some of their symptoms might be related to it. If someone had told me sooner—if the subject had been less taboo, and I had understood earlier what to expect and what lifestyle choices could make it worse—I might have saved myself years of emotional turmoil.

  How great would it be if we as women didn’t feel embarrassed talking about the menopause and perimenopause? If we embraced this transition as one of the natural rites of passage of being a woman? How wonderful would it be if we were able to immediately identify the signs because we had been educated about them, know that we’re not alone, and could seek early help?

  —GA

  There are a range of natural remedies, dietary changes, and hormone replacement therapies out there, but unless we know we need help, we can’t access them. Too many women suffer either in ignorance or shame.

  We should no longer feel obliged to just “deal with it” or educate our daughters to do the same. If women started to speak about it more openly, we would embrace our hormonal experiences with curiosity and fearlessness as another example of what joins us together.

  Reflection

  When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is easier.

  —DIANE VON FURSTENBERG, Belgian-born fashion designer

  I used to think that it was selfish to take care of myself. I wanted others to love me, so I spent my time caring for them. I abandoned myself in pursuit of my quest for love and acceptance. Now I know that the relationship I need to foster, especially if I’m feeling low, is with myself. The longer I spend developing a relationship with myself, the more rewarding and fulfilling are the relationships I have with others. When I treat myself kindly, I’m able to relate to others from a place of wholeness rather than a place of need.

  Action. I will notice my needs and attend to them.

  Affirmation. I love and care for myself.

  Essential Practice 4

  MEDITATION: Creating a Safe Space and Making Way for the Sacred

  Making Way for the Sacred

  When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.

  —PEACE PILGRIM (born Mildred Lisette Norman, 1908–1981), spiritual teacher and peace activist

  Many of us spend our lives searching for safety in one form or another. Some of us have looked for it outside of ourselves: in partners, in jobs, in families, in material possessions. Others have tried to keep safe by putting up a barrier between ourselves and the world around us.

  But there is a genuinely safe place that each and every one of us can access. It’s a sacred space that we can enter at any point during our day—regardless of what is happening around us. In that place we find peace and we find healing. We create this space through meditation.

  Like the habit of gratitude, meditation creates a new “muscle group” that will enhance your emotional balance and intuition while cultivating the resilience to handle whatever life throws your way.

  Most of us spend our lives rushing. If we’re not physically racing around, our minds are full of mental hurry. We’re thinking of what we ought to do, what we’ve done wrong, what we should ha
ve done better, what we’re going to do, and so on and so on. Meditating provides a break from those thoughts. We create distance and the chance to connect with what lies underneath the bustle of our chattering minds and our ever-lengthening to-do lists.

  I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

  —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832–1888), author of Little Women

  You may already have your own meditation technique, and if so, you know what we’re talking about. But if you don’t have one, or you’re new to meditation, this section will get you started with a practice that you can use for the rest of your life.

  For now, just think of meditation as a moment away from the rush of your day and the clutter of your mind. A moment of stillness.

  Of course, stillness can’t be forced, just as healing can’t be made to happen. But what you can do is create an environment in which stillness and peace are fostered and can grow.

  As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought patterns for what they are and open up to other, more positive options.

  —SHARON SALZBERG, Buddhist meditation teacher and author

  When you get to WE’s 6th Principle, peace, you’ll learn how to deepen and strengthen your meditation practice, while the 8th Principle, joy, will introduce you to prayer, which you can use whether you have a faith or not. But for now, all you have to do is decide to commit to taking a few minutes out of your busy life at the start of each day. And when we say a few minutes, we mean just that: two minutes a day. That’s all you need to begin.