Getting to... neutral.

Getting to... neutral.

I often talk about why it’s so liberating to become “food neutral” and “weight neutral.” But what do these terms actually mean?

Here’s a metaphor…

Imagine you’re in high school and you fall in love for the very first time. Then your boyfriend (or girlfriend) cheats on you with your best friend.

Your heart is absolutely shattered. You sob in your bed while listening to sad albums by The Smiths for hours on end. You feel like you’ll never truly be happy again.

Every time you look at a photo of your ex-boyfriend, you feel INTENSE emotions. Anger. Grief. Sadness. Maybe even self-loathing. It’s a LOT. A big whirlwind of thoughts and feelings. Almost too much to bear.

Time moves along. You attend college. You graduate. You choose a career. You date other people. You fall in love again. You get engaged. You get married. Life evolves. Seasons pass.

Then one day, many years later, you’re rummaging around in your attic and you dig up an old photo—a photo of your ex from high school. The one who broke your heart all those years ago.

You look at the photo. But now, instead of feeling INTENSE emotions, you feel… mostly neutral. You don’t hate your ex. You don’t feel a shockwave of grief rushing through your body. You just look at the photo and go, “Oh my gosh! It’s Ben! Awww. Wow. What a long time ago.”

Maybe you have a small flicker of emotions, but it passes quickly. You put the photo down and move along with your day. The photo doesn’t have a big impact on your mood one way or another. It doesn’t derail your productivity for the rest of the way. It doesn’t trigger an avalanche of painful thoughts and feelings. It’s just a photo. It’s no big deal. You’ve reached a point where you feel pretty neutral about the whole thing.

This is what I mean when I talk about being “neutral” or reaching “neutrality.” It means that you can see something, taste something, be around something, and you feel grounded, steady, and centered. You’re not swept away in an intense tsunami of emotions. You just feel… neutral.

You can get to this neutral place with a photo of your ex from high school—and you can get to this place when it comes to food and your body, too.

As a coach, my goal is to help my clients reach a point where they are food and weight neutral. Neither is viewed in a good or bad light anymore. You can see a photo of yourself in a bathing suit (or wearing jeans or a suit or whatever) and feel neutral (I know this might take some time). You can eat a cupcake and not feel like you're "bad" or what you ate was "bad." You can notice your weight fluctuating up or down and feel neutral. This weight change doesn’t derail your confidence and self-esteem. You still like yourself regardless.

Question:

What’s something that used to really upset you—a past event, a past mistake, an embarrassing moment, a break up, etc.—that now, you feel pretty neutral about?

I bet you can think of at least one thing. Maybe several. So there’s your evidence. There’s your proof that you can reach neutrality.

Trust that you can cultivate this same feeling of neutrality when it comes to your weight/body/size, too. I promise. You can get there.

PS. This song brings me right back to high school. I can practically smell the scent of the auditorium and bleachers! <3

xoxo,