Recently I have been drawn to read many books that deal with the Divine feminine and the worth of women, some of these include the following:

*Joan Borysenko – A Woman’s Spiritual Journey. Finding the feminine path to fulfilment

*Marianne Williamson – A Woman’s Worth

*Meggan Watterson – REVEAL. A sacred manual for getting spiritually naked

*Kathleen McGowan – The Mary Magdalene Trilogy: The expected one, The book of love, The poet prince

*Lisa Clark – SASSY. The go for it girl’s guide to becoming mistress of your destiny

Reading these words has been really heart-opening for me. Often when I talk to women who have a variety of issues around food, emotional eating and body image I find that the issues are much deeper, that there is a certain amount of confusion, even shame over honouring themselves as important, as pieces of the Divine.

It can be challenging since many religions have not given women an equal place within their histories. God, Higher Power, Consciousness, True Nature….are often spoken of, or written about, as masculine, as His, Him, He….

However, if we go really far back in history, all over the world from Greece to the Far East Women were revered and Goddess worship was normal. Women were honoured because they give birth to new life, they signified the miraculous and the fertile. Goddess images also celebrate the diversity of women’s shapes. There were Goddesses that were very large, with large bellies and breasts. Goddesses with small breasts and large thighs, tall thin Goddesses, all shapes and all sizes were celebrated. The female form, in all shapes and sizes, was considered sacred, Divine, holy.

This is how we need to begin to treat ourselves now, with love, we need to learn to respect our beauty and Divinity. We need to honour ourselves as precious children of life. Until then we will always sabotage our greatness, whether that be with over eating, under-eating, over or under exercising, with other addictions, with critical thoughts, with disrespect.

Spirituality, Divinity is not masculine or feminine, it is within all. It is the awareness that holds life, just as it is.

I am not sure there is an easy answer to how we can begin to re-address the balance within the world when it comes to honouring women. What I do know is that if we begin with ourselves we are more likely to be able to impact others. We need to learn to like ourselves and be happy to stand up and say “I like myself” without feeling ashamed, or as though this is arrogant. We can acknowledge that we are all precious children of the universe, equally as important. We can begin to honour ourselves and with that honour others. We can begin to finally know what self love is and how that can impact lives.

When we find peace within, the destructive, self-sabotaging behaviours, such as emotional eating, can begin to subside. We can support one another as women and encourage each other to shine. If not now, when.

I am woman. I honour the Divinity that resides within me. Om Namah Shivaya.

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

Many studies have linked physical, sexual and emotional abuse in childhood to an increased risk of obesity, binge eating and other eating disorders in adulthood. This connection seems particularly strong in women. Today I read a study (1), and corresponding press release (2), which found that women who experienced severe physical or sexual abuse during childhood are much more likely to have a food addiction as adults than women who did not experience such abuse.

Unfortunately many women in the western world experience abuse during childhood. In America national surveys indicate that more than a third of American women experienced some form of physical or sexual abuse before they reached 18 years of age. This is truly horrific.

The link between abuse in childhood and later obesity is being widely researched, it is a complex issue with many interacting pieces. It does seem that ‘stress’ during childhood can impact the brain in a way that makes abused individuals overeat high sugar and/or high fat foods in an uncontrolled way. (For a great book about the brain and childhood experiences I highly recommend “Why Love Matters, how affection shapes a baby’s brain” by Sue Gerhardt)

Dr Susan Mason, the lead study author said (2) “Women with histories of trauma who show a propensity toward uncontrolled eating could potentially be referred for prevention programs, while obese women might be screened for early trauma and addiction-like eating so that any psychological impediments to weight loss could be addressed,” “Of course, preventing childhood abuse in the first place would be the best strategy of all, but in the absence of a perfect child abuse prevention strategy, it is important that we try to head off its negative long-term health consequences,”

Any kind of childhood abuse is unacceptable and I applaud the groups and individuals who work tirelessly to prevent these tragic happenings. This latest research paper is interesting but for the women struggling with emotional overeating the focus must be placed on healing and holistic health (health of the mind, body, emotions, lifestyle, spirit).

So how can a healing begin? Well, I think healing is a journey, made up of many steps and we need to focus on one step at a time and not look too far ahead at a goal that may seem unmanageable. If you have been through abuse as a child (or adult) then seeking some sort of professional support is probably a very good move. I make no attempts to hide the fact that I have had psychotherapy/counselling in the past, it was a great experience for me to move through past pain with a trusted individual. I was blessed to work with a lovely woman named Heather who is a psychosynthesis therapist (an integral kind of therapist who uses various techniques and transpersonal/spiritual methods).

Seeing a therapist can help us with our awareness. Although childhood abuse is unacceptable it does occur, so although we do not need to accept it, we do need to be aware of our own personal experience. If we simply try to sweep an experience of childhood abuse under the carpet then it is likely that emotional eating will become that carpet, we’ll use food to cover and stuff down the past experience. Awareness and acknowledgement is the first step to shining a light on ourselves, on our hearts, on the past.

Next we must learn to have self compassion to care for our wounded pieces, to give ourselves the love and attention that we often shower onto others, to learn that we are worthy of our own acceptance and love. This process is most likely to be lifelong, we have to constantly remember to be kind to ourselves. If you are interested in cultivating self compassion then take a look at my low cost 35 Day e-package it might be a good starting place.

What I think is important to emphasise is that we can heal the pain and live in the present moment, untangled from the grips of an abusive past. It may not be easy but you are worth your own effort.

Begin today. Give yourself a hug, remember that you are precious, you were precious when you were a child, you are precious now and you will be precious when you leave your adult body. Begin to honour yourself today. If not now, when?

Much love

Ani x

©Ani Richardson

(1) Susan M Mason et al. 2013. “Abuse victimization in childhood or adolescence and risk of food addiction in adult women.”Obesity , 2013 (DOI: 10.1002/oby.20500). http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/oby.20500

(2)Press Release

My love of being a pillion rider on our motorbike, Zizi, is something I have written about previously. The freedom and the closeness to my husband Chris are a joy to behold! Beyond the sense of meditation that I get from being on the bike there is something else that I have learned to cherish – bikers have a really tight sense of community.

There is a camaraderie amongst bikers that I have grown to love and cherish. A sense of community. When a biker passes another biker on the road they tilt their head in a slight nod of recognition, an equivalent to a broad smile. The first time I noticed this I wasn’t sure what was happening, this stranger nodding at Chris and I as they sped past. Now I love it, I love tilting my head at other riders, or giving a slight wave. If we ever stop to fill up with fuel, or stop for a break and there are other bikers around we automatically come together and have a friendly chat.

This weekend we joined the Ashley Martin Memorial Ride Out - a charity even raising money for MAGPAS (The Mid Anglia General Practitioner Accident Service) the medical emergency charity. Around 200 bikes turned up to do a 55 mile ride from Cambridgeshire up to Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast. Riding with so many other bikes was great fun, we were in the middle and there were motorbikes ahead and behind as far as the eye can see. Awesome.

You might be wondering what all of this has to do with emotional eating. Not much on first glance, that is granted. Yesterday, as we were riding, I was thinking that this sense of community and respect among the bikers is something that would be so healing in life amongst us all. How often do we pass a stranger in the street and not acknowledge their precious existence? Could we take a lesson from the bikers and give a smile to everyone we pass? Having community and support around you is vital to being human. Having supportive and friendly people around us can help us in healing our emotional eating patterns. Just giving a smile to a stranger can help us feel lighter and brighter inside.

Could you take the time to smile at yourself and others today?

For more information on self acceptance and love have a look at my low cost 35 day e-package

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

Recently I have been challenged in ways I hadn’t expected. Over the last 10 years I have been learning to ‘be’ with my emotions, to feel them, to allow them, to witness them change, rather than react to them via eating or other escape mechanisms. If you read my blog posts you will see numerous posts where I offer various techniques for feeling into feelings, seeing if they point toward needs and allowing them safely into consciousness.

A couple of weeks ago I received the shocking news that a close family member was going to hospital to have a tumour removed. Like a deer caught in headlights I was stunned, I am still stunned, confused, deeply upset, hopeful, positive, angry sometimes…..so many emotions have arisen and passed and arisen. The news came at a time when I am dealing with other challenges with my own health and with my work….and various other worries over insignificant things that do not warrant any worry!

Although I write about exploring and transforming emotional eating issues I am still, very much, in a human body, I am not immune to fears, overwhelms and the rollercoaster ride of life. Many times in the last few weeks I have wanted to binge or diet or starve or over-exercise or sit zombie-like on the sofa. I have wanted to hide. I have wanted to numb myself completely and utterly and not feel the feelings and not allow the emotions. At times, yes, I have found myself eating food when I haven’t been hungry but the years of practice have helped and I haven’t lost myself in mega binge sessions – but if I had I would have held myself in compassion and begun again and again.

Dainin Katagiri, a Zen Buddhist monk, who himself died of cancer in 1990, said “The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it – exactly and completely” How, precisely, does one go about facing life when it just feels like ‘too much’?

For me, it is about a moment to moment awareness. A moment to moment willingness to be aware, a willingness to feel, to cry, to shout, to laugh, to sing, to dance. A willingness to be with what is…and that takes practice, perhaps even a lifetime of willingness to practice, to keep coming back to your Self, that deep inner Divinity that resides within us all. The place that feels like home, because it is home.

Throughout the challenging days I have felt the feelings and I have taken actions that I know soothe my soul – I have written in my journal, I have taken walks, stroked the dogs, sat in silence, planted vegetables in the garden, cried, communicated with loved ones, loved the people around me with all of my heart and done my best not to forget to love my own being too. At times like this I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all recipe. We have to, each of us, find our sweet support in whatever way nourishes us the most. Stuffing it all down with food doesn’t work in the long run, it creates more pain and sets up a vicious cycle. We need to learn to stop and feel and forgive ourselves and begin again, and again until a new way of being becomes more natural than the old, stuffing ways. Being compassionate with this learning is essential. Being willing to try out a new way to cope is essential. Love is essential.

Love is always essential.

Much Love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

Last week as I was walking the dogs a lady power-walked by with a T-shirt on that read: “Strong is the new skinny”. Slogans like this one  have been going around Facebook and other internet sites. I have also seen this same slogan on photos of ‘ripped’ women in the gym doing planks and sit-ups.

I don’t agree with the slogan. In fact I think it is bulls*it.

I have also seen “Healthy is the new skinny” and whilst this one strikes me as a bit more sensible I still don’t like it. Yes, being strong and being healthy are admirable traits but what about “Being me is the new skinny”? Being comfortable in my own skin, being true to myself, being honest about who I am? AND the whole phrase “the new skinny” is bollocks to be fair. Skinny means nothing. Skinny people can have emotional eating difficulties too, they may also be incredibly unhealthy people who eat unhealthy food and damage their bodies with unhealthy habits and lifestyles…or not.  Skinny doesn’t mean anything.

From the age of 19 until about 22, whilst studying, I worked as a podium dancer in nightclubs. I was strong, I had a 6 pack, I was skinny, I ate healthy food obsessively but there was nothing about this that was intrinsically ‘HEALTHY’. I worked out each day, I worried about how I looked, I didn’t think I was good enough, I would panic if I hadn’t got in the gym, I would panic if I ate a crisp. I was overwhelmed and anxious. There was no balance and no love for myself. No love at all. It was hell really and my body was paying the price because I was pushing it too hard. The only saving grace was the fact that in the actual moment of dancing, of losing myself in the music I was free, I was free because I wasn’t a body, I was Spirit.

Finding a sense of peace with our own body, right now, in this moment and then this moment and then this one – that is the challenge. That is freedom. Being skinny is not the challenge. Being skinny is not freedom. The body changes. We need to start from where we are right now. This is point A. All of us have different bodies, thank goodness because it would be boring if we didn’t. When we care for ourselves in the most nourishing ways the body finds a set-point and that may be skinny, slim, voluptuous, curvy, athletic or robust etc but it will be you. Finding acceptance for that YOU is the goal. When we shine as we are it is beautiful, it is beautiful no matter what the size in the label of our clothing is.

Begin today by seeing if you can find a sense of gentle acceptance for where you are right now. That does not mean that you can’t have a goal to change. Of course you can, but if we can’t accept where we are today then it becomes difficult to take steps toward a goal. Right now you exist as you are. Be compassionate with yourself. Know that you are more than just a body, so much more.

If you need support on the journey of finding self acceptance check out my low cost 35 Days of Love e-package.

Much love

Ani x

©Ani Richardson

Today the blog post is written by Jessy Paston of www.jessography.co.uk  Jessy helps women to accept themselves through the power of therapeutic photography.

Body Beautiful is my gift to the world and I mean that in the most humble way. I feel it is time for us women to awaken, see things clearly and change for the better.

For so long now I have seen how women use so much of their energy and time trying to keep up with the images of perfection, mostly from the media but from each other too.

We are also so nasty to each other, criticising and commenting on every flaw, putting each other down to feel better about ourselves. Then, we turn that negative talk onto ourselves, and how nasty are we? We think we are unworthy, not good enough and ugly. And that is just the surface of what we say to ourselves. We abuse ourselves with enough negative talk that we don’t really need enemies to put us down, we are doing such a good job at it ourselves. Don’t you think this needs to change? That we need to stop doing this to each other and passing it down to our children?

I believe that if there is something going on in our minds, we project it onto our physical selves as a way to feel some control over it. It doesn’t matter if we are skinny, fat, tall or short. Self love, self esteem and self confidence needs to come from within. If we can sort our minds out, everything else falls into place, including our body image.

At the moment, it is like we are trying to ice the cake and it is not properly cooked, or trying to decorate a house which is structurally barely standing. We are just focusing on the surface, focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause of the problems.

We need to find beauty and love from deep within ourselves before we can see beauty and feel love for our bodies.

And with these thoughts, the idea of therapy through photographs was born. You might have heard of art therapy? I believe photography is a form of art and know that you can heal from it.

Body Beautiful is a way for you to own your own healing with guided exercises. You take your own photos and answer simple questions but in an open and honest way. You go at your own pace and need to go through the process to grow, heal and learn about yourself.

You then have the joy of having created something, to look back on reminding you of the feelings and the progress you have made.

There are so many exercises to choose from but here are a few examples of what the therapeutic photography exercises are:

Taking self portraits;
Really looking at yourself and asking the person in the photos questions like ‘What is missing in the photo?’, providing powerful insights

Taking photos of something that represents you;
Seeing yourself as something else helps to give you some emotional distance and objectivity, giving some surprising insights and can even turn initial negative thoughts into positive ones.

Taking photos of yourself in reflections;
Seeing yourself in a completely different and fun way and in complete contrast to the images in the media offering a fun way .

These are just a handful of examples to give you an idea about how therapeutic photography works.

Don’t you think it is time we find our true selves and be true to who we are? By doing such exercises we learn to take off the many masks we put on for the rest of the world and become the person we were born to be.

As women, we are so powerful and have so many gifts which are lost in the sea of unhappiness and insecurities. By doing such therapy, we can learn to accept ourselves and be happy in who we are. We can start defining our own ideas of what beauty is and actually find that our bodies are beautiful just as they are simply by changing our way of thinking.

Therapeutic photography has helped me become the person I am today, someone I dreamt of and thought I could never be. It has helped me come to terms, move on and forgive myself for my depression, self harm and suicide attempt, my later post natal depression and my post pregnancy body.

Most importantly it has helped me to remember that I am part of a larger picture, my place in the world and where I belong. It reminds me to be grateful for what and who I have in my life.

So on that note, here’s a little free exercise for you;

Get your cameras, any camera will do and look at your life.

Take photos of what you are grateful for and I challenge you to get 30.

I promise you this little exercise will help you to start changing your mindset and accepting yourself.

I would love to see what you come up with and hear how you found the process. Email me jessy@paston.biz. To get the full exercise with questions, you can sign up to my newsletter on my site WWW.JESSOGRAPHY.CO.UK and you can also find out more about me and what I offer.

It has been a true pleasure sharing my passion with you all, thank you so much for reading x

Connect with Jessy via her website, facebook or twitter:

www.jessography.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jessography1

Twitter: @jessyPaston

The following is an excerpt from Love or Diet which is due to be published very shortly (exciting!):

“When women begin to look at patterns, feelings and needs they often find that their eating and feelings of sexuality, sexual power and sexual beauty are all linked. Many, but not all women who suffer with emotional eating have been through some kind of sexual trauma in their lives. Many women have certainly had incidences of being ‘sexualized’ or seen as sexy by men in a way that they found to be uncomfortable. Also, many women have been brought up to believe that being sexy was, in some way, a bad thing or dangerous.

Food can be used to suppress feelings of sexiness. Unconsciously, we might be eating to weigh ourselves down with protective layers, squash our sexuality, keep us somehow invisible as women, or we might eat to become bigger and more powerful, more able to exist in a place where men might be dominant and femininity is seen a weak. Sometimes, we eat in order to make ourselves less attractive. At other times, we might feel that our battle with food is lessening and we begin to feel sexy and great, regardless of our body size/shape -then feelings of guilt or shame come up, are we supposed to feel sexy? And then we sabotage our good feelings with food.

It is a complicated web when it comes to food and sex. Some women turn to food because they have been taught that it is not ok to be sexy or have sexual feelings or to enjoy their own, beautiful bodies. There are still so many taboos when it comes to sex. Thankfully these are lifting slowly, but ancestral beliefs are something we seem to carry deep within us. It is these beliefs that we must challenge for ourselves and change for future generations.

I was brought up in a Catholic household. My parents didn’t teach me anything about sex. My Catholic, all girls, school taught me almost nothing – just the bare minimum needed to pass my biology GCSE. Nothing about feelings around sexuality, nothing about the beauty of the female body, the sacredness of the Divine Goddess within. Sex before marriage and having sex with more than one partner were just not acceptable in my family lineage. Can you imagine my confusion, shame and guilt? I had to sift through so many beliefs that were not my beliefs. My Soul had to find her own peace. I traversed a rocky road on my journey toward embracing myself as a wonderful, sexual being. I made painful mistakes along the way. I ate, and sometimes starved, my guilt and shame and also my pleasure and feelings of ‘badness’ around sexuality. Even now I am still investigating my sexual nature.

These feelings of sexuality can infuse into us in many ways. Often we do not dress the way that we wish to, for fear of looking too sexy or passionate, or we dress to enhance our femininity and have feelings to shame come up which need to be loved and investigated and let go of.

The whole issue is a large one. You might want to investigate this with a therapist or take as much time as you need with your journal. This is a vast subject area, read about the idea of female Goddess, of Divinity, and read about Tantra. Look into your belief systems, are those your beliefs or just learned beliefs. Be fearlessly honest with yourself. Question what you were taught, re-write your own story. Love yourself through this process of exploration. We are sexual beings and that is ok. Work to discover your own flavor of sexuality and grow toward owning that”.

Take time to investigate your own feelings toward sex and sexuality. Can you re-write some of your old rules and stories?

Some books that you might find useful
-Lisa Clark. Sassy. The Go-For-It Girl’s Guide to becoming mistress of your destiny.
-Valerie Brooks. Tantric Awakening. A woman’s initiation into the path of ecstasy.
-Regena Thomashauer. Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts. Using the power of pleasure to have your way with the world.

For help with loving yourself on this journey please take a look at my low cost e-package

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

At the moment I am reading “REVEAL, A sacred manual for getting spiritually naked” by Meggan Watterson, you may have read some of the quotes from the book that I posted on my Facebook page. I highly recommend this book, it is beautifully written. Meggan writes about many things including how to begin honouring ourselves. Last night in the fifth chapter I read:

“I think that so many of us still fear being fully present in the body because it means owning just how powerful we are. The responsibility is overwhelming. We then enter a place where we are held accountable for what we really know. We have an immediate sense of what is true for us. Real courage is simple surrendering to that. There’s nothing more powerful than a woman who has met the truth inside her. Nothing” – Meggan Watterson

In my book I write about emotional eating and how, for me when I was gorging myself on food I had a moment of realization. It felt as though my spirit was trying to get me to live a more embodied life. I was being called to feel my body more, allow myself to operate on this earth through the vehicle I had been given – my body. Food made me feel heavy; it really made me feel my physical body, something that I didn’t usually feel. I had always felt as though I was living outside of my body, floating above it, or to the side. I wasn’t so happy with being human. Through exploring my emotional eating I felt as though I was being called to live a different kind of spirituality, an embodied spirituality. I needed to learn to be rooted in the earth as well as swaying in the heavens. I had to ground my high ideals of spirituality into my body and my life on this earth.

It was something that I always struggled with, being human. I was always trying to escape, even as a child. Asking big questions that no one around me seemed to be able to answer and feeling intensely uncomfortable in this human skin was something that challenged me a great deal. I didn’t recognize my own reflection and looking at photographs of myself always shocked and un-nerved me. My ‘essence’ just felt too large to fit into this skin.

For myself personally, becoming ill with an autoimmune disease was also a big wake up call. I had spent so long not wanting to be human that my body seemed to be mirroring, reflecting, my wishes and was shutting down. It was the call to begin the journey to loving this human self whilst retaining my connection to the Divine. I felt, like Caroline Myss quips, like ‘a mystic without a monastery.’

Jack Kornfield expresses this eloquently when he writes in his book A path with heart: “In the depths of their silent listening many meditation students have discovered that from an early age their life experience was so painful they did not want to be born and they did not want to be here in a human body. They look to spirituality to provide an escape but where will the notions of purity, of going beyond or transcending our bodies, our worldly desires, our impurities lead us? Does it actually lead to freedom or is it only a strengthening of aversion, fear and limitation? Where is liberation to be found? The Buddha taught that both human suffering and human enlightenment are found in our own fathom-long body with its senses and mind. If not here and now, where else will we find it”

In terms of emotional eating, we need begin to learn to relax into our body as our vehicle on this earth, whilst remembering that the body isn’t all of who we are. If anyone outside of us is judging us it really doesn’t matter. The question to ask is if you are judging yourself – because that is the real pain. So, in this moment see if you can accept where you are. Right now. At this particular shape and size. STOP. This is it for this moment. This is your starting place. You are changing and loving yourself more and you are starting now from where you are. How you are is not wrong. It simply is. As you love yourself more you will investigate your feelings more, your need to squash your emotions and needs with food will lessen, and you’ll start to eat in a way that is good for you. Your body may, or may not, change shape. Love yourself every step of the way.

For help with developing a self love practice please check out my low cost 35 day e-package

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

Yesterday my friend and mentor, Lisa Lister, wrote a beautiful blog post, Every body has a story, which touched me deeply. In the post Lisa writes: “I’m a size 18/20 and I’m hot. I have a gorgeous friend who is a size 8, she’s hot too. Society would like to label us ‘fat’ and ‘thin’ yet we both totally rock the bodies we’re in, because the size written on the label in our knickers, is NOT an indication of our awesomeness. I perform burlesque, and the girls I perform alongside are a truly delicious array of lovely shapes and sizes because, despite what the media will have you believe, girl-kind come in a gazillion different juicy-juicy forms, not just ‘skinny’ and ‘fat’”

Whilst reading her post I noticed tears forming in the corners of my eyes as I recognised that over the last two weeks I had begun to slip into a place of disconnection with my body coupled with moments of extreme criticism and judgement. This is a very uncomfortable place to be and despite many years of practice I still fall there sometimes. The difference today is that I have compassion for myself

So yesterday I took time to sit and breathe and gently look at what has been going on – instantly it was clear. Over the last two weeks I have slipped into identifying way too strongly with my ‘roles’ rather than touching who ‘I AM’ the Self, that deep, wisdom within. It has been an utter blessing to welcome our new puppy, Moomin, into the family but she has been as demanding as she is adorable. My weeks have been busy being dog-mum, house-training, walking Freddy-dog as well as keeping on top of household jobs, my business and preoccupying myself with being a ‘good’ wife. In all of this I had forgotten to take care of myself. I stopped doing the things that I know help me to live with passion – I stopped meditating, I have barely written in my journal, I haven’t done anything creative and my walks have been like a military operation rather than moments of extreme pleasure.

In forgetting to nourish and nurture myself I notice that over the last two weeks I have reached for food more often, emotionally eating, as a misguided way to comfort myself and give myself time. My sleep has been disrupted and I have felt generally disconnected from mySelf and life.

This awareness is great news (even if it is a little painful)! I am pleased that the piece that Lisa wrote impacted me because by noticing, stopping and breathing I have been able to take positive action steps toward mySelf. I took time to sit down and meditate and journal and when I took Freddy out for his walk I connected with the scene around me, I breathed deeply and slowly and enjoyed the time rather than worrying about getting back quickly for Moomin. It feels like I have woken back up to life and now I can bring balance back.

If you have felt critical toward yourself recently or disconnected from your body and your Self then give yourself the gift of time. Sit down, pause, breathe and see if you can notice what has been going on in your life? Think about what nourishes and nurtures you the most and take action steps toward that. It is important, by taking care of yourself you can authentically be there for other people in your life from a place of fullness in yourself. It is not selfish, it is vital. Give yourself the kiss of life!

If you need help in connecting to yourself and forming a self-love practice please take a look at my low cost 35 Day e-package

Something else that was helpful to me yesterday was to listen to some of the talks from the free audio-series: Self acceptance project

If you haven’t seen details about my forthcoming book please have a look at Love or Diet

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson

For years I found it difficult to spend money on myself. I thought it was selfish. On some level I believed I just wasn’t worth it. Spending money on my friends and family was easy, if I was out I always offered to pay, I bought beautiful gifts for the loved ones in my life and gave widely to charity. None of this giving filled the hole in my heart or made me feel good about myself, I still felt like I wasn’t a good person. I still could not love myself.

If you are a give, give, giver and you find it difficult to receive it is likely that you will turn to emotional eating as an unconscious way of getting a need for receiving met. After eating you may well feel guilty or ashamed and a self-perpetuating cycle of giving more to other people and then secretly comfort eating is set up.

Now is the time to slowly begin to practice the glorious art of receiving and build the knowing that you are worthy of receiving. Slowly you can begin to learn that life is in a natural, continual flow of giving and receiving. Slowly you can learn that you don’t just have to give, give, give, you are worthy of receiving too. The Universe likes to be in a constant flow – we breathe out carbon dioxide which plants and trees lovingly use and provide us with much needed oxygen in return.

A good place to begin is to learn how to receive compliments with grace. Allow yourself to truly receive what people offer you. Smile and say ‘thank you’ instead of brushing off the gift of a compliment that is being offered to you. Open your heart to the compliment, let it fill you up, allow it to nourish your beautiful soul.

Could you begin to experiment with allowing yourself to care for yourself in other ways? Do you need some new clothes? Could you gift yourself with a bunch of flowers or a new journal to write in. Or would you love to give yourself the gift of a long hot bath or a walk?

Last week I took a new step toward self care and signed up to a local organic vegetable and fruit box scheme. The boxes are great value for money and it feels wonderful to know that I am supporting local organic farmers and also caring for my precious body by feeding it delicious organic vegetables and fruits. If you live in the UK in the Cambridgeshire area check out The Cambridge Organic Food Company www.cofco.co.uk

Allow yourself to receive happiness and joy, a compliment, a gift. Gift yourself too – because you are worth it.

If you struggle with self love and emotional eating then please check out my low cost 35-Day e-package and also my forthcoming book Love or Diet

Much love

Ani xx

©Ani Richardson