A Workbook of Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns by Margit Berman

Author:Margit Berman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

The Mindful Mirror: My Observations

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Mindful Movement

Another area to explore mindfully is movement. If you have struggled with body image or weight concerns, you may have a complicated relationship with “exercise.” Simply living in a thin-ideal, weight-stigmatizing culture provides us all with lots of judgmental negative programming related to moving our bodies: “No pain, no gain!” And yet movement is a major way your body has the opportunity to experience the world. We will work in future chapters with movement, but, for now, you might try doing any kind of movement you like with your full, mindful attention. You can choose a simple, daily movement done very briefly, such as a walk around the block or a stretch in your bed or chair before rising. Or you can choose a more complex, challenging, or unfamiliar movement to experiment with, perhaps rock-climbing, or swimming, or dance, or a brief, hard run. Any kind of movement can be experienced mindfully. In any kind of mindfulness, including when doing mindful movement, you simply notice what arises, including thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. Vary the speed or intensity of your movement and notice what shifts with your mind, emotions, and physical sensations. Notice how your body feels before the movement, and afterwards. What do you observe?

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Now that you have completed these exercises in observing your body, your movements, and your thoughts and judgments related to body image, you have already begun learning two essential self-acceptance skills: Mindfulness and non-judgment. These skills will be valuable to you in helping to tune in to your programming, which, in turn, will help you turn it down when you don’t want to be guided by it. You may wish to explore these skills in detail with the help of a therapist, or by formal meditation practice on your own, using guided meditations. The Free Mindfulness Project (www.freemindfulness.org) website, for example, has a variety of downloadable mindfulness meditation recordings. Marsha Linehan (1993) has written about non-judgment as a skill. The therapist companion volume to this book also has detailed information about these skills which you can read and discuss with your therapist.

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