The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence (21 page)

When I used tapping to address my own stress response to compliments and attention, particularly from men, I naturally began reacting to men differently. While I no longer felt panicked by their attention, I also realized that I had gotten very used to feeling uncomfortable when a man complimented me. I began making a conscious effort to notice my reaction and feelings whenever I got attention and then tap on my experiences. Over time, I became able to receive compliments for what they most often are—well-meaning compliments. Instead of feeling threatened, I can now enjoy them or ignore them. Either way, I feel present and in control.

Just the other day I was trying to hail a taxi in New York City at the worst time of day, 4
P.M.
, the time when most taxi drivers’ shifts turn over. I’d forgotten about that and needed to get somewhere quickly. A taxi pulled up and I climbed in. As soon as I was safely inside, the driver said, “My shift is over, but you look so good in that blue dress, I had to stop.” Because I didn’t feel threatened in that particular situation, I smiled, and said, “Well then, I’ll have to remember to wear this dress every time I try to catch a cab at four!” We both laughed.

Before I tapped on my emotional and physical reactions to unwanted attention, I would have responded by feeling afraid, perhaps even clenching up physically, and then had thoughts like
What a sexist pig.
Or I might have felt consumed by anger at getting unsolicited attention. Instead, because I could remain present and calm, I could easily survey whether this felt like a dangerous situation and then act accordingly.

When Any Attention Is Too Much Attention

Sometimes we can be triggered by compliments from people who aren’t threatening. That happened to me one time when my great-uncle said, “You look like you’ve lost weight.” I smiled and thanked him, but inside I screamed,
Can we please stop making my body a topic of family conversation?

Many women sheepishly confess to hearing the words “You look like you lost weight” and thinking,
So you thought I was fat before?
When body image is a massive open wound, even the gentlest touch of a feather can burn. We can’t control what others say, but when we heal that wound we can choose to appreciate the soft touch of that feather and enjoy it as a compliment or simply ignore it.

Let’s do some tapping now around receiving compliments, starting with the setup statement:
Even if someone notices my weight loss, I choose to feel centered and powerful in my body
. Keep tapping on your experience around receiving compliments and see what you can process and clear.

Creating Healthy Boundaries

When we feel uncomfortable receiving attention, that’s usually an indication that we haven’t been taught how to create healthy boundaries. We all naturally have boundaries but unless we know them and enforce them, people can cross them without much effort. When they do, we feel powerless and unsafe. As a result, we often blame ourselves and may also turn to weight as a form of self-protection.

This was true for Claire. When I asked her when she began gaining weight, she remembered the exact moment. After she lost 20 pounds, a male friend began telling her how great she looked while moving his hand up her thigh. By doing that he crossed a boundary that Claire didn’t know how to keep. When I asked her why she didn’t tell him to take his hand off her thigh, she said she didn’t want to offend him or “make a big deal out of nothing.”

As women, we’re often taught to be “good girls.” Don’t upset anyone, don’t offend anyone, don’t do anything or you’ll make it worse, we’re told. Scared that we might disappoint or upset someone, we often judge and blame ourselves. We ask ourselves questions like,
Am I overthinking this, or being overly emotional?
But that’s not it at all. The problem lies in the fact that we’ve never been taught how to create healthy boundaries, and this allows others to mistreat us.

Establishing boundaries is an essential part of living a healthy life, but it’s hard to know where your boundaries are when you’re not present in your body. When you are present in your body, you can quickly notice the feelings and sensations you experience when a boundary has been crossed.

Whenever you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, the first step is to physically remove yourself from the situation. If it doesn’t feel right, say no. “No” is a full sentence. You do not need to explain yourself.

It can be helpful to begin tapping while focusing on any fear you have around standing in your power and having a clear voice. Once you’ve tapped on that, here is a positive tapping script to help incorporate this new idea.

Eyebrow:
What I feel is more important …

Side of Eye:
Than what anyone else thinks.

Under Eye:
I am aware of my boundaries …

Under Nose:
And stand firm in my power.

Chin:
I feel strong and protected …

Collarbone:
By the power of my own voice …

Under Arm:
By the power of my large presence …

Top of Head:
I am present and in control.

Eyebrow:
I am a powerful adult.

Side of Eye:
If something feels uncomfortable, I take immediate action.

Under Eye:
I listen to my inner voice.

Under Nose:
I don’t need to understand my feelings …

Chin:
I simply trust them.

Collarbone:
I feel safe and powerful.

Under Arm:
I have a clear voice and a strong presence.

Top of Head:
I feel calm and confident.

Using Your Energy to Maintain Boundaries

As we learn how to be present in the body and then create healthy boundaries for ourselves, it’s important to also look at how energy can help us maintain those boundaries, even when we get more attention than we’d like or in some other way feel uncomfortable.

When I work with women on using their energy to maintain healthy boundaries, they often recall times when they stared someone down or said something that caused another person to retreat in some way. These are all examples of how we can use our energy to maintain boundaries that help us feel safe.

I’m often reminded of this when I go for a run. It’s always the small dogs that scare me. They’ll often come running toward me while barking so loudly that I physically jump out of fright. The big dogs are often a lot calmer and usually don’t scare me. I like to keep a visual of the little dogs in my mind sometimes to remind myself that, when I need to, I, too, can be as intimidating as those small dogs with the big barks.

Your Body and Love

When we’ve received attention for having a feminine form, we sometimes create the false belief that the female body must look a certain way to attract romantic love. This is another pressure that many women feel. So let’s look at how true or false this is.

YourTango, a love and relationships website, polled more than 20,000 men to figure out what traits initially attract men to women. Was it 0 percent body fat? Nope. The first response was sexual chemistry, second was smile, third was kindness, and fourth was sense of humor. General body type was after all of those at fifth place on the list. Your humor and kindness mean more to men than your body type.

So what about the first-place response, sexual chemistry? What is it exactly? Chemistry is energy. Have you ever had the experience of meeting a man or a woman with strong feminine or masculine energy, and although he or she is physically attractive to you, the moment you get close and begin speaking to him or her, your attraction vanishes? The person might have only commented on the weather but you suddenly sense some kind of energy that turns you off.

What attracts us to people is that spark. We are attracted to their energy. Does this mean that people don’t care about looks? Of course not. But it does mean that your energy is far more important than your looks. We often forget this because we’ve picked up the belief that we are only worthy of love if we look a certain way. As a result, when we don’t feel beautiful we shrink to avoid rejection.

When I believed that only perfectly thin women attracted “good guys,” I could always find examples of that being true. If I was rejected by a guy, I made it mean that I just wasn’t pretty enough and then used that as another reason not to share my true and natural energy. As a result, I often attracted men who were shrinking from their own potential and weren’t able to accept me as my true self or be loving and trusting partners. When I did occasionally take a chance and was rejected, I took that as
more
evidence that I wasn’t good enough. It was an endless cycle that I had created by not allowing myself to feel beautiful and confident in my own body.

When we believe that beauty attracts love and that we’re not beautiful enough to be worthy of love, we’re also unable to receive the love and affection we so desperately want because we don’t feel we are worthy. We may then deflect compliments and numb ourselves to positive attention because we don’t feel we deserve it.

In other words,
by holding on to low body confidence and believing that your body is the only thing that makes you worthy of love, you rob yourself of the love that is all around you.

When Heather began tapping on her own critical voice about her looks and her body, she was able to experience how body confidence was impacting her ability to enjoy herself and her relationship. As she shared in an e-mail, “Yesterday I went to the lake and wore my one-piece with NO shorts or cover-up. Feeling better about myself feels great. I think it also helps me care enough to dress better for my figure, which adds to how much better I feel. My significant other and I were much more affectionate, too!”

By using tapping to get in touch with ourselves and feel confident in our bodies, we’re able to receive and give love without feeling threatened or unworthy. Heather hadn’t lost any weight; she had just allowed herself to feel confident in the skin she was in. That confidence resulted in her experiencing more love.

A woman with confidence is hypnotic. A smile is mesmerizing. Presence, openness, a sense of humor—these are all things that make a woman attractive. We’ve all experienced the presence of someone who walks in and lights up a room. It’s never about their looks but about their energy. Allow yourself to light up the room by being your beautiful self.

Now that we’ve explored the behaviors, events, beliefs, and emotions that may have contributed to our weight struggles up to this point, we’re ready to apply a new level of awareness to how we’re caring for ourselves and our bodies. In
Part III
, we’ll look at a few important areas where we can implement lifestyle changes that increase body confidence and promote weight loss. Keep up the great work! You’ve already come so far.