For each of the stages I am going to ask you to test yourself and then I will suggest homework. For Beige I am going to mainly suggest reading books. If that sounds like too much please consider using audio books. The beauty of audio books is that you can listen to them for 15 minutes in the car while driving somewhere. I got through a couple of the suggested books below that way.
Hold a handheld mirror away from yourself. Take a deep breath, release tension and then slowly bring the mirror up to your face. Notice what is going on in your body. Is this easy? Is there something going on in your belly? If at any point this gets to be too much it is OK to stop. That just tells you where you are right now. Now if you can bring the mirror to your face and look at yourself. What do you focus on first? A blemish? Something you don’t like? Can you summon love for yourself? Take a moment to really look at yourself. Is this comfortable or uncomfortable. Now say “I love you” into the mirror. How did that land? Did you believe it? Say it again and this time really melt into that love. Love yourself all the way. How did that go?
Please watch this video. It is the best example of mirror work I’ve ever seen
Please read this book: Self Compassion; The proven power of being kind to yourself by Kristin Neff. This is a great place to start. She is a leader in this field. For many of us this is the foundation — we have to start here. If this all feels too self indulgent and self centered, please don’t worry — we will address that in later stages. The ultimate goal is to open our heart to everyone not just ourselves. But again I have to emphasize it starts here. Unless and until you can start to deeply love yourself it will be hard to progress. And as I mentioned this is work we have to come back to time and time again. I keep on thinking I have “mastered” this one and then a self hate storm comes up and here I am again all over again starting like a beginner on this work.
Where are you with your body? Is there a regular activity that you do that has your heart pumping and your lungs gasping for more air? Is there a regular activity that you do that lets you feel the strength of your muscles? Is there a regular activity you do that focuses you on grace and balance? Are there times when maybe you pushed yourself to do exercise and it made you less willing to do exercise in the future?
Find physical activities that you love to do and then get into the habit of doing them. Forming good habits is a really good practice in general. I highly recommend it as one the tools you should have in your tool belt. The habit I want you to make is to simply attempt to exercise. Don’t force it if it is not working for you. Then do it in a way that works for your body. It is OK to run slow (maybe very slowly) if that is what you body needs. And if, say, running doesn’t spark joy try something else like maybe ecstatic dance. Trust that your body is craving exercise and find the movement that works for it. Once you have found that, try other exercises as well. You want exercises that span cardio, strength, and grace.
But — and I can’t say this enough — don’t do this because it is the right thing to do, do it for the joy. For example, I do Yoga sun salutations most mornings because it is such a great way to start the day. But some mornings I just don’t feel like it so I don’t. Recently I was forcing myself to run with minimalist shoes on pavement. My running technique is not good enough for that and it hurt, but I kept on forcing myself to run anyways. The result? It killed my love for running. I really messed up. It is going to take a while before my body trusts me again. Fortunately I have a long history of joyful runs so it should not be too long before I’m back to running again. But it is a reminder for me to practice what I preach.