Because it’s hard to fully accept one’s self. And it’s hard to fully accept one’s body. Isabelle and her daughter, Sam, practicing radical acceptance. I am selfish, impatient, dorky, and narcissistic. AND I am wise and brilliant and funny and deeply connected to the spiritual world. My toes are insanely crooked. My spine is curved. My boobs are droopy. AND my face sags. My body has survived almost 30 years of an eating disorder and can still do yoga and dance and make love and eat whatever foods I give it. THAT IS ONE AMAZING HUMAN BEING. When I practice the art of noncomparison, or said differently, the art of absolute curiosity, I get to know and explore the brilliant creativity of Creation that lives in me and in my body. I become like a baby who first notices her hands and her feet. Have you seen how fascinated she is with her toes?! This makes me want to ask: Who is my body? MY body, not my 20-yearold body, not yours, not the supermodel’s or the movie star’s. I also become passionately curious about who I am. Not Oprah, or Mother Theresa, or my neighbor. Me. In this moment. Now. The Art of Active Listening In these last few years, I’ve also learned the art of active listening. This has required me to come back into my body after years of abandonment. You see, there is no way for me to practice listening to my body or myself if I am not there, if my consciousness has been looking outside of itself for guidance about who to be. This has not been easy. There was a perfectly good reason I left my body! I had done a brilliant job leaving the old traumas, the pain, the shame, the hate, and the rejection behind. And while my cells lovingly and patiently held them for me, I now had to find the courage to feel them again, and even possibly love them for the first time. What I didn’t know was that coming back into my body and practicing listening also meant that I discovered my body’s brilliance, my intuition, the crazy-ass deep, infinite love that lives at the very core of me. I love the words “active listening.” Like absolute curiosity, active listening requires engagement, presence, a focusing on what is happening now, and now, and now. There is no way for me to know when I will be hungry, what I will want to eat tonight, whether I will want to do yoga, rest, or go to the gym tomorrow. It is not possible for me to know when I will die, what next year will bring, or what the world will look like in 20 years. My only job is to listen to what is happening in this moment and take loving action if necessary. No more. No less. The Art of Radical Acceptance My last and hardest practice in the last few years has been that of radical acceptance. This practice could only occur after I stopped comparing myself to others and listened to my truth instead. Are you sick and tired of covering yourself up with masks and defenses, of wrestling your body into a size and shape that has little to do with who it longs to be? Are you ready to trust that being yourself is the only way to be truly free? I declare my commitment to being exactly who I am, the sacred, the messy, and everything in between. I'm not promising it will be easy. I still sometimes would rather to hide in a corner than accept my body or myself as is. This re-owning process is scarier than anything I've ever done. And more exciting and astounding as well. But if I don't do it, who will? And if you don't do it, what will your default life look like? Are you with me? Isabelle Tierney, M.A., LMFT is coach, author, speaker, and therapist with an international following. She is passionate about teaching us to “Dare to Be You! The Sacred and Messy Art of Being Human” through her podcast, her writing and her practice. She is also an expert on eating disorders and other painful habits and addictions. She is a published writer and national presenter. Most of all, she loves being a fully embodied human. Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 76
Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 77
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Fall 2014 Somatic Volume 4 Number 2
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall
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From the USABP President Dear Somat
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Diane Cai has been with us for two
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Several other authors have books on
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Movement-Based Embodied Contemplati
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Now, some women may respond with a
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His results were remarkable. He dem
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Obesity According to Jayson, the cu
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