healing your heart 77
paths — yoga, tai chi, meditation, journalizing, and mindfulness
eating exercises — using all of her senses. One day she showed up
for a journalizing session in which I invited the participants to dia-
logue with a part of their body they had ignored or divorced. Here
is Louise ’ s conversation with her stomach:
Hello, let me reintroduce myself. I am your stomach. You
have spent years ignoring me, hating me, being disgusted with
me. Do you realize how important I am to you?! But yet, you
ignore me, always turning your head away in disgust and dis-
grace. You treated me as though I was invisible. Interestingly,
the more years you ignored me, the more visible I became.
I am important in your life. Please reacquaint yourself with
me. I am the organ that stores and digests the food you decide
to put into your body. I am just doing my job to keep you
alive and well. Would you please consider all I do for you and
give me the respect and dignity I deserve and long for? I am
not the one who dictates what is put into me. It is you, my
Dear Master. By placing only healthy, nutritious food into me,
soon you will someday be proud to look at me again. And
we will both feel the dignity and the same joy we did when
we were younger. How about it?! Let us end the alienation
saga today. From this day forward, let ’ s align our body and
spirit together in synchronicity. I will support your efforts
every step of the way. Together, we can co - create the miracle
to make your dream come true. Thank you for acknowledging
me after all the years of silence. I ’ ve been lonely and missed
you. If you give me a chance, you ’ ll fi nd that I am your friend
and ally. Please learn to love me again. Always remember that
what you love, you empower. And what you fear, you empower.
And what you empower, you attract.By the next morning, Louise told me that she had chosen to
take full responsibility for committing to her needed weight loss.
Louise had begun her journey by asking herself questions she knew
the answers to. Through prompt, conscious choices, she learned a