I tell my retreat students that they need to remember two things: to eat what they want when they're hungry and to feel what they feel when they're not.

When we give up dieting, we take back something we were often too young to know we had given away: our own voice. Our ability to make decisions about what to eat and when. Our belief in ourselves. Our right to decide what goes into our mouths. Unlike the diets that appear monthly in magazines or the thermal pants that sweat off pounds, unlike a lover or a friend or a car, your body is reliable. It doesn't go away, get lost, stolen. If you will listen, it will speak.

The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning and transformation.

You will never stop wanting more until you allow yourself to have what you already have. To take it in. Savor it. Now is a good time to do that . . .

My closet was full, yet I was always focused on the sweater I didn't have, or on the next pair of boots. I wasn't allowing myself to take in what I had. I could never experience what "enough" was.

It's not life in the present moment that is intolerable; the pain we are avoiding has already happened. We are living in reverse.

Meditation is a tool to shake yourself awake. A way to discover what you love. A practice to return yourself to your body when the mind medleys threaten to usurp your sanity.