You are not your past, not your habits, not your compulsions. When you get to know who you are, anything becomes possible.

Awareness, not deprivation, informs what you eat. Presence, not shame, changes how you see yourself and what you rely on.

All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that with a flick of kindness become harmless strands of rope.

If you try to lose weight by shaming, depriving and fearing yourself, you will end up shamed, deprived, and afraid. Kindness comes first. Always.

No matter how developed you are in any other area of your life, no matter what you say you believe, no matter how sophisticated or enlightened you think you are, how you eat tells all.

Awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage.

For every diet there's an equal and opposite binge (bulimia which is binging and purging is another way of depriving yourself).