Deepening Your Search

What is this earthen bowl of treasure that you've found?

It's your belly. And loving your belly enables you to claim the treasure inside.

What are you going to do?

If you're like most women, you've always been told that your body isn't good enough, that your belly is shameful. As far as you may know, there's nothing good about a woman's belly unless it's flat and hard. You may have spent many years and much effort trying to lose your belly, trying to hide it from sight.

I know that the idea of loving your belly might be challenging. Okay, it might be rather unconventional. Well, given the culture's bias against women's bellies, loving your belly might actually require some courage. But tell me: Whose body is it, anyway? Who has the say-so? Who benefits when you belittle your belly? Who benefits when you befriend your belly and give yourself room to breathe? It's your body, your belly, your life. Whose permission do you need to love yourself?

I know that loving your belly is a strange, wild, unconventional idea. But what's the alternative? Do you really want to miss out on the precious treasure that's so close to home?

Although it's not necessarily easy, loving your belly is actually simple.

Here's the plan—

The first step is unwrapping the bowl. You'll learn to let your belly breathe. And I'll help you cancel the common misconceptions that give woman's belly a bad name. You'll discover how your belly boosts your physical health and emotional well-being. Learning the truth will change the way you think about your belly.

The next step is lifting the lid and opening the bowl, creating a loving relationship with your belly. You already know how to love. I'll suggest fifteen playful ways you can extend your affection to your body's core, centralizing your self-esteem.

Loving your belly enables you to open the bowl and claim the treasure waiting inside. For each of the seven jewels you'll find, I'll suggest patterns of breathing, imaging, and moving. These belly-energizing exercises will make the jewels shine all the more brightly for you.

The tips for loving your belly and the belly-energizing exercises you'll find here are similar to those I've shared with hundreds of women in my weekly classes, workshops, and weekend retreats. They're the fruit of my more than twenty years as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, bodyworker, and health educator.

I initially developed this material for my own healing. These inquiries and exercises are what enabled me to make peace with my belly and move beyond my own eating disorder. I'll tell you my story later. For now, know that you're joining an expanding circle of women who share this adventure with you.

Throughout these pages you'll find women's words about their own experience becoming belly-proud. Consider these voices to be your personal chorus of support.

As we begin, please note that I'm not asking you to engage in a self-improvement program. I am inviting you to find out what the earthen bowl you've discovered, your belly, is really worth.

Sure, you may want to change some of the ways you think, feel, breathe, value, choose, move. I encourage you to make such changes only because you're being true to an ever-deepening sense of who you already are.

Why bother loving your belly? Because that's the only way you can claim the treasure that's waiting inside.

Still, you might be wondering: Will loving my belly flush away the fat? Will it trim my tummy?

If you are asking those questions, there's another one to consider: What is your underlying concern?

Perhaps you hope that trimming your tummy will allow you to like yourself better. (I can relate! And if this is your concern, you're in company with many other women.)

In otherwise healthy women, I suspect that extra belly fat can function as protective padding, a shield from self-criticism and a buffer against the feeling of shame. It's an intriguing possibility: Will replacing self-criticism with self-respect allow that extra layer of fat to melt away? If that's an experiment you'd like to make, I'm glad to help you do so….

Does loving your belly make excess fat obsolete? Does energizing your belly with movement and breath strengthen your abs? That's been my experience. Tell me about yours.

As you love your belly, "trimming the tummy" may become less of a concern. In fact, the problem itself may fade away as you turn your attention toward self-affirmation.

Here's what one woman says:

Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not making any judgments about belly size or shape. I'm not saying big bellies are better than small bellies. I'm not saying flat bellies are better than round bellies.

I am saying: Love your belly, lose the shame. Honor and exercise your belly as the source of your inner strength—that's the best way I know to claim your inner treasure.

Why bother loving your belly? There's one more reason.

Whatever happens to the center happens to the whole. As you learn to love your body's center, you're on the fast track to loving your whole self.