Your thoughts, what you tell yourself, your self-talk are powerful determinants of anxiety. And the thoughts that create anxiety are often untrue, even irrational.

The threat center in our brains are turned on by our own thoughts, by threats created in our minds, rather than from legitimate physical threats in our environment. And our body responds as if we were facing a lion, a true threat to our survival.

The present moment is the only moment that you actually have available to you. You spend the actual moments when you are alive anticipating future moments and remembering past moments so you never get to enjoy and thrive in the moments when everything is okay.

We work to heal the self-hatred and the self-loathing, and be able to respond to that critical voice … so that weight loss does happen, but it happens as a side effect of the deeper, more emotional work that’s happening … because that’s what is really holding us back.

Learning to tolerate – and even embrace – uncertainty is a skill that can be learned. And, doing so can change your life.

“STOP IT!” just identifies an unwanted thought and attempts to shove it away while making you feel badly about yourself and ignoring your emotional experience.

Shoving the thought aside and ignoring your feelings simply exacerbates the very things you’re trying to stop.