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Sex ALERT
Sex ANGER
Sex CHILD
Sex LETGO
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 Tools for a
Balanced Lifestyle
A Program of Recovery from Weight Related Problems
Going for the 3 increases: Increase of Health; Increase of Happiness and
Increase of Energy
Chapter 7: Impact of
Sexuality on Body Image and Weight
I. An ALERT on Sexuality
Cavepeople had instinctual
and intuitive responses to their sexuality. They allowed themselves the freedom
to experience their sexuality. Their sexual nature was also a survival skill,
which allowed them to have offspring who would then be available as co-workers
to survive the pressures of Mother Nature. Their sexual being did not embarrass
Cavepeople. They were not pressured to hide or disguise their sexuality.
Sexuality and their sexual being was a natural course of human life and they did
not fret or obsess over its impact in their lives. How about you? Do you
consider your sexuality a normal part of your being? Do you obsess over the
impact of sex in your life? Do you try to hide your sexual nature? Do you use
weight and fat to insulate your body from the sexual advances of others? Do you
find yourself feeling anxious or stressed when faced with issues involving your
sexuality and sexual nature? Do you prefer to maintain an asexual stance in
life, professing that your sexuality is not important to you so why should it be
important to other people? Do you seek out the attention and sexual advances of
others or do you prefer to be sexually invisible, undesirable and
unapproachable? Do you have a healthy sense of your sexuality or do you hide
from even thinking about it? How does your sexual nature affect your body image
and weight? How are your sexuality and body image and weight control related you
ask? Do this ALERT on sexuality to give you some insight on this issue.
The first thing you need to
do as you address your sexuality and its impact on your body image and weight is
to ASSESS what anxiety, panic, guilt, stress or tension do you experience
in relationship to your sexuality and how does this get exhibited in your body
and weight? Take the time to look at your body in a mirror. Does your body hide
your sexuality or does it accentuate it? When you visualize a person saying
something complimentary to you about your sexuality, what are you feeling? When
you visualize yourself having a sexual relationship with someone, what do you
feel? If the answer is that your body hides your sexuality and that you
experience fear, anxiety and tension when visualizing either sexuality related
compliments from or your involvement in sexually oriented actions with others,
then your sexuality and how it is responded to by others is a cause of
irrational concern which does have impact on your body image and weight
problems. Once you accept that sexuality and your response to it may be an
underlying stimulus for your body and weight problems then go on to LESSEN
the impact of sexuality as a stressor in your life by identifying the irrational
thinking which underlies this stressor and then develop new positive
self-messages which help you to accept your sexuality as a healthy part of your
life. What follows are samples of irrational messages about sexuality and their
healthy counterparts.
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Unhealthy: My weight will
keep me safe from sexual comments and advances from others, insuring that I can
be happy and relaxed with my life.
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Healthy: I can be happy and
have a good life if I allow my sexuality to be seen and experienced by others as
long as I maintain healthy emotional and physical boundaries which insure that I
am not abused in the process.
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Unhealthy: I do not like to
have my body seen as sensuous and sexual by others.
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Healthy: I will allow myself
to enjoy my sensual and sexual self so that I have no need to keep my body fat
with excess weight which hides my sexuality.
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Unhealthy: My sexuality has
gotten me into trouble and I have been abused and hurt by it so I will never
allow myself to expose my sexuality again.
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Healthy: Although I have
been abused and hurt sexually, I will maintain healthy emotional and physical
boundaries so that I can allow my sexuality to flourish and be healthy.
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Unhealthy: As long as I am
overweight I am safe from sexual advances which could hurt me.
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Healthy: I am safe as long
as I maintain healthy boundaries between me and others and the weight I have
carried on my body has caused me more pain and abuse than the sexual abuse I
received which stimulated my putting on the weight in the first place.
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Unhealthy: I feel
uncomfortable when others find me attractive or desirable.
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Healthy: It is healthy for
me to know that I am attractive and desirous to others and I will handle
comments and actions of others in healthy ways and not use food, weight and fat
to hide behind to avoid such comments.
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Unhealthy: I feel obligated
to engage in sexual activity when someone I enjoy being with requests such
activity.
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Healthy: I have the right to
say who, what, when and how my body may be touched and no one has the right to
ignore the boundaries I set in this regard.
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Unhealthy: I don't feel like
I can say no to someone's sexual advances, I usually feel guilty when I do.
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Healthy: I am in charge of
my body and sexuality and I will not allow anyone to violate me and there is no
need to feel guilty about saying "no" to something I do not want to do
sexually.
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Unhealthy: As long as I have
been overweight and my body has been fat I have not felt pressure from others to
perform sexually and I would like to continue to feel this safe for a long time.
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Healthy: I can be thinner
and have a healthy weight and be in charge of my sexuality by maintaining
emotional control and protecting myself from potential sexual violations.
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Unhealthy: My being sexual
and sensuous should not be a desired goal of mine.
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Healthy: I am a sexual and
sensuous being because I am a human and I deserve to experience the joy and
contentment from having a healthy sexuality which others can admire and desire.
Once you have identified new
healthy messages about sexuality which relate to your body image and weight then
make a concerted effort to say these affirming messages to yourself on a daily
basis to help you promote your sexuality and sensuousness by changing your body
size, shape and weight.
Once you feel comfortable
saying these new self messages to yourself, then you are ready to EASE OUT
of the stress which sexuality and the sexually related attention and advances of
others give to your body. To EASE OUT, visualize, on a daily basis, your
maintaining the tenants of the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle and enjoying the
attention given by others to your renewed sexuality and sensuousness. Visualize
yourself receiving compliments about your looks and body and picture yourself
saying "thank you" without feeling fear, panic or tension. Visualize
your maintaining healthy physical boundaries with people who approach or come on
to you due to your more sexual and sensuous looks and demeanor. Visualize
yourself feeling good about your sexuality and maintaining your new relationship
with food and exercise so that you no longer hide your sexuality behind fat and
excessive weight. Maintain this visualizing and saying the affirmations about
sexuality to yourself as you proceed to the next ALERT step.
As you continue your
self-affirmations which encourage you to feel safe to live a balanced lifestyle
and stop hiding your sexuality behind excessive weight and fat and as you
visualize your successful handling of your sexuality and sensuousness without
putting on new weight to insulate yourself then you are ready to RELAX yourself
from the stress which sex has played in your dealing with your body image and
weight. You can now release the old unhealthy messages about sex and the use of
food and weight to protect you from the abuse and hurt which sex could bring to
your life. You can now accept into your life the new messages about how you can
keep yourself safe from sexual abuse, hurt and pain by maintaining healthy
emotional and physical boundaries with others. You can continue to visualize
yourself handling the sexual offers from others in healthy ways without having
panic or anxiety attacks. You can RELAX your fears when topics of a sexual
nature come up, by realizing that you have the right to say "no" to
discussing or acting upon any sexual connotations which you do not feel would be
healthy for you. You can RELAX knowing that healthy boundaries, keeping safe and
saying "no" do not mean that you will eat excessively and gain weight
to insulate yourself from such offers. As you feel more relaxed about your
sexuality and sensuous and recognize the rational perspective that sex is a
normal and natural part of your life which is always under your control, you are
then ready to do the last step of the ALERT system.
Your last ALERT step is to TAKE
ACTION to insure that you promote your sexuality in a healthy way as you
implement and maintain the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle in your life. You need
to insure that you do more mirror work to accept your body as sexual and
sensuous. You need to insure that you do not use food as a weapon to medicate
your fear, panic, stress, tension or anxiety when others comment on your
sexuality. You need to insure that you utilize your new exercise program as a
means to gain more energy and strength to maintain your healthy physical and
emotional boundaries when others come on to you in a sexual way, which might be
harmful to you. You need to insure that you utilize the armory of tools
available in this program to get your emotional health into a saner, rational
place so that you can handle the emotional upheaval you might experience as you
begin to allow your sexuality and sensuousness become more visible to others.
You need to insure that you have a realistic perspective about the covert and
overt sexual abuse you might have received in the past and how it has affected
your perspective about your sexuality. You need to insure that your body image
has improved by allowing yourself to unconditionally accept yourself just the
way you are which is a as a sexual being. You need to insure that you let go of
any shame or guilt you experience about your sexuality and that you forgive
yourself for past sexual behaviors, which have brought you shame and guilt. You
need to let go of the need to be perfect and accept yourself as "good
enough" which includes that you are a sexual being which is not something
dirty about you but something good and wholesome about you. You need to TAKE
ACTIONS to insure that you maintain your lifestyle changes and do not sabotage
them when you are finding increased sexual attention coming your way. Once you
have done this ALERT work on sexuality you are then ready to proceed to the
ANGER work related to sexuality.
Related Tools for Coping
Readings:
1. Self-Esteem Seekers
Anonymous, The SEA's Program Manual
2. Growing Down: Tools
for Healing the Inner Child
To assist you to get to the
next section of Chapter 7: Impact of
Sexuality on Body Image and Weight
in Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle, click
on to the section below you want:
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