Jon Gabriel:  Can you tell us about the pivotal moment that resulted in you finally being able to hear the inner voice of your body?

Jena:    From the age of 14 when I started bingeing, I was in inner turmoil with food. It was my best friend and my worst enemy. I thought it would be a life sentence. Just as some people have a heroin addiction for life, and others have a gambling addiction, I thought my compulsion with food would be mine.

Time went on, and I knew I needed to get to the bottom of it because it was causing me so much suffering. I tried everything. One day I was at a movement class, and I was complaining as usual about my body, about eating too much, and about not knowing what to eat, when my teacher said to me, “Jena, that’s because you haven’t been listening to her.”

“Who?” I said not understanding what he was talking about.

“Her, your body, your animal,” he responded. “Jena, there’s two of you. There’s your mind, and there’s your body. And your body is an animal.  And all animals in nature know what to eat. You wouldn’t think of a monkey in the jungle that was confused about what to eat. It’s their natural instinct to know. All animals in the wild know what to eat, and your body knows too… if only you would listen to her. If you only you would respect her.”

He said, “What you need to start working on is your relationship with her. Because you haven’t been listening, she stopped talking.  But once you start listening you are going to hear loud and clear that she does know what to eat, and your confusion will be over.”

Jon, when he would say, “she, your body,” it was as if these little ears perked up and said, “Yes! Thank you! You said my name! Finally, somebody recognizes me!”

I was magnetized to come back to this teacher again and again, and I would say, “tell me about her.” At the beginning it was only when I was with him, and he recognized her, that I could recognize her too.  But eventually I got the transmission, and was able to experience the living, breathing, decision-making, intelligent, wise part of me, the animal part, that does know how and what to eat. I started to learn to listen to her, and that has lead me to where I am now, ten years later, being a an expert in pleasurable weight loss.

Jon Gabriel:  Once you started listening and tuning into your body, what changes started to happen in your diet and lifestyle?

Jena:    For starters, I began intentionally using the personal pronoun, “she,” for my body. I recommend everyone reading try this. It’s correct in English is to say, “I have a body.  It is such and such.” But I invite you to play with the English language, and if you are man, adopt the frame of reference; there’s me and there’s him, my male body.  If you are a woman; there’s me and there’s her, my female body.

Jon Gabriel:    Language can be very powerful, and that type of repositioning makes a lot of sense to me, because then you are giving your body a consciousness, an identity, a life of its own.  It’s not just a machine. It’s a living, breathing, conscious being that is working with you.  I just did it to myself as I am talking with you, and the second I did that I felt a distinction. I felt the life in there, and the consciousness in there. I felt that communication. That’s incredibly powerful and makes a lot of sense to me.

Jena:    What happens, Jon, is that it shifts your understanding away from your body being a possession, something you own, like a computer or a phone, that’s replaceable, to being someone who is alive.

Jon Gabriel:    With a computer, you need more computer chips you get more computer chips, or when you need to fix the hard drive you fix the hard drive.  It takes the life out of it.  I think that’s what we do, in so many different ways. We take dead food, and we take pills, and we live in closed, indoor environments. We take the life out of our life, out of our living, breathing, conscious body.  I feel, as I am talking to you, that you giving life back to your body.

Jena:    Absolutely. The reality is, you don’t own your body. If anything, your body owns you, because your body is your one access to life itself. Without her, without him, you’d be dead.

Jon Gabriel:    I will take it a little further.  Eckhart Tolle says, “The only part of you that is ever always in the present moment is your body.”  Your body is your most present part of you and the rest of us, we are here, we are in the past, we are in the future, we are making up stories. We are worried about this or that. Our bodies are present in the here and now.

So, Jena, you started listening to her, tuning in. And as you called your body a her, her ears perked up, and so you developed this communication with her. Is that right?

Jena:    Yes. I realized I don’t own her. I realized it’s a privilege to spend my life with her, and I don’t want to have an abusive relationship with her. I don’t want to have a neglectful relationship with her. I want to have a respectful, loving, kind relationship with her.

And so I started listening. And to my shock and surprise, when I said, “Okay body, what do you want?  What do you want to eat?” and I really listened, she said, “I would like some salmon, vegetables and brown rice.”  And I was like, “Really? No kidding!”  I was sure the answer was going to be cookies, sugar, chocolate.  But it turned out that wasn’t what she wanted.

I came upon a new awareness about the deeper desires of my body. I realized if I neglected my body’s desires altogether, then she would take whatever she could get. But if I listened more deeply, what she actually wanted were wholesome things.  A goodnight’s sleep.  Yoga. Companionship. And the more I listened, the more these healthy choices became a gift I wanted to give her out of love. This was a shift from feeling like my body was failing me and owed me something better.  My anger and resent melted away, and suddenly I had compassion for this loving creature I’d been so cruel to.

Jon Gabriel:    Whereas before it was an object that you were pushing and pulling around, like a piece of luggage, now all of a sudden, you had a relationship.

Jena:    Exactly.

Jon Gabriel:    I totally get it. I talk in my book about the turning point it was for me when I started listening to my body, and how my body started talking to me.  I didn’t use that specific language structure of repositioning that you did, but I am using it as we speak, and in my head I am creating a whole new connection with my body. It’s really powerful.

So let’s talk about this Pleasurable Weight Loss. What does that mean?  What are some of the key components?

Jena:    It starts with the foundation that your body is an animal.  I like this metaphor, because think of a dog. Dogs love their owners and are so willing to please and serve, and the same goes for your body.

Jon Gabriel:    That’s a really good metaphor.

Jena:    Even if you’ve been resentful and have criticized your body all of your life, he or she is so willing to forgive you. It’s like, “oh, you were mean to me, but it’s okay. I know you love me.” Your body wants to be in sync with you.

Jon Gabriel:    That’s very powerful. A dog is endlessly loyal, and I think our bodies are like that too. Think about how distanced we are from what our bodies really need, in terms of being indoors all the time, not getting any natural light, eating dead foods, and taking drugs, pills and medications. Think how we abuse our bodies and how they keep functioning somehow. There are so many toxins in our bodies. When we really understand how many toxins were are, or the real problems with digesting modern foods, you wonder how on earth are we surviving? I think the reason we are, is just like you say, we have these bodies that are endlessly loyal. No matter what we do, they keep functioning.

Jena:    Yes, they do their best. And they give us warning signs–that’s what weight gain is. Weight is your body’s cry for attention, a cry for help.  If you’re overweight you can guarantee your body tried to let you know in subtler ways that it wasn’t getting its needs met, and eventually it resorted to weight gain. It’s like, “Hey, the way you are eating and living is not working for me. You didn’t notice the bloating. You didn’t notice the constipation. You didn’t notice the rash.  Alright, here, try 20 pounds,” or try 200 pounds in your case. “Are you going to notice me now? Hello!”

Jon Gabriel:    Sometimes it takes 200 pounds for some of us, yeah. For me in any case, it took that.  So okay, you start by seeing your body as an animal, as a loyal, faithful animal, and then where do you go from there?

Jena:    That animal wants to serve your mind and your mind’s many desires–reading books, being on the internet, talking, etc, but also has desires of its own. What does your body love and need?  Some pretty basic things; sleep, good food, water, self-care, only a few fundamentals. But one thing that links all of those things that the body needs is pleasure.  All organisms, from humans right down to the single cell amoeba, have the instinct to move towards pleasure and away from pain.

In the case of an amoeba, it bumps into something painful and registers that as danger.  Existence is at threat. Get away. There’s a repulsive energy to get away in any direction as fast as possible.  When that same amoeba bumps into something pleasurable it goes, “Oh, safety, promise of life. I am going to go in this direction,” and it oozes very assertively into pleasure.

So using that compass–away from pain, towards pleasure–we have evolved throughout time, from the amoeba to the human beings we are today, still animals, but now with a developed mind.  And this is where the conflict comes in Jon; the mind has been conditioned and cultured to have all kinds of moralistic attitudes towards pleasure.  “Pleasure is frivolous.  Pleasure is sinful. Pleasure is selfish. You can only have pleasure if you earn it.” There’s all of this bad PR for pleasure, to which your body responds, “Are you sure?  That’s been my compass throughout evolution! I think you are wrong.”

Being the loyal servant, your body will go along with the rejection of pleasure in the short-term, but because it’s such a deeply engrained need and impulse, it can’t be pushed underground for too long. If your mind neglects pleasure all day, at a certain point your body goes, “Alright, she’s tired now. Let’s dive for the cookies. She doesn’t have the energy to hold me back.”

Jon Gabriel:    What about people who see cookies, ice cream, alcohol, etc, as pleasure, but clearly that’s not good for the body, and that is not what the body really wants.  So where is that coming from?

Jena:    If you deprive someone of what they need, they will be in a scarcity state where they will grab for whatever they can get without discrimination.  So when your body goes compulsively for the cookies, the alcohol, the junk, it’s coming from a place of extreme pleasure deficiency.  Imagine you are sitting at home at night and the cravings come on. Now let’s imagine someone was offering to rub your feet in that moment.  What would you choose?  The foot rub or the cookies?  The foot rub.  Or if someone you adore is nibbling sensually on your ear, would you choose to binge? No. We would all choose the higher pleasure if we have the choice, but if that’s all that’s on offer, then the body will take what it can get.

Jon Gabriel:    That makes sense. So on a practical basis, what are some of the steps people can take towards creating that pleasure for themselves?

Jena:    To begin, let’s define what I call “true pleasure” from “counterfeit pleasure” or “pseudo pleasure.”  Jon, true pleasure answers yes to the question; does this give me pleasure now? In an hour? In a day? In a week? In a month? In a year? And if it, yes, yes, yes all the way, then that’s true pleasure.”

Let’s say you and I were sitting out in the park right now and having a nice piece of high quality chocolate cake. We were present. We were breathing. We were just sharing the experience together. That would be true pleasure. An example of counterfeit pleasure is the bottle of wine that feels great right now, but gives you a hangover the next day, or the dessert that you gulp down and feel guilty about that gives you a headache in an hour.”

Jon Gabriel:    Right. I look at it the same way. I look at it in terms of anything that feels good, and gives you energy now and in the future, is something that is good for you. Anything that feels good now but lowers your energy in the future is an addiction. If it’s going to make you sick or lower your energy, then it’s an addiction.

So you learn how to differentiate the two, and when you are having an urge or an impulse, you ask that question, is that the idea?

Jena:    You ask that question, and then you try to reach for the highest pleasure possible in the moment.  And better yet, act preventatively by including nourishing pleasure in your life, so you don’t end up in a desperate situation.

Jon Gabriel:     Sounds great.

Jena:     Jon, I’d like to share with you what I call the 4 Pleasurable Eating Practices. The first one is to remember when you are sitting down to eat; I am eating with my animal.  I am eating with her.  Imagine you are eating dinner with your sweetie, and there she is at the table and you are not even making eye contact with her. You’re ignoring her, almost like she’s not there. You wouldn’t do that. You are a gentleman.

Jon Gabriel:    This is really good. I love it. I get you.

Jena:    That is the way I want you to be present with your animal. He is there with you, she is there with you. It’s the two of you together having this meal, so have some manners about it.  Check in with your body. “Okay body, are you comfortable?”  Often we sit on the chair all crooked, without good posture. That is not comfortable for her.  Help her to get comfortable.

Jon Gabriel:    If you look at a dog who’s been beaten and neglected, it’s going to be angry, miserable and have low energy. It’s going to do the least amount of things that it can do to get by. It’s going to be in a constant state of stress where it just wants to avoid pain, and it doesn’t want to think about anything else.
Compare that with an animal that you’re petting, cuddling, treating nice, taking for walks, and playing with. If you’re taking care of its needs, it will want to give you pleasure and joy. It’s the exact same relationship. I can see that really clearly because I have been on both sides of the tracks. I know what it’s like to have a body that is exhausted and doing the bare minimum, just trying to get by, and feeling totally neglected and abused.

And then the other side of this is having a body that is full of energy and life. I think you really nailed it on this one. It’s about the relationship. The way to make this change happen is to be conscious of the relationship and to rekindle it. I love it.

Jena:   Yes, a little bit of compassion goes a long way.

Step 1 of the Pleasurable Eating Practices is to acknowledge that you are there with your animal, that you are eating together.  It’s about really asking, what does he want to eat?  You may be surprised that it’s not what your mind wants.

Step 2 is to relax, by breathing deeply. Take three, five or ten deep breaths. By deep I mean breaths that go right down to the bottom of your belly, that deeply relax you, as opposed to upper chest breathing, which will keep you in stress.

This does a couple of really important things. Firstly it oxygenates your system. If you want to light a fire, you need wood, you need matches, and you need oxygen. There’s no fire without oxygen. The same goes for your digestive fire, that stimulates fat-burning when it’s “burning” efficiently.

If it burns poorly, like a sooty clogged up fireplace, it’s going to cause fat-storage, or at least prevent you from losing weight.  In the case of your body, the food is the wood. Your stomach itself is the matches, and the oxygen comes from your breath. If you don’t breathe deeply while you are eating, you are preventing your body from obtaining its optimum fat-burning capability.

Breath is a crucial ingredient. Also what breathing does is relaxes you. Now Jon, what most people do is they eat to get relaxed. They start out stressed, especially if they are trying to lose weight, “Oh no, food! I might eat the wrong thing. I might eat too much! I wish I didn’t have to eat at all!”

Eventually as they eat and eat and eat,  by necessity the body makes them relax, because it’s when we are relaxed that we are able to digest. What I am asking is that you make an effort to relax first, and then your digestion will be optimized from the beginning. The metaphor, back to relationship, would be let’s say you are going to make love. You can have sex while you are stressed out, and eventually have an orgasm and be relaxed. But what if prior to your sexual encounter you did some meditation, or some yoga, or had a massage, and then made love? The sex would be on a whole other plane. And that’s comparable to the magic that’s happening digestively when you take the time to breathe and relax before you eat, and then intermittently you put the fork down, take some more breaths, and continue to focus on relaxing. This makes eating a sensuous, pleasurable experience.

Jon Gabriel:    That’s a very powerful experience because most of the time when we are eating we are totally unconscious and we are just shoveling food down, especially when our bodies are in deprivation mode. By the time we know it, our stomach is totally stuffed, and that’s the end of it, and you feel sick.  If we get conscious first, that totally changes the eating experience because then you’re eating slower, you’re eating with awareness, you’re making good choices, you’re nourishing your body rather than just stuffing your stomach.  So I’ve got to say, on that one you nailed it too.  I agree with that very much. That makes a lot of sense.

Jena:    Continuing with the sex metaphor, step three is to seek pleasure in every bite.  Jon, this is where we have really been short changed culturally. Because we haven’t been given the proper education about pleasure, people confuse pleasure and addiction. We are scared of pleasure, and have been robbed of a true understanding of pleasure..

There’s a Geneen Roth quote that says, “It’s when pleasure ends that overeating begins.” We think we’re getting pleasure by overeating, but really, as soon as we overeat, even by a bite, we start having symptoms–your stomach may start to hurt, you may get a headache, your energy starts to go down. The pleasure, the satisfaction, the good feeling is diminished.

When you eat for pleasure, what that means is you’ve got to be present. You can’t have pleasure if you are checked out.

Jon, imagine we are in the same room and I have something on my mind. I want to pour my heart out to you, but you are not present. You are looking out the window, you are checking your text messages, or doing a Facebook update. I would walk away feeling, “I didn’t get what I needed. I need to speak to another friend.”

Jon Gabriel:   Yes.  I’m reminded of a movie I just saw, called A Question for Ben, about this young, high-powered executive living by all standards a great life, but he’s feeling very unsatisfied. He’s trying to communicate his feelings of dissatisfaction, but nobody he talks to can be present to his conversation.  He tries to talk to his Dad and it’s as if he’s speaking an another language. He talks to his best friend and his best friend falls asleep right there. All through the movie, all he wants is to have someone be present with his feelings. He has no support system for that, because his whole life, all he has done is just run around with people, but never really be present with them.

Jena:  That’s a great story, and it’s the same thing with your body. Your body, if you are not smelling the food, feeling the food, tasting the food, seeing the food, even if you eat massive quantities of food, your body will say, “I didn’t see anything, didn’t smell anything, didn’t feel anything. I must not have eaten enough. I am still hungry.”

Jon, this is the amazing part, in this situation, your body actually generates more hormones for appetite, to make you hungry, so you’ll eat more, and again have the chance to have the pleasure. And if you again check out it will say, “Oh, I still must not have eaten enough lot. I better eat more.” This is how people can eat and eat and still feel hungry.

On the other hand, if you show up and are present, and taste it, savor it, and slow down with your food to enjoy it, then another biochemistry kicks. This is where cholecystokinin, (CCK) comes into play. It stimulates digestion, pleasure and satiety. This is when your body says, “That’s enough. I’m full. I’m done. Thank you.”

Jon Gabriel:    I am going back to your love making analogy because it’s a really good one. People are also very unfulfilled there too, because the typical lovemaking session is between two people who are not present. It’s like a race to the finish line, to try to get to a goal, and then you’re left feeling like; well what happened?

And then you go off and do whatever, and you’re feeling like you’re wanting more of something because what you really wanted was some presence. You wanted presence, attention, cuddles, interaction, connection. That is really what you want; I think our bodies want that too. If you have a relationship with your body where it’s desiring a connection with you, food is just the most natural thing because food is a form of connection. I mean you are taking something outside of you and you are bringing it inside your body. It’s becoming you. To me is connection in its most literal sense.

Food, in a lot of ways, is about connection. It makes sense, if your body is feeling like it wants to connect with you, it wants to have a relationship with you, it will keep trying through food, because at least even if it’s unconscious and unsatisfying, there’s some interaction there.

So learn how to connect with yourself in the same way as if you were in a relationship. And learn how to connect with your partner, so you can walk away feeling satisfied instead of looking for something else.

Jena:    You’ve got it.

Jon Gabriel:    I’m learning as you are saying this, but it’s all resonating with me.

Jena:  Step 4 is called “eating to the point of energy.” In Pleasurable Weight Loss we see the value of having a grasp on numbers and measuring, but the trap with dieting is that you delegate your intuition, your feeling sense, and your feeling intelligence to hitting a number.  Numbers are not the language of the body. They are not the language of your feeling, breathing, wise animal–sensation is. Your body feels what is right for it.

Back to eating to the point of energy, when you start eating, you will have low energy, and that is natural. That’s the signal it’s time to put some fuel in the tank. You are hungry with a good reason, you need to eat. As you start eating, you’ll notice your energy goes up and up and up, and when you have eaten one bite too many, it will start to go down. That’s the time to put down the fork and stop eating, when you have the most energy.

Jon, I used to eat myself all the way into a food coma every single time, and I would complain, “Food makes me so tired.”  That’s because I was checked out, and I was eating way too much.  What’s required is being present with every bite.

Jon Gabriel:    What I’m hearing is that being present with your body is the common denominator in all of these steps. Do you have other things that you do in terms of developing and cultivating this relationship with your body that are not necessarily centered around food or eating patterns?

Jena:    Yes, developing the muscle of knowing and investigating your desires. I grew up terrified of my desires, Jon.  As a teenager we become sexual creatures but no, no, that is not what good girls do. We are taught that desire is dangerous, and to push our desires underground as much as possible.

Overtime the habit of denying our desires becomes pervasive, and then we also push our true desire for healthy food down too.  Until we honor and investigate our true desires, we are going to be racked with compulsions.

How I overcame this was by making a concerted practice of asking the question, “What do you really want? What do you desire?”

I define desire as being deeper than our small wants. There might be a part of you that says, “I want to lose weight and be healthy, but also want to eat that cookie.” They feel in contradiction. When you truly investigate it, which one is stronger?  Which one is deeper? Which one is more powerful?  It’s the desire to be healthy, to be free, and to love your body. It will be the stronger one that will end up having the greatest pull.

But if you don’t take the time to go deeply in and feel and investigate, the “I want the cookie” one may be louder and may seem like it’s the bigger one. There’s a certain depth that comes over time from practicing this. You can write a desire list of everything you want.  There are many things that you want. The things that we are most told we shouldn’t want are the sensual things. Sensuality, however, is completely natural to the body. It just means experiencing your senses. It’s as innocent as could be, even thought today people have shame about it.  Why do you think people often fear sensuality?

Jon Gabriel:    There are a lot of layers to it. First is a feeling of guilt. It has been driven into us that it’s wrong.  There’s also an inhibition about allowing yourself to feel good. It’s this feeling of, are you worthy? Some people don’t want to allow themselves the feeling of deservingness and worthiness, because they have so many judgments about themselves. They don’t like themselves. They don’t feel worthy enough to give themselves something that is pleasurable. So there are many different layers to that inhibition.

Jena:    And that’s why thinking of your body as an animal, as an “other” is really useful, because you can say to the mind, “Okay mind, maybe you think you don’t deserve it, but this creature is giving you life every single day and she deserves it.”

Jon Gabriel:    You never say, “My dog doesn’t deserve to go to the park.”

Jena:    Exactly.  Or “My daughter doesn’t deserve to have a good night’s sleep. She’s got to work.” That’s the beauty of this model of the body as an “other.”

Jon Gabriel:   It’s so powerful. I feel like in this conversation I have gained a richness in my understanding of the body. I’m getting a lot out of this.
Could you give us one thing that we can do to start experiencing pleasurable weight loss and this connection?

Jena:    This one is counter-intuitive, but I’ve noticed over the years that, why do we want to lose weight?  Again and again it comes, up whether you’re a man or a woman, you want to be sexy. Of course you do, that’s natural. The idea is, “Alright, I’m going to lose weight and then I am going to be sexy,” but what happens is you lose the weight; you’re looking sexy, and suddenly all this attention is coming towards you. It can be overwhelming. It can be frightening, especially if you’ve had sexual inappropriate experiences, sexual assault, molestation, you name it, it’s rampant.

Jon Gabriel:    It’s a huge issue when it comes to weight loss, a huge issue.

Jena:    If you have experienced that as a child or a young adult, you may have found, “Oh, if I gain some weight, I’ll deflect that danger. I’m not going to get as much attention. I’m not going to get as much heat.”  Even if your conscious mind is not involved, it’s your animal’s way of protecting herself.

Jon Gabriel:   Absolutely. There’s no question. I call it emotional obesity which is the need to be fat in order to feel safe. Weight becomes a safety mechanism.  It protects us from the outside world.  I was talking to a doctor in Los Angeles a couple of days ago who specializes in childhood obesity and she says that 70% of all abuse victims are obese. Yeah, 70%.

Jena:    And that was also my story, Jon, in my teens I was sexually assaulted and I definitely noticed, okay, this weight is protecting me. Pleasurable Weight Loss teaches that until sexy is safe, you will never lose weight. You have to feel safe being sexy first.

Jon Gabriel:    So how do you get to that point?

Jena:    There are two important concepts for starting to make sexy safe. The first one is erotic innocence. Erotic innocence is your body’s instinct toward the sensual, the sexual and the erotic, that existed before your mind came on line to judge it as right or wrong. Prior to all labels, that impulse is purely innocent. There’s an erotic innocence that’s been in all of us since we were born. We all have a natural curiosity towards feeling good.

Even if we’ve been wounded in past, we can still get in touch with that part of ourselves that is innocent, that loves to feel sensual, that loves to feel sexual and we can give that stage time in our life. We can give it the microphone. If you give someone a microphone it’s because you want to hear them and amplify their voice.

Now the paradigm that people get into, like you are saying, “Oh, I am overweight. I don’t deserve to be sexy. I am overweight, I am not sexy. When I lose weight, I will be.”  What they are overlooking is that their sexual energy is already there. Unless you start to get safe with it now, and realize this energy is safe, sacred, and a contribution, if you walk into a party, no matter what size you are, you’ll never feel sexy.

It’s essential to embrace that sexual energy is life energy. It’s creative energy. It’s as innocent as the birds and the bees, literally, it’s life itself buzzing around feeling good.

Jon Gabriel:    You experience when people get in touch with this erotic innocence that it helps them feel that sexy is safe, is that correct?

Jena:    Yes. And once you are in touch with your erotic innocence, you are going to get attention. And when the attention comes your way, you need two things in hand. Firstly, you need to realize that attention creates sensation.

For example if I was alone in my room I would feel a certain way. Now let’s say you walked in the door and looked at me. I would feel something. I would feel a certain sensation just by the fact that your attention is on me, and vice versa. Often that sensation gets associated with fear and trauma although it’s actually just sensation. When you can start to break it down, and notice, “I felt a tingle in my nose. I felt a stirring in my belly. I felt a tightness in my shoulder.” It takes away the power from “Oh, this is a bad thing that is going to hurt me,” to “no, that was just a sensation.”

Jon Gabriel:    I think that’s very powerful, it’s revolutionary.

Jena:    Thank you. One last thing that erotic innocence requires is your power to say no. One of the reasons we gain the weight is it’s a passive way of saying “No, don’t even come near me,” so it’s crucial to learn other ways of healthy boundaries.

Jon Gabriel:    You are absolutely right.

Jena:    So now, you’re sexy, now you’re welcoming attention, you need to always have that “no” in your pocket when you need it.  Particularly as women, there’s this feeling, “I don’t want to hurt their feelings by saying no. I don’t want to reject them. I don’t want to be the source of pain. I would rather just never get the attention in the first place, so I don’t have to go through the process of saying no.”

Jon Gabriel:    There are lots of reasons why we don’t say no as a man or a woman.  We don’t say no because we don’t want to hurt somebody. We don’t want to say no because we are afraid that someone won’t like us, someone won’t love us. There are so many reasons – we will lose a job, we won’t be popular, there are just so many reasons why we don’t want to say no. Learning how to comfortably say no in relationships you care about–work relationships or personal relationships, relationships where you are afraid that you are going to lose something–is essential for weight loss. It gives you healthy boundaries, and if you don’t have healthy boundaries, your body is going to use weight as a form of boundaries. Yes, learning how to say no is crucial.

Jena:    I teach what I call the “intimate decline.” It comes from the martial art, Aikido. What‘s intimate about it is it has got a “yes” in there as well. The intimate decline says yes to your humanity, yes to your desire, yes to you, but no to this.  It says yes to you as a human, and no, this is not what I want. It’s a powerful way of being able to be in your full glory, out in the world, knowing that you are safe to say no at anytime.

Jon Gabriel:    Well, I’ve got to say Jena; I think that you have got a lot to teach us.

Jena:  Thank you, Jon. I describe what I do as the Pleasurable Weight Loss movement because it’s going to take all of us to change these deeply entrenched ideas that your body is an object that you can own and have the right to abuse. It’s going to take all of us to resurface a reverence for the body, which I do believe has been there in the past, where you see your body as a living creature that is naturally inclined to pleasure, with an intelligence about that pleasure that is not to be confused with compulsion or addiction.

It’s about the perfect amount of pleasure that keeps you in your sweet spot, energized, able to contribute to the planet, not in shame, not in guilt, aware and awake.

My request to everyone reading this, is now that you’ve been exposed to the teachings on pleasure, the next time you see someone who is neglecting pleasure, who is turning away from pleasure, who is denying their body, give them a little nudge, and remind them of these teachings. Let them know that there’s another way. Let them know that following the compass of pleasure is trustable and intelligent.

Let them know that their body really does love them, and is like a  loyal dog that wants to serve them. See if you can get them into another perspective. In doing so it will anchor it all the more into you, and make you feel more powerful the next time you are faced with the possibility of turning away from or embracing your body and pleasure.

Jon Gabriel:   I agree, this is a movement. It’s a movement because it’s a paradigm shift. It’s totally radical and revolutionary from anything else that is being done. It’s revolutionary stuff. Keep up the great work.

In 2001 Jon Gabriel weighed 409 lbs. He’d tried almost every popular diet available without success. Not only did he fail to lose weight—he was steadily gaining. Overweight, overworked and unhappy, Jon was ready to give up.

Then on September 11^th 2001, Jon received a wake-up call. He was scheduled to fly from Newark to San Francisco that day, and it was only by chance that he was not on the United Airlines Flight 93 that was hijacked by terrorists and crashed in Pennsylvania with no survivors.

Jon realised that life was a precious opportunity not to be wasted. He realised that his weight would eventually kill him and decided to do something about it. Over the next two and a half years, Jon lost over 200 lbs without dieting, pills or surgery. He also stopped feeling stressed and overworked and started living the life of his dreams. 

http://www.thegabrielmethod.com/