While my perspective and understanding of weight loss and psycho-spiritual transformation has matured and deepened dramatically in the 20+ years since I conducted this research, several readers suggested I make it available on my website. They appreciated reading an interpretation of women’s experiences with weight through a lens of compassion and wisdom. I hope you enjoy this unusual take on weight loss expertise – understanding the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, and creative challenges and opportunities from the women participants themselves.

I was extremely fortunate to ha...

Trying so hard to fix myself, I got more stuck every time I tried. My trouble with weight brought me to my knees. From somewhere inside, came a desire and a commitment that I later realized was the beginning of my last weight loss program. It was this: I made an innocent but sincere commitment to understanding the truth about my issues with food and weight. Whatever it took. No matter what.

At the time I had no idea how important it was. Now I see Grace engaged my vanity for the sake of my soul. Then I thought if I just work at hard figuring this out I’ll be thin in a year and live happily ev...

When I turned 21, I celebrated the weekend with my first true love, a man with whom I was engaged to be engaged. A couple of weeks later a friend called to ask me if I knew he was engaged to his old girlfriend.

No, of course, I hadn’t known. I was devastated.

Clearly I could not trust myself with food or men. I immediately gave up on both and gained over 100 pounds in a year. Without any skills to cope with the loss of the relationship, I numbed myself with working, eating, and sleeping between irrepressible tears and self-blame.

Five years later, I was nearly finished with my undergraduate...

This season can bring a wide range and mixture of feelings. If we're quite lucky we experience the true joy and celebration of the season to our depth. But many of us look forward all year to this happy time only to miss most of it in busy-ness. Or we go through the motions less than enthusiastically, wondering 'what's the point?' Perhaps some part of us senses we're not actually getting the unnameable something we really want but presumes that's what it means to be an adult. "Christmas is for the kids after all," we say.

What if you could slow down a little and take some time to sense wha...

In Part 2 of this Free Mini Course you will learn:

• The three centers of the internal guidance system
• How imprints from the past create habitual patterns in these centers
• The difference between the habitual centers and the open centers
• How trauma impacts your internal guidance system
• How to upgrade your inner GPS for the heroine's journey

True Guidance from the 3 Centers Exploration Questions:

What do you know about your head center?

For example, what kind of thought patterns are you aware of?
What kinds of things does your inner critic judge you about?

What do you know about you...

In Part 1 of this Free Mini Course you will learn:

• The difference between change and true transformation
• How the inner guidance system you currently follow is conditioned by your history
• How misunderstandings of yourself can block the view of your true value
• That your challenges can be used to develop a true inner guidance system
• How an embodied knowing of our true selves impacts every aspect of our lives   

Upgrade Your Inner GPS Exploration Questions:

What has your personal heroine's journey been like so far?

What do you notice about the difference between change and transform...

Hope you're soaking up the last rays of summer's bright light!

3 Quick Summer BodySoul Snacks...

1. Surgery Update. As I mentioned in my last message to you on July 4th, I had surgery for a common but often overlooked condition. In my video update (above) I give you the scoop on that condition (and how to make sure you or your loved one doesn't suffer unnecessarily) along with a quick update about my healing process.

2. Bonus Session Special. After working with some wonderful clients who took advantage of my early summer 3-session special, I now have a little room left in my schedule to off...

This is a recording of Rebecca's talk at Sacred Space in Tucson, Arizona on June 17, 2018.

The Heart of the Matter Matters

It makes sense that people want to lose 30 pounds in 30 days when you consider the difficulty most people have with motivation. Their logic is something like, “I don’t have the willpower to stick with a depriving diet for very long but I could get myself to do it for 30 days if I saw big results fast.” Clients have told me when they attempt change from this kind of logic they aren’t even thinking about maintenance; they just want to lose weight now.

I’ve been there and understand. However, in addition to the fact that most 30-pounds-in-30-days attempts fail, t...

Beauti-fuel = food that's pleasurable on all levels

There’s no such thing as good food or bad food, though some foods are more or less optimizing for your unique body. For each person’s physiology, some foods lead to greater balance (mood, blood sugar, immune system), aliveness, and optimal body size. And other foods generate imbalance, lethargy, and weight gain or inability to maintain weight. The former we call beauti-fuel and the latter we call cruel-fuel. Our purpose is to help you discover your unique way of eating filled with exquisitely delicious beauti-fuel.

The first step is discove...