Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Jena la Flamme. Jena la Flamme has dedicated herself to helping women around the world heal emotional eating, reach their healthy weight, and look and feel fabulous. Her live seminars, “Pleasure Camps,” private coaching, and her online programs all teach women a natural, sustainable, and joyous approach to weight loss. Jena has recently published Pleasurable Weight Loss: The Secrets to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Loving Your Life Today.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Jena and I spoke about pleasure—counterfeit pleasure versus true pleasure; what to do when we hit “pleasure thresholds” and how to push ourselves further; and why some people find pleasure scary or threatening. We also talked about her new book, Pleasurable Weight Loss, and some of the provocative territory that the book covers—including how our sexuality is linked to our weight. Finally, we talked about Pleasurable Weight Loss dos and don’ts; what the payoffs are for many of us for remaining overweight; and what it might mean, in Jena’s term, to have an “ideal ecology” for pleasurable weight loss.
Here’s my far-ranging conversation with Jena la Flamme:
In one of the beginning chapters of Pleasurable Weight Loss, you call yourself “a disciple of pleasure.” So, Jena, to begin: what does it mean to be a “disciple of pleasure?”
Jena la Flamme: What it means to be a disciple of pleasure—well, my favorite interpretation of the word “disciple” or “discipline” is to be a disciple unto yourself. Which is, to be giving intention to really know yourself and really know what’s good for you. That’s what it is to be a disciple of pleasure—to really know and study and examine [and] become a connoisseur—[to] understand pleasure as a really deep, multifaceted phenomenon where you know your fingerprint and you know the difference between the real thing and let’s say the pseudo-thing or the counterfeit version, which may feel good in the moment, but really not give you all the goodness you’re hoping for.
TS: In Pleasurable Weight Loss, you talk about the difference between counterfeit pleasure—as you’re talking about now—and true pleasure. It seems like that’s a really important distinction for people. So, what’s the difference?
JLF: Yes. True pleasure is the type of pleasure that—when you experience it—feels good in the moment. It feels good an hour later, a day later, a week later, a month later, a year later. You can look back in time and say, “Wow, that was a great experience. It was a great after-effect.”
Versus counterfeit pleasure: yes, it does give some sensation and some feel-good experience in the moment, but as much as an hour later—a day later, a year later, so on—you look back and, “Ugh!” It didn’t really deliver over time. There was a hangover. There was weight gain. There was skin breakout. There was a feeling of shame. You knew it wasn’t really good for you.
So, that’s the difference. Tami, once upon a time there was no such thing as an unhealthy pleasure. We originated as organisms, pre-cognitively—before we had minds, we were creatures. We would bump into something that was good for us—ooh! Promise of life. Health. Thriving. Survival. That was pre-pleasure, proto-pleasure—feeling good, safety, and yes, we are programmed to go that way—versus pain, danger, threat, protection, get away from there.
So, when I talk about pleasure, I’m not only meaning luxuries and decadence and over-the-top connotations of pleasure—but simply what is it that makes you feel good? What opens you? What expands you? What relaxes you? In that way, it really opens the scope of what true pleasure is. It is something that we can experience in so many different facets when we give ourselves permission to have it.
That’s really what helps with a relationship with food, because when we don’t have permission for pleasure, and we don’t make it a priority, the body knows it needs it and finds a way to get it, and so often that comes out in a compulsive relationship with food and overeating. It looks like a problem, [but] really it’s a healthy instinct of the body that just hasn’t been understood, respected, and responded to appropriately.
TS: So then, when did counterfeit pleasure come into the picture? If you’re saying that—as human animals—and you talk about this importance of understanding ourselves as an animal body. If, in the past, pleasure was something that was just true and positive, when did counterfeit pleasure come on the scene?
JLF: That’s the great question. So, once upon a time, there was no such thing as unhealthy candy. There was only fruit if you were lucky to find it, or honey. If you found warm arms to be with [or] if you found play and joy, these were all positive things.
When did food start to be unhealthy and toxic? When did media start to be unhealthy and toxic? When did these changes occur? There have been a lot of changes over time and [in] culture.
The values that really inspire me and that inspired this book we could describe as a pre-agricultural mindset where—other than believing that the Earth belongs to us; with humans on top and the Earth below; that we own the Earth—and really, I was raised thinking that. I was raised Christian and I really believed that humans had dominion over the Earth. It was our playground.
Versus a more ancient way of thinking, which would be that we belong to the Earth. She is our mother. We belong to her. We are part of her. We are one with her. We’re one with this living organism that is the intelligent Mother Earth.
So, when did these counterfeit pleasures come in? I think, when we start to see our body as something that the mind owns, then we start to make choices that aren’t necessarily healthy for the body. That’s when we can make choices that are, on some level—through and through—not really thought out from the perspective of the body with respect [and] understanding that it’s not an object. It’s not something under the mind. It’s with the mind, and it deserves dignity too.
TS: So, Jena, I think I’m drilling down on this question of counterfeit pleasure and true pleasure, and knowing the difference—because when I think of being a disciple of pleasure, I want to make sure that I’m doing it in a way that’s good for me. I don’t want to fall into saying, “I like pleasure. I’m a disciple. Therefore I’m going to have a hundred chocolate chip cookies,” or whatever.
So, I guess what I’m wondering is: In the moment, is there a litmus test for knowing [if this] is a counterfeit pleasure or a true pleasure?
JLF: It certainly takes an awareness, and there’s no clear right or wrong. Anything could be any of these categories.
I think the first place to come from is the space of what I would call “erotic innocence.” Presume that the pleasure probably is good for you. Let’s just start there, and then we’ll examine [how] maybe it’s not. If it makes you feel good, it’s at least worth inquiring into. “Yes, maybe this is good for me.”
One way to tell, Tami, is if it sensitizes you versus desensitizes you. If you feel numbed afterwards or tired or feel like it’s something that you need to have again; if it has a feeling of compulsion; [or], if it has a feeling that this thing has something over you, that can be a sign that it’s counterfeit pleasure. If it feels like a free choice—something you can take as your own desire but if you don’t have it, it’s going to be OK, it will come in time—that’s the sign also. If there is an equal appreciation of many different opportunities for healthy pleasure rather than obsessing over a few particular counterfeit pleasures.
TS: That’s helpful. Now, I’m wondering: Why do you think pleasure is scary for some people, or threatening for some people?
JLF: We experience [pleasure] through the senses. It’s something that is a participation with the physical world, with the embodied world, and with the animal world. As you said, I love to describe the body as an animal. If you’re a woman, she is a female animal. If he’s a man, he is a male animal. You’re a male animal, and there’s two of you. There’s your mind and your body. We can bring spirit into it—body-mind-spirit.
I love to talk about this body-mind marriage as a great metaphor for what’s going on and why we’re scared of pleasure. Essentially, the mind is somewhat terrified by the body. It’s this incredible source. It has served society for the body to be chained and repressed. I don’t want to say it’s served us as people, but it served hierarchy. It serves status quo to feel ashamed of their body, feel ashamed of their pleasure, and be willing to tow the line and do what somebody else tells them is good for them.
So, it’s pretty political. It is a radical thing in your life to say, “Hey, I’m really going to take responsibility for my pleasure—what really feels good for me.” But how can I climb out from all excuses and, “Someone else is meant to make me feel good,”—and this and that—and just really know what’s true for me, what’s right for me, what’s right for my body, and go for it?
TS: You know, when it comes, Jena, to the topic of pleasurable weight loss, I can imagine the first thought people have is, “Come on, that’s not possible.” Right? “I have to deprive myself. That’s the ticket. I’ve never been able to do it, but that’s the myth.” How do you respond to those skeptics that say, “Come on, that’s just not possible?”
JLF: Yes. Great question. Pleasurable weight loss. What? How could that be possible?
So, here: let me volley it back the other way. How’s it going with the punishing weight loss? How’s that working out for you?
TS: Well, it doesn’t work out very well for me, but I look around and I look at a bunch of other women. It seems to be working for them. The assumption I come to is, “Well, they must have more discipline than I have.” Or [are] better punishers.
JLF: Well, Tami, I’m not sure exactly who “they” are, but the statistics are pretty dismal in terms of people having success with the conventional, restrictive diets—where in 95 to 97 percent of these diets over time, they don’t work, they backfire, [or] people gained more weight than they lost.
The reason is—and the reason pleasurable weight loss works—is because the body, at all times, is either in stress mode or the relaxation mode. You’ve either got the dominance of your sympathetic nervous system or your parasympathetic nervous system. When you’re in stress mode, that’s when your body says, “Oh, there’s a danger. I need to protect myself.” Part of that innate intelligence [that] your body knows [is that] gaining weight will offer protection and safety, and this is a good survival strategy. It’s built into us. We know that.
The problem, then, is when diets are stressful, they become the trigger for weight gain. So, you can see it’s a vicious cycle. It just doesn’t work. Combine that with bad body image—where a woman is feeling really bad about herself—and that’s really stressful. She’s not enjoying her life. That’s really stressful. She’s got a pleasure deprivation going on. So, she needs to turn to food to have balance and have a release. So, letting go of that is stressful. And the whole thing just doesn’t work very well for most people at all.
So, pleasurable weight loss is about saying: OK, how do we—first of all—restore the body to this coveted relaxation state (that’s how I describe it) [of] this parasympathetic nervous system. This is where, Tami, it fits in so well with so many authors of Sounds True and the ethos of this community, where meditation and planting peace within and really knowing what matters so that we can find joy in this crazy world. We can dare to even say, “You know what? I could live a life of pleasure; That doesn’t have to mean decadence and luxury 24/7, but I could enjoy.”
That’s where we start to create this deeper shift in the nervous system—combined with this life attitude of, “You know what? I’m going to play. I’m going to have pleasure. I’m going to have fun. I’m going to enjoy.” It brings this incredible wave of balance into your life—balance with food. You become active. You become dynamic. You get into flirting. You get into doing so many satisfying things that your body does come to life. Your metabolism shifts. Your relationship with food changes. Time and time again, it’s effective to really think of pleasure as something that needs to be more of a priority [and] as a gateway for sustainable weight loss.
TS: Now, you talk about the “metabolic benefits” of relaxation. You’re pointing to that in what you’re saying, but can you more explicitly help me understand how relaxation has metabolic benefits?
JLF: Yes. So, we are full of hormones, and one creates a chain reaction for [the] other. When your body is in this relaxation state, the shift of the hormones is so incredibly in your favor, it’s very exciting. It’s better for your sleep. It’s better for you moods, your immune system, your libido, your digestion, your assimilation, your blood pressure, and your calorie-burning efficiency.
So, we [commonly] think, “I’m frenetic and stressed out. I’m probably burning a lot of calories.” But it’s actually not true. When we’re in stress, we hold on to calories.
When we’re in relaxation—ha! Yes, rev up the engine. It’s a good day! You know? Burn it all off; there’s probably plenty more where that came from. We don’t need to be stingy and hold on metabolically. We can really use the body’s fuel.
So, that’s what I mean by this metabolic benefit of relaxation. It tells your body you can let go, essentially.
TS: Now, one of the points you make in Pleasurable Weight Loss is that people actually hold on to their weight for some very good reasons. You say that there are certain payoffs that people have for remaining overweight, and that’s one of the things you really have to address in any weight-loss program. So, can you talk a little bit about that? What are some of the payoffs that people might have in remaining overweight?
JLF: This applies to anything in life. If there’s something we want and we can’t seem to get it—it keeps evading us—then there’s probably some very good reason why it is serving us (and how it is serving us) that we are not fully aware of. The fastest way to actually get that thing is to look over our shoulder and go, “Hm! How could this thing I really don’t want be serving me on some level?”
So, the question that is worthy of asking is, “What might I lose that I value if I were to lose weight? If I were to be at peace with food?” You’ll find—when you start to ask those questions—is there are usually always good reasons. Everyone has their good reasons.
And I know from myself, Tami: definitely deflecting sexual attention. That’s one of the big reasons women want to gain weight unconsciously—to deflect attention that they never learned how to safely relate with. The weight becomes a safe way to buffer it off.
So, that’s only one example. But there’s so many reasons why we would protect ourselves like that. When we become aware of them, that’s when we can grow and develop beyond them. They’re not fixed. We’re always in flux. We can always change and transform. But we need that awareness. That’s somewhere we bring our attention in this book—to be aware of those reasons.
TS: Yes. I think it might be helpful—if you could—if there are other examples that come to mind from women that you’ve worked with—what [are] the reasons that people are remaining overweight? It might be stimulating for people to hear, “Oh yes, maybe that is the reason I’m not losing weight. That’s my reason.” So, what are some of the other reasons that people present to you?
JLF: Let’s say you feel like you had a blessed life and that many things have gone right for you in your life. You’re smart, or you’ve had success in some way. Already, you think that people envy you and wish they were you. If you, on top of that, have this beautiful body—this body of your dreams—and [if you think you] were that attractive, that other people wouldn’t like it. So, you might want to tone it down.
It often comes to that. Other people won’t like it that you shine that much. Other people won’t like it that you’re that sexual or attractive. Or hearing that you could be judged—if I’m attractive, I won’t be taken seriously for my brain. Women will be threatened by me. I will receive sexual violence. I’ll just get too much attention—it’ll be too much of a hassle. It’s going to be work to maintain if I get there. If I ever lost it, it would be devastating, so I don’t even want to try. I wouldn’t fit into my family. There are many reasons.
TS: It’s helpful to hear that list. Let’s say someone listening identified one or two or three of those. “Yes, I relate to that.” What do I do with that information now?
JLF: So, then it’s really about a personal inquiry and coming face-to-face with your own truths—asking, “Is that what you want?” Or is there something different that you want? If that’s not how you want to be living—if that’s not really true to your values of, let’s say—which one grabbed your attention the most, Tami?
TS: I don’t want to be too fabulous. I mean, I’m already pretty fabulous. So, I’m scared of being any more fabulous than I am by being thin on top of it all. That’s the one that got my attention.
JLF: [Laughs.] Exactly. “I’m already pretty fabulous. I don’t want to be too fabulous and get too much attention.”
So then, really inquire into: Is this your truth? Is this the message you want to give to the world? If a young woman is watching you and thinking, “Wow, she’s my role model,” and to see you deflecting attention—to see you changing your actions because of what someone else thinks of you—is that really the role model you want to be leading with? I don’t think so.
When we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t want to be living in reaction to other people. We want to really be true to ourselves. That’s how and why pleasurable weight loss works, because it’s founded on this devotion to your female body—to your female animal, to this living creature—and inquiring, asking, respecting, and listening. They’re the way that you can partner with your body in a way that you probably already know how to partner with a romantic partner, a child, or a business collaborator. You can partner with your body that intimately. Then you can lose weight in an enjoyable way, where it’s part of your lifestyle and just part of your self-care [and] your self-joy to be that good to yourself.
TS: Now, I’m curious what you think of someone’s objections—something like, “If I really tuned to my animal body and allowed it to have all the pleasure that it wanted, I would be out of control! There would be some kind of out-of-control-ness that would not just freak me out, but freak all of the people around me out.”
JLF: Yes. Great point. There may be some of that at the beginning, in terms of finding your footing and exploring something new. You’re going to be a child or a teenager of pleasure if you’ve been holding it back your whole life.
But it’s OK—you can go overboard a little bit. You’ll find your balance in the end. There is something trustable.
And here’s the thing: when you’re attuned to true pleasure and not counterfeit pleasure, that’s about finding the optimal amount of pleasure that allows you to continue to have more of it. So, as soon as you’re having too much, or [there are] diminishing returns, it’s like, “No, not that one.” Adjust. Counter-correct. As if you’re crossing a lake and you’re just adjusting to the breeze of what really does feel good, feel healthy, feel vitalizing.
Feel how that has a different energy from out-of-control, Tami?
TS: Yes, I do. Yes.
It reminds me of a tip that you give in Pleasurable Weight Loss, which is that you recommend not that people eat until they feel full, but they eat towards a point that you call “the point of energy.” I was curious about that. When you’re eating, how do you know when you’ve reached the point of energy?
JLF: This is a really terrific point. I’m really happy you highlighted this.
So, in Pleasurable Weight Loss, we’re saying, “OK, let’s bring in the body’s voice. The body knows. How do we learn to listen to the body’s language?”
And the body’s language is sensation. It’s feeling. It’s things like, “How tired am I feeling?” Or how energized, how light, how heavy? These qualities of feeling—rather than the quantities of ounces of protein and carbs, [et cetera]—[are used] to know how much to eat.
So, in order to feel this closely, you need to be really present. This is where I say in the book, “Pleasure is a meditation in disguise.” [This is] where the true pleasure—this is another way to answer your previous question between true pleasure and counterfeit pleasure. You can tell if your presence is there. We know the difference between really being present and engaged, and just sort of being spaced out and checked out.
So, here we’re really bringing our awareness, like in meditation, to the eating experience so that we can feel it. But let me get back to the question—I’m wandering.
Eating to the point of energy: So, when you’re doing this—when you’re eating and you’re really feeling—you’re going to notice before you eat that you’re hungry and you’re a bit tired, as your energy is low. As it should be. That’s your body’s feedback loop thing. Put some fuel in the tank. Let’s eat. It’s time.
So, good. You start eating. And if you follow what I call “the pleasurable eating practices”—which are in the book—and you eat with your body, you eat with relaxation, you eat with breath, with your senses turned on—slowly, sensuously, you’re going to get a lot of pleasure out of the experience. You’re going to notice that your energy as you eat goes up and up and up. And ah! You’re feeling better and better and this is nourishing and revitalizing and just delicious! Lunch, breakfast, whatever it is.
And then you’re going to notice, “Oh! I just went over the hump.” “Oh! My energy just got lower.” “Oh, I started to feel heavy.” Burping also is a sign that you’ve gone over that hump.
You become more attuned, as you go along, to what that point is. Gradually, you’ll have a sense when you know that if you eat more, your energy is going to go down. So, that’s what I used to do and what many people do: eat into the food coma. You actually end up feeling more tired after you ate than when you began. That’s just how it was.
But I learned, “No, it doesn’t have to be that way. “ You can stop much earlier at this energy peak. You may be hungry sooner. Maybe you’re going to be hungry in three hours instead of four hours. That’s OK. You’ll eat again then. But you will have eaten just the amount that your body needs and that will support your energy and your weight loss.
TS: Now, of course, if I were drinking a cup of coffee while I was trying to eat to the point of energy, it might be hard to know when that point of energy came because I would be getting all jacked up on the coffee. What I’m getting at is, I’m curious to know if there are any kind of pleasurable weight loss dos and don’ts that are just sort of, “Yes, you can eat whatever you want as long as it’s in this true pleasure framework?” But furthermore, are there the kinds of foods that you should eat more of for more pleasurable weight loss and avoid these foods?
JLF: Really, it comes back to the Earth. Think like an animal. Think like nature. What are the naturally healthy foods? That’s pretty obvious. We can go into organic and local and seasonal, and get as earthy as possible. Biodynamic, but essentially the natural foods, the whole foods.
Tami, I think it’s important to have some space for—even to the point of junk food. It’s important [to have] not-so-healthy foods; for not-so-ideal food; for that cake that’s full of sugar and there’s no organics to save your life. I think it’s important to have—well, not to be neurotic about it. I don’t want to recommend eating these things, but specifically on the cover of the book there’s a picture of me eating a cupcake. There it is, with white sugar, flour, and butter.
And you know what? This too can be—I’m going to say even healthy. It can be nourishing. If you’re really present with it, if you’re really savoring it, if you’re enjoying it, and it’s in the context of a life where you’re doing that all the time, no one food is going to really kill you or ruin your weight loss. You make good decisions for yourself all of the time, and if eating a cupcake really feels like a good decision for you, then be present with it and enjoy it.
The thing not to do is to be of two minds. We talk about being integrity, being whole. In for a penny, in for a pound. If you really want to eat ice cream, really eat it. Eat the best one.
Don’t be divided. Don’t be partially, “Ooh, I should. Ooh, I shouldn’t.” Be whole about it and you’ll find that maybe you didn’t need to go to an excess to get the satisfaction that you wanted.
TS: One of the things—listening to this conversation, Jena—that I’m curious about is the weight loss industry is such a huge business. As you pointed out, many of the deprivation-style diets don’t work or don’t last. Yet, millions and millions and millions of people are turning to those diets. If pleasurable weight loss really worked, wouldn’t it already be a big industry? Wouldn’t there already be lots of books on this approach and lots of people attempting it if it really worked?
JLF: Tami, I thought the same thing when I discovered meditation and certain ways of awake thinking. “Oh, why doesn’t everybody already know about this? This is phenomenal.” And no.
Why is it so hard to get the best ideas out there? There’s a lot of establishment around how it is.
I know that question’s taking my breath away. Why do you think, Tami?
TS: I think it has something to do with, when you talk about contacting the human animal, I think that for a lot of people that is a really new way of thinking and a very, very powerful way of thinking.
JLF: There’s been shame put on pleasure. “Pleasure” is considered a dirty word. Something to have as a reward for hard work. Shame occasionally will work. That’s the thing to be proud of: what are you achieving? What are you getting done? And it’s been exulted above simply being in the presence—to smell a flower. I meditated. I danced. I wasn’t accomplishing something. I was celebrating life. I was in a spiritual engagement with life.
That’s what pleasure is at its highest form—this meditation, this appreciation of life. It’s a way of thanking life, of saying, “Wow, life. Thank you for existing. I’m going to enjoy you.” It’s full of gratitude for appreciation and responsibility to look on the bright side and not on the dark side. There’s so many positives to this philosophy that if it were widespread in society, I think it would be very, very beneficial to all.
But yes, like you’re saying, there’s a deeper fear of nature, of the feminine, of the animal, of pleasure, of the senses, that I believe is unfounded. I believe that pleasure is, in a sense.
TS: Now, Jena, I want to turn to a couple sections of Pleasurable Weight Loss that I thought were particularly provocative. You have a chapter that’s called, “Until Sexy Is Safe, You’ll Never Lose Weight.” In that chapter, you talk about how our weight and our sexuality are inextricably linked. I wonder if you can talk more about that. I don’t think that’s a connection that’s often made.
JLF: I’d love to. Any woman that you ask, “Why do you want to lose weight?” eventually, “I want to be sexy,” will come up. She may be very selective about who she wants to be sexy for. She only wants to be sexy for her partner or the people she hopes may be a partner. But I find it’s in there.
Yet, at the same time, it’s usually surrounded by a lot of personal conflict or a lot of inner conflict around, “What does it mean to be a sexy woman anyway in our society?” I noticed this, Tami, from years of doing coaching [and] counseling. That’s how I came across pleasurable weight loss.
It’s been 12 or 13 years now. I’ve been doing this work full-time and making these discoveries. I started to notice this pattern: that [of] the women who were coming to me for weight loss and emotional eating—the ones that were more sex-positive were having better, faster results. They were just doing great.
The ones that were more sex-negative or didn’t have that space or positivity towards that in their life—they were struggling and not getting results. I was like, “Oh. I’m connecting the dots here.” I started to teach on this and really guide women specifically, to feel OK about being sexual—to feel great about it. To know that, yes, to be a woman is to have a sensual body that wants to be a lover—that wants to be held and caressed—and that we have such a capability for orgasm and ecstasy. If we’re not responding to this—if we’re putting shame on it or anything other than really embracing and inviting sexuality and sensuality to have a beautiful, central place in your life whether you’re single, with a partner, or with many partners.
Unless sex and sensuality have a conscious place, then there will be something really missing. It’s so, so easy to turn to food for that. And boom—now you’ve gained your 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 pounds. You’re all the more away from enjoying your sexuality.
That’s when women really get in a bind, Tami—when they say, “Oh, I need to lose weight before I’m sexual. I need to lose weight before I feel safe being sexy. I need to lose weight before I can do all these things.” And really, they need to do that first.
TS: Well, let’s talk to that woman and bring in this idea of shame. The shame that perhaps someone feels about their body image. “I hear Jena saying, ‘Be sexual first,’ even if I don’t feel OK with my body and the body image.’ But I’m too ashamed to do that. I’m not going to take all my clothes off in front of somebody, the size that I am now.” What does this person do?
JLF: That’s where you’ve got to start with yourself. Before anyone else comes into the scene, that you yourself have that connection with your body, with your own sexuality, with your own self-pleasuring. You can essentially have a tantric connection with yourself.
So, tantric sex—fabulous. If you have a tantric partner, wonderful. But you can always learn those things. They’re very learnable skills, using your breath, using your muscles, using your intention. A lot of great teachers can teach you—again, just like you learn meditation. How do you channel and cultivate your sexual energy like a yoga, like a meditation practice?
So, that’s beautiful thing to do. Then you’re confident in yourself. You know, “Wow, I am a good lover unto me.” OK, sexual confidence is coming.
“All right, well I still think I’m XYZ pounds overweight.” So, then it’s a matter of realizing that to be sexy is not just to be thin. That’s one definition of sexy. And OK, you may really appreciate that version and you want to look like that. OK. You can want that.
And, in the here and now, your body is a sexual creature. Your body is sexy. If you’re in touch with the essence of your lover energy, you know that you’re an erotic being. You just know it. It’s not about how you look. It’s not about anything external. It’s coming from the inside out, and then it expresses in your moves. It expresses in your voice. And it expresses in these things that are really sexy. I’m sure you’ve heard many a time someone say your voice is sexy, Tami. They’ve only heard your radio show. They don’t even know what you look like.
Right? There’s many ways to be sexy in the world. If you cease to identify that sexy means only Size 2, that’s so limited. Expand your sense of what that means and what the erotic is to you, and expand how you experience erotic energy, and people will be attracted to you. I swear.
The problem is not fat. You’re pushing them away. Chances are, most women push attention away. If you can make that switch and be willing to receive it, you’ll have so many opportunities. You won’t believe it.
TS: Now, that’s very helpful. But I still want to make sure that we directly address the experience of shame. Someone who’s listening to this says, “Yes, but I get crippled by my shame.”
JLF: Yes. That’s a very tender topic and my heart softens at the word “shame.” If you’re feeling shame, the first place to start is with softness, with kindness, tenderness. Again, there’s always some good reason for the shame. There’s always some intended reason, you could say. It’s an intended, positive reason that’s not really working anymore.
So, it’s about coming at it with curiosity. Let’s say it’s, “I’m ashamed of my body.” That’s it. “I’m crippled. I’m ashamed of my body.”
Then we look at what is going on with the shame. What is the shame communicating? What is the shame intending? When we dig into it, then we find that through feeling ashamed, through feeling bad about ourselves, we feel this sense of belonging with our families.
So, circling around to what we were saying before about these objections to feeling safe—when we feel ashamed, we feel like we belong. We feel part of our family of origin. That’s a useful place to start. It’s not necessarily obvious to see how our shame is the way that we exhibit loyalty towards our families.
So again, when we realize this, it’s a way to step back and say, “OK, I can let go of this shame. I can let of go of the feeling that I’m not enough. I can see how it has served me to belong with my family. I can see how having no shame and having pride in myself and feeling great about myself could actually be threatening, but that is what I really want. So, I’m going to take steps toward surrounding myself with people who are not going to stand for that shame.”
That’s a really useful way, Tami—being around people who don’t share that same shame. They’re taking a stand for you to love yourself. They’re not going to see you less incapable in that way.
TS: Talking about our family of origins and our connection to our family of origins, another very provocative section of Pleasurable Weight Loss that I wanted to highlight is a section where the headline is, “How You Love Your Mother Is How You Love Yourself.” You go further in this chapter in the book, where you say, “To heal your relationship with food and your body, you have to forgive your mother.”
And I thought, “Oh my God. In order to have a healthy relationship with food and my body, I have to let my mother off the hook?” I didn’t realize that. I thought this was very interesting.
JLF: Yes. That’s a good one. So, I also didn’t realize this for a long time. I was on a yoga path, and my attitude was, “Well, family stuff [is] not important. I can work everything out through yoga and meditation. I don’t need to look back in time at what happened. That’s just navel-gazing, and I’m not that interested.”
But as I kept researching, I realized that there’s so much imprinting that happens in our childhood—the beliefs that are laid down that then rule our lives. But as we consciously look to creating the future we want, it is part of the process to look back at where we’ve come and understand how we may be living out things that we learned at a young age that actually aren’t true.
For example, we learn from our mothers a certain relationship with weight, with self-love, with how much pleasure we’re allowed to have, with how much we sacrifice versus how much we take care of others. Our mother is this first role model.
So, coming back to what you’re saying: how does loving your mother affect loving yourself? Because the mother is such a primary role, and—whether we like it or not—we have this deep identification with the mother. Over time, we differentiate ourself, but we start being one with them. If we disrespect our mothers, if we don’t like how they look, if we have a contempt and criticism for them—an anger, the opposite of forgiveness—then on some level that same—we carry that towards ourselves.
We are half our mothers. Half our DNA is our mothers’ DNA. The attitude we have towards her, on a subtle level, influences the attitude we have toward ourselves. So, if you’re not forgiving her, you’re not forgiving yourself. If you’re not having compassion for her, you won’t for yourself.
I have an example where I did not have an intimate, emotional relationship with my mother. But I can forgive her, I can have compassion, and I can let that be OK. I can let it be OK that she gave me life. That’s enough. She doesn’t have to understand me. She doesn’t have to approve of me. She doesn’t have to say anything or do anything or be any specific way to provide me a certain concept of what a mother needs to be. She can be who she is. I can love and accept her unconditionally. I can understand that however she is, is her version of unconditional love, for me.
Actually, this is actually a really interesting point, Tami—this idea of conditional love. What most people realize is [that], “Oh, I didn’t get unconditional love.” But it could be them putting the conditions on how they want what they call unconditional love to show up.
So, if you can just drop the conditions and say, “Everyone’s trying their best to love,” and forgive the rest, it makes for a much more peaceful inner world. Then you don’t need to take it out on the cookies because you’re mother’s not doing ABC. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re just in the humor of it. You’re in the forgiveness. You’re in the joy. It’s easier.
TS: You introduced this phrase in Pleasurable Weight Loss: “the ideal ecology for pleasurable weight loss.” What does it mean to find the ideal ecology? As we’re talking about some of these issues—our relationship with our biological family, our relationship with our sexuality—you really emphasize in the book this idea of the whole ecology in which we’re attempting to lose weight—not just what we’re putting in our mouth.
And I wonder if you could summarize for people what you think the ideal ecology is for pleasurable weight loss.
JLF: So, the ideal ecology for pleasurable weight loss stems from this idea that your body is an animal that naturally knows how to eat and how to lose weight, and all you have to do is listen to your body.
OK, great. So, then the thing is that we are now this human animal, and it’s more complicated than that. We also now have a mind, and the mind has its answers. The body has its answers. How do we now listen to the body and respond to those wise responses when there are a lot of options? There is candy, there is junk food, there [are] things that your body can crave that won’t be a servant to your body.
This is why I like to think of the mind as your body’s bodyguard—like a guardian. So the punishing paradigm is thinking that your mind needs to control the body, like a controller. The feminine approach is the mind is a guardian to the body, like a server. How can your mind create the garden—create a forest—in which your body will thrive?
So, on a practical level, that’s the food in your fridge. Get the good foods in there. Find out the great places that you can have lunch that are healthy. This is just the ABCs: water and good food and fresh air and sleep.
None of these things are original—but are you giving your body her basic things that she needs? Can you look yourself eye to eye and say, “Yes, I’m taking care of my body on the basic level.”
So, practical level of ecology. Part of that is what [things are for] in relationships, sensuality, and sexuality. Let that not be a luxury, but—again—part of the ABCs of life. You create that “ecology,” you create the lifestyle, you create the friend circles, you create the social life where there is a sense-positive, pleasure-positive attitude. A play-positive attitude, a joy-positive attitude where it’s not separate from your life.
“I’ve got this concept of pleasurable weight loss. For one hour a week, I’ve got my pleasurable weight loss mentality running the show.” No! That’s your life.
So, the external and the internal—they mirror themselves. I mentioned having beliefs. That’s the other level of ecology—your beliefs, thoughts, and values. Again, the monkey in the forest doesn’t have that level of complexity of their ecology. It’s just their ecosystem. But we do. How we think makes a difference.
So, what to do to create an ideal ecology on that level is to think, “What are the beliefs that are going to support having what you want?” OK, you want to lose weight. So, try to believe that you can have it. Believe that it’s OK to have it.
Now, Tami, this is one reason why it’s so important for pleasurable weight loss for women to really examine [if they are] OK with having a good time—because they think they want to lose weight and feel great about their body, but secretly they don’t actually feel comfortable with feeling great. See what I mean? That conundrum right there?
TS: I do, and that leads me to this question about “pleasure thresholds.” If you think people have like, “This is good as I feel. I don’t feel better than this. That’s it.” At least in this situation or that situation. What do we do when we bump up against a pleasure threshold?
JLF: Yes. So, pleasure threshold is the counter to a pain threshold. You’re like, “Ah, that’s more pain than I can handle! Stop.” The pleasure threshold is the, “Ah! More pleasure than I can handle!”
I’ve worked with whether this threshold even exists, because we just bounce off it and create more stress for ourselves. It’s like an invisible thing. It’s definitely something I’ve worked on for a long time—it’s seeing where I have self-created stress because, somehow, it’s more comfortable for me to be in stress than to be in relaxation.
So, yes. The pleasure threshold is when you can have beliefs like, “If it’s too good, something bad will happen.” Or, “If it’s too good, it’s not OK.” “If it’s too good, it’s bad for me.” And stopping yourself from enjoying things. Stopping yourself from a touch, or stopping yourself from going to the next level sexually. Stopping yourself from saying yes. Stopping yourself just taking off your shoes and kicking back.
When you notice that—ooh!—you may have stopped the flow of your pleasure, that’s when you’ve hit a pleasure threshold. You have the opportunity to—woo!—take a deep breath and do what I call “expand your tolerance to sensation.” On a visceral level, what will be happening is some tingling—some sensation, some shame, something in the body that you’re feeling that feels like, “Oh! I can’t handle it!”
But, actually, you can handle it. You just need to expand your capacity to feel it and to do so with a combination of breath and awareness. Again, that inner knowing that everything’s OK. You’re expanding your pleasure thresholds. It’s a way to then go to those new heights where you can enjoy a massage or sex or food or anything—to heights that you had not previously known.
TS: Now Jena, I just have two more questions for you. There’s so much I want to talk to you about, but I’m just going to squeeze two more questions in.
In the beginning of the book, Pleasurable Weight Loss, you quote one of your teachers, Mama Gena. This is the quote: “Pleasure is the highest form of responsibility.” When I read that quote, I thought, “I don’t really know what that means.” How is pleasure a form of responsibility?
JLF: What that means is that, in any moment, if we surrender to whatever’s going on, chances are we can often be slowed—slowed in a direction of stress, of things not being OK. One of my teachers would say, “The mind, left to its own devices, will inevitably get to the thought ‘I suck.’”
[Tami laughs.]
JLF: Yes. It’s very easy to get swept into negativity. So, pleasure is the opposite of that. Pleasure is saying, “I will shine my attention towards what’s going well.” It’s not about a Pollyanna situation of just ignoring that there are conflicts or challenges in life. But, “OK, there’s a challenge around here. How could I see this challenge as an opportunity to up-level my communication skills, to grow beyond my edge in some way?”
How can I always look, in any moment, for basically the opposite of, “How am I a victim?” When you’re not taking responsibility, that’s when you have the experience, “Poor me. This is happening to me. Oh, I don’t like this. This sucks. I’m not having a good time.” It’s just so easy to get there. I constantly find myself there, and I’m like, “Oh, OK. Take responsibility. Find the pleasure.”
This, Tami, is taking pleasure into the broad context of life. It’s not like your half an hour or fun-time after work. It’s like this moment here, where we’re doing our work. How can this moment really be pleasurable? How can going to the grocery store pleasurable? How can cooking be pleasurable? How can making your bed be pleasurable? How can movement be pleasurable?
Something we haven’t gotten to yet is throwing away the idea of exercise—and this is one of the pleasurable dos and don’ts—don’t do punishing exercise. Do pleasurable movement, where you’re really enjoying it.
Again, coming back to the responsibility: don’t be a victim. Don’t let the outside world decide that you’re going to hate your body. Don’t let the outside world decide that you’re not attractive, that you don’t have what it takes to have good body image or take care of yourself. Take that responsibility. Like, “Wow! This is my life. I am at the helm. Every possibility is open to me, and I can lead my life in a way that’s positive.”
That’s probably what that means.
TS: And one final question for you, Jena: Our program is called Insights at the Edge, and I’m always curious to know what someone’s growing edge is. In your own life, what would you say is your current growing edge that you’d like to share for us?
I would say for me, it’s more pleasure and that this conversation has inspired me. But let’s hear what it is for you.
JLF: My leading edge right now is being more vulnerable in my sharing at large. For example, I got divorced earlier this year and I have not yet written an email about it or mentioned it. It’s something that just has not been mentioned.
I’m noticing that the teachers that really inspire me are the ones that are much more sharing of their humanity and of the highs and lows. They’re more relatable. They don’t just share what’s safe to share. They really put themselves out there and are vulnerable.
I feel my heart beating a little faster saying it. I think that’s really exciting—to keep finding my edge and keep sharing my edge more and more.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Jena la Flamme. Jena, thank you so much. Your book has so much in it—so many tips, practices, recipes, deep self-inquiry chapters. It’s really chock full. You did a great job.
She’s the author of the new book, Pleasurable Weight Loss: The Secrets to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Loving Your Life Today—but it’s unlike any weight loss book I’ve ever read. It’s not prescriptive, but it tunes you in to your animal body.
Jena, thank you so much for being with us on Insights at the Edge and congratulations on Pleasurable Weight Loss and its new release.
JLF: Thank you so much, Tami. It’s truly an honor and a pleasure to talk with you here.
TS: SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
