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Articles from Ilene Leshinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- My Story - by Submitted on Apr 15, 2019 from Ilene LeshinskyMy Story By Ilene Leshinsky, MSW I wrote this article in January of 2012 when I was a monthly contributor to a woman’s magazine (Jill Magazine) in Plattsburgh, NY. It’s as true today as it was then. What you see in italics are new thoughts and feelings about My Story, as my evolution ...
Views: 710 - ***A New Look at New Year’s Resolutions - by Submitted on Mar 01, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyWow, it’s 2010! Is anyone besides me wondering what happened to 2009? Do any of us remember the resolutions we made at the beginning of last year? If you’re like most people, by January 1st you had a list of resolutions that revolved around weight loss and exercise habits. And… if you’re like ...
Views: 1889 - ***The Greatest Love of All - by Submitted on Mar 01, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskySomewhere in the mid 1980’s, during that fifteen year stretch in between husband #1 and my second and forever husband, the song “The Greatest Love of All” came out. It was popularized by Whitney Houston but my favorite version is the one by George Benson. The song is about learning to love one’s ...
Views: 2369(1 vote) - ***We’re All in the Same Boat - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyIn my office waiting room, I have an oil painting of a small rowboat adrift on the sea. The boat is empty, about to go under and the sea is turbulent. It was painted by a former client, a young woman who I met when she had been struggling with bulimia for seven years. She gave me that painting ...
Views: 1870 - ***The Female Prosperity Hormone…Oxytocin - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyEver hear of Oxytocin? No, not the painkiller, oxycontin, but the hormone that is released in childbirth and assists in the bonding experience between mother and child. Well, more and more research is demonstrating that oxytocin is also the female prosperity hormone, and responsible for not only ...
Views: 2132 - ***The Gifts of Menopause - by Submitted on Feb 14, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyHot flashes. Night sweats. Vaginal dryness. Thinning pubic hair. Mental confusion. Increased depression, anxiety, and irritability. Slower metabolism. Thickening waistline. Weight gain. Thinning bones. Wrinkling skin. Decreased sex drive. Painful intercourse. Yes, these and more are the many ...
Views: 1776 - ***Free at Last from Diet and Weight Obsessions - by Submitted on Feb 08, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyIn her 1985 book, entitled “Making Peace with Food”, Susan Kano chronicles her decision to feed her body, rather than starving it and to no longer focus on weight, size, and body obsessions. The book is part autobiography and part practical guide and is as relevant today as it was when she wrote ...
Views: 1690 - ***The Long and Winding Road…to Self-Acceptance - by Submitted on Feb 08, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyI am 63 years old! Have I ever told you that? I realized that I seldom reveal my actual age these days. Not because of the stereotypical female thing – we lie about our age and our weight. And I never was that way when I was younger. In fact, I threw myself a fortieth birthday party and proudly ...
Views: 2191 - ***Learning to Be Happy - by Submitted on Feb 08, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyI have a client who says to me every now and again, “I wish I had your life. You always seem so happy.” I smile and think about some of the “discussion” I have had with my husband or that the cost of medical attention for our animals is putting my vet in a higher tax bracket or how irritated I ...
Views: 1852 - ***BodySense: Make Eating a Mindful Experience - by Submitted on Feb 01, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyA while ago, one of my clients gave birth and decided to breastfeed her infant so she often brought her baby to therapy. Sometimes in the middle of session, it was time to eat. I’d watch the baby start to cry, curl her fists, scrunch up her face, and make rigid her little body. She was hungry ...
Views: 1705 - ***Mirror, Mirror on the Wall - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyThis summer, I did one of the most courageous things a woman can do – I tried on bathing suits – and actually purchased two! We were going on vacation in August, renting a house for a week on the Atlantic and I wanted to go to the beach in a bathing suit that flattered my body type and felt ...
Views: 1735 - ***If You’re an Emotional Eater, Wait Ten Minutes - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyI was in a car accident recently. It wasn’t a big one and thank God no one was hurt. However, accidents are jolting and can make us feel very vulnerable. After the initial shock, I wanted to eat. For me and for many of us, food calms and soothes. It transports us from our fears, our anxieties, ...
Views: 1527 - ***“There is Beauty in the World…” And It Comes in All Shapes and Sizes - by Submitted on Jan 18, 2013 from Ilene LeshinskyA couple of things happened this past August that made me wonder about beauty and what it means to be beautiful. At the beginning of the month, I went to a fancy schmantzy family wedding in Newport, Rhode Island. There were people there I had not seen in decades. (That’s what happens when ...
Views: 3658(1 vote) - *** Addicted to Food? Maybe Not - by Submitted on Jan 18, 2013 from Ilene Leshinsky“I’m addicted to food.” “I’m a foodacholic”. I hear many of my clients express these beliefs and if the truth be told, I used to say the same things about myself. I remember planning binges that consisted of high fat, high sugar, and high salt foods. One of my favorite “meals” after a long, hard ...
Views: 1589 - ***Body Acceptance: What We Can Learn from Men - by Submitted on Dec 20, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyI think that men have it easier than women. No, I’m not going to discuss the state of the feminist movement in 2013, nor the equal pay for equal work debate. However, I am going to state that men have more body acceptance than women – and we women can learn a lot about this from ...
Views: 3107(3 votes) - ***What I Learned When I was Single - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyWhen I was twenty-four years old, I became a divorced woman. I had been married for four and a half years and in relationship with this man/ boy since I was eighteen. Getting divorced rocked my world, turned it upside down, pulled the rug out from under me, and knocked me on my tushy. All the ...
Views: 2931(1 vote) - ***Real Men Love Real Women - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyOne of the reasons I love my husband so much is that he thinks most of the models in the Victoria Secret catalogues are “too skinny”. Yes, that’s a direct quote and boy, am I glad, since at five feet tall and a size 8 petite, I’ll never make the front cover – nor the inside pages for that ...
Views: 1988 - ***Proud to Be a Tortoise! - by Submitted on Nov 29, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyRemember the Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”? It’s the story of a lightning-fast rabbit and a plod-along turtle that are seemingly mismatched in a race. It was the tortoise, annoyed with the hare’s boastful assertions of being faster than the wind, that challenged the hare. To the ...
Views: 1736(1 vote) - ***Body Image – Self Image - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyA hundred years ago, Renoir painted “La Toilette” (The Bather), a portrait of a young woman in the nude. She has long, auburn hair, full breasts and hips, a rounded belly, and, if the truth be told, thighs that look like mine. She’s voluptuous and she’s beautiful! One hundred years ago she was ...
Views: 1881(1 vote) - ***Learning to Be Number One! - by Submitted on Oct 12, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyThis past winter I was watching a football game with my husband and the TV camera panned across the stadium. A whole section of fans raised large foam fists with extended index fingers and shouted “We’re #1!” That moment got me thinking about what it means to be number one. Regarding what? To ...
Views: 1883(1 vote) - ***Yes, You Can Stop Eating! - by Submitted on Oct 05, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskySo many women I know say something like this: I don’t know when to stop eating. I need a zipper on my mouth and someone to pull it shut because I don’t know how to stop. I’m out of control around food. I’m an addict and food is my drug of choice. These thoughts and feelings make us feel bad ...
Views: 1816 - ***To Eat or Not to Eat: That is the Question - by Submitted on Sep 26, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyHow do we know if we’re hungry? Have you ever had the experience of eating foods that you love when you are genuinely, physically hungry? When your body has signaled you that it is hungry? If you have, then you know that eating from hunger, from true physical hunger, is one of the most joyous ...
Views: 2631 - ***On Your Mark… Get Set… Go to Your Natural Weight! - by Submitted on Sep 26, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyThe last time that I participated in an organized weight loss program was about thirty years ago, but I remember the experience as if it was yesterday. “What number do you want as your goal weight?” asked the receptionist at my first visit. I chose a number that I had weighed after my divorce ...
Views: 1917 - ***Get a Ph.D. in Body Image! - by Submitted on Sep 14, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyI’m getting a Ph. D.! According to Dr. Christiane Northrup, any woman who looks at her naked body in a full-length mirror, every day, is in a Body Image Ph.D. program. You may have seen Dr. Northrup during Mountain Lake PBS fundraisers and she’s written several books including “Women’s Bodies, ...
Views: 1902 - ***My Story - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyWhen I was a very little girl, the story goes, I didn’t eat very much. This made my mother anxious and insecure. In those days, babies were supposed to be plump. So with prompting from my grandmother, she found “creative” ways to get me to eat, what they considered “enough”. One strategy she ...
Views: 1847(1 vote) - ***Body Image Insights from an Aging Goddess - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyMarch is my birthday month. As you are reading this I am now 42 years old. Okay, I’m using the new math – that 60 is the new 40. On every birthday, I take time to reflect on my life. Am I happy with my work? Yes! Am I happy in my marriage? Yes! Do I like getting older? Yes… and no. It’s ...
Views: 1857 - ***Exploring the Innate Wisdom of the Body - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskySometimes I feel like a salmon, swimming upstream to fulfill its biological imperative, getting bloodied and battered in the process. Although my spawning days are long gone, I do feel pushed, compelled, called, however, to send the message to any woman (or man) willing to listen: Our bodies, ...
Views: 1807 - ***Find Your Own Way - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyAs I write this article in late December, the annual influx of television commercials and magazine ads for weight loss programs has begun. Supplements, frozen foods, points, meal cards, meal replacements, on-line calculators, exercise machines, videos, balls and bands. Some promote themselves ...
Views: 1928(1 vote) - ***Don’t Pull the Trigger! - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskySo did you make your list? Your list of triggers? Last month I asked us to explore the emotions, situations, and foods that propel us down the path to unconscious, mindless eating. Regardless of what they are, how long-standing and deep-seated, we no longer have to respond to our discomfort by ...
Views: 1737 - ***Hunger: Friend or Foe? - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyAccording to the countless weight management commercials and advertisements that we see on television and in print, hunger is our enemy. Hunger has to be controlled, managed, ignored, or tamed. And feeding our hunger will set off a cycle of frenzied, nonstop eating. Right? Wrong! Before I ...
Views: 2015(1 vote) - ***So If Diets Don’t Work, What Does? - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyThe very next day after I submitted last month’s Jill article, in which I complained about feeling like a lone salmon, swimming in a sea of diet messages, trying to convey the innate wisdom of the body, I received my monthly issue of Psychotherapy Networker. The cover read Diets and Our Demons. ...
Views: 1811 - ***What Are your Triggers? - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyI’ve been doing this for many, many years – following the philosophy of attuned eating, practicing what I preach in my BodySense groups. And yet every now and again, I find myself eating when I’m not hungry. And when that happens, I don’t select healthy, nutritious foods, I go right for the ...
Views: 1948 - ***“The Great Body Acceptance Debate” - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyI will never be a runway model. At five feet, I’m too short and as an Aging Goddess, I’m too old. Being height and size challenged for much of my life, body acceptance has been an on-going challenge for me. When I was in my early thirty’s and very, very thin, a man I was seeing told me that I ...
Views: 2564 - ***Body Healthy/ Body Beautiful - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyWe’ve all gone through it – the dreaded plateau. We’ve been dieting and exercising for weeks, maybe months, and been exhilarated by our initial weight loss and energy surge. And then - nothing. No movement on the scale and we start to feel like failures. We must be doing something wrong. We ...
Views: 2381(1 vote) - ***Bellies and Buttocks and Breasts, Oh My! - by Submitted on Aug 03, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyRemember in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion were walking through the forest with arms linked, afraid of lions and tigers and bears? Are we women fearful that our bodies will burst forth with womanly parts like Dorothy and her companions were scared of the ...
Views: 2144 - ***We Owe It To Our Daughters - by Submitted on Jul 25, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyWhen I was a little girl and my mother didn’t want my family to know what she was saying, she spoke in French. I have memories of her and my aunts looking at me, and laughingly saying “grosse fesse”. For the non-French Canadian readers of Jill, it loosely translates to “fat ass”. In recent ...
Views: 1943 - ***“When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies” - by Submitted on Jul 25, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyGo get a piece of paper and a pen, right now, please. And do a little exercise with me. Without any editing, write down all of the negative thoughts you had about your body yesterday. That’s right, all of them! Your list might include: I’m fat. I feel fat. My belly is huge. My thighs jiggle. My ...
Views: 2321 - ***Listen to Your Body Talk - by Submitted on Jul 25, 2012 from Ilene LeshinskyDo you believe in magic? “…In a young girl’s heart, how the music can free her whenever it starts?” as the song by the Lovin’ Spoonful goes. I do! I believe there is magic and mystery all around us. Some say coincidence. I say magic. That belief keeps me young and expecting great things for ...
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