Dear Coach Paradise,
Summer is here, and here I am dreading my body at the beach. I pretty much cover up in shapeless things all year round, but I love the beach. I love swimming and floating and soaking up the sun. My problem is that I am 50-plus pounds overweight and have "muffins" running along my midsection and down my thighs, and I am so embarrassed to put on my suit and go out in public. I go late in the day when the crowds are gone and early in the morning, but sometimes I just want to go when I can. It's not that I don't want to lose weight. I do, and I try, and yo-yo up and down, and it's an ongoing goal. I don't want to wait until I lose weight to go for a swim. I think I need your help.
Signed,
The Mermaid
Dear Mermaid,
How could you not go for a swim? Isn't water where mermaids dwell and excel? You seem very clear about your desire to swim, float and soak up the sun now. Hold that thought and fuel it with how great it feels to be swimming and feeling the sun on your body. Thoughts are the engine and feelings are the fuel, so if you can keep thinking the thought and firing it up with happy thoughts, you're as good as there.
I get the picture. You're all happy thinking about the beach, and then you look at yourself in the mirror or wonder if you have a bathing suit that fits. Or you focus on arriving at the beach and feel disapproving eyes trained on you. Your feelings plummet and you think you'll stay home. Notice how what you focus on expands. When you're focused on feeling good and swimming, all is well. When you focus on what you don't like and don't want, those feelings expand as well — you're at home in your muumuu.
We are so used to focusing on lack, scarcity and the negative aspects of things (just turn on the news!) that it takes courage to point our magnets in the direction of what we want. Courage and practice — over and over. I challenge you to look at yourself and be grateful to your body as it is — it has served you well and is, at this very moment, pointing you in the direction of health and well being. Your dissatisfaction with your size will spur you to make changes. I would suggest that those changes include doing things that make you feel good and are healthy — like swimming and taking in some rays.
Focusing on what others think is always a dangerous proposition. First of all, you don't really know what they are thinking, so you are making up their thoughts and judgments. Next, when you focus on what others are thinking or feeling, those thoughts become your thoughts. Are these judgments what you choose to focus on? Is punishment and deprivation the way you choose to handle your body? Has this approached worked for you in the past?
Feeling good now is the secret: not when you are thin, rich, in the corner office, etc.
You don't have to wait to go swimming. In fact, going swimming will help you feel better, which means you will be moving in the direction of health and well being in all areas of your life. Finding a way to feel better right now is the first step toward deliberately transforming your reality. Getting a coach to work with you would accelerate the process.
In the meantime, I will hold a vision of you floating happily in the sea, basking in the sun, feeling great and heading downstream toward all that you desire.

Here's to you — swimming your way to health and happiness,
Coach Paradise
Editor's note: Coach Paradise (AKA Anne Nayer), Professional Life Coach, is a member of the International Coaching Federation, an MSW clinical social worker-psychotherapist and a medical case manager with 30 years experience working with people of all shapes, sizes and challenges. For further information about her services, call 774-4355, visit her website or email her.