In the Christmas season of the Christian tradition, we celebrate the magic and wonder of birth, the light in the dark, and the ‘soul knowing its worth.’

I see this miracle of birth over and over in my classes – when we face our painful sugar habits, and when we turn and face our pain, offering it warmth and care, something new is born.

We come to inhabit and embody the love that we are – what’s stronger than the sugar cravings – and what rises to meet and greet all the messy emotions, cravings, and the tender needs and vulnerability we feel around sugar, holding them in compassion and wisdom.

In this warm embrace, our relationship with sugar, our relationship with ourselves, and our habits with sugar can and do soften, and change.

Sugar is the birthplace of your true self

So in the process of caring for our pain, and in the process of caring for our relationship with sugar, we, too, give birth to grace, and wonder, and knowing our worth.

It’s a beautiful paradox. Like the lowly manger in the stable, what we think is the lowest in us – our struggles, our wounds, our ‘bad’ habits, our vulnerability – what we see as ‘the least of these’ becomes an opening for courage, acceptance, and strength.

Patience, curiosity, and compassion.

Grit, grace, and love.

There is so much love to be found in exploring your relationship with sugar.

An odd statement to make, I know. And over and over, I see this love burst open in people, when the mind softens its judgments about our overeating and our wounds and the heart opens in its beauty, revealing what and how it sees when it faces this thing called ‘eating too much sugar.’

I invite you to discover this for yourself.

As you step into your sugar story, and as you become more intimate with it, you can taste this for yourself, all the flavors of love that are revealed to you through your holy, beloved manger, your inner Christmas, your wrestling match with sugar.

I wonder:  what will be born in you?