Welcome to a wonderful track where we are going to dive in a little bit about our body image.
And this is coming from someone who has gone through a variety of ways to get healthy and has spent an entire lifetime struggling with body image.
In fact,
I wrote a book about my journey with worthiness and there are several parts of the book that refer to body image and societal expectations,
Just my journey.
I'm very passionate about this topic and I feel that in my life right now I am extremely happy with my journey.
I have been on A.
Fitness journey and working with nutrition and movement and of course mindfulness and meditation.
And I feel like I'm in a really good place.
The tricky part about body image is that I do find there is a fine line.
Between well several things but a fine line between accepting yourself and truly loving who you are.
And health.
So we can accept,
And I speak from experience,
I've weighed close to 200 pounds before and I have loved myself at that weight more than I've loved myself when I weighed 130 pounds as a teenager.
And so it gets a little bit.
Confusing I would say is the best word.
But what I found for myself was,
Even though I completely accepted my body,
Okay,
I don't want to say completely,
Even though I 90% accepted my body at that weight.
There was a point that I hit where I just wanted to feel stronger.
Lighter,
More athletic,
So that I can move through my day well,
So that I could age with strong,
Strong muscles,
With strong bones.
And so when I speak about body image,
When I speak about overall health,
This is kind of my view of it.
So take it or leave it.
This is simply my perspective.
This is not the law.
An exercise that I remember doing,
Not a physical lift weights exercise,
Kind of a personal growth exercise and visualization exercise that I really,
Really love doing,
And I've worked with several people and used this,
Is regardless of your fitness level at this moment,
This is all to do with how you feel about your body.
Because we all know that if.
.
.
We are living in shame and we are speaking negative words about our bodies.
That's not doing anything to our soul,
But hurting it.
So if you are constantly even just thinking thoughts about,
Oh,
You know,
I wish my waist was smaller.
Oh,
I wish I.
.
.
You know,
My legs were smaller,
I wish my arms were,
I wish my legs had more muscle,
Oh I wish my.
.
.
Butt wasn't so wide.
I don't know.
Whatever your your thoughts are.
A very very powerful way to kind of shift that.
Is to send love to the area that you have perhaps spent years Cursing.
Or degrading or just not speaking kindly to.
And so what we have to do and what I really think is a great reminder is that These bodies are kind of our little carriers.
They carry our souls,
Our life force.
Our true essence.
These are just kind of that armor,
That outer armor.
Odor view.
And when we send.
Great amounts of love and gratitude to these bodies,
These physical bodies.
It shifts something.
When we take a pause to say thank you for breathing.
For having our hearts beating,
All these things that happen in the background,
Our muscles being able to move.
Our joints,
Our fingers.
Are hearing all of our senses like when we think about this actual miracle that is our body.
When we take just a moment.
To show that great appreciation.
Without these bodies,
We wouldn't be living.
And a lot of this stuff happens in the background.
We don't have to think or tell ourselves,
Okay,
Take a breath in.
Okay,
Heart,
I need you to keep beating.
All of this stuff just happens in the background,
Without conscious thought.
That alone.
I believe.
Is reason enough.
To absolutely adore our bodies.
So moving from that.
.
.
If you move into a place where you sit in front of a mirror,
Get naked if you want.
If you are brave,
Stand naked in front of a mirror and find at least five things that you absolutely love about yourself.
And it doesn't matter if it's your eyebrows,
Or your thumb.
Find five things that you love about yourself.
That's your first step.
And then.
.
.
Your next step,
Maybe those areas that you're not quite so sure that you love,
Stand there in that mirror and I want you to stare at those spots.
If you can,
If you have to turn around and stare,
You may have to just visualize them,
But send love.
Send health,
Wellness.
Beautiful beautiful energy to each of the spots if you have more than one.
That you've always struggled with.
And send love.
Think in your mind how you want to feel about those spots.
Say them out loud.
Even if you're not sure.
I love my flabby arms.
Change that to I love my strong arms.
And as you start to speak in this way to your body,
You may find some shifts,
You may find some new urges to perhaps move your body or exercise or walk in nature or there may there may just be something that shifts when we start respecting and treating our bodies like these beautiful vessels that they are.
The feelings that will follow may surprise you.
And being a certain size or a certain muscle tone or a certain body fat ratio is irrelevant.
When you think about your overall wellness,
When you think about feeling great.
How do you want to feel?
I guarantee we want to feel good,
We want to feel powerful,
Healthy,
Well.
That's all it takes.
We don't need to have these perfect six packs or we don't need to have these beautiful bikini bodies in order to feel good about ourselves.
We need to make sure we're healthy.
We're putting beautiful fuel inside of our bodies.
We're drinking water.
We're out in the sunshine.
We're moving in nature.
When you start doing those things,
You may just notice a shift.
And you may start to have a love and deep,
Deep respect.
For that beautiful body of yours.
So I challenge you.
Do some of those exercises.
Take that time in the mirror.
Really drill down.
See if you can create a plan.
That nourishes your body,
That respects your body,
That fuels your body.
And watch.
How your body image shifts,
How your love of self shifts.
I hope this has served you and helped you in some way.
Thank you so much for being here.
Namaste,
Peace and awesomeness to you.
And yours.
