Love What Your Mama Gave You

Today before my shower, I was brushing my skin and was thinking about how I would love to lose a little bit of weight.  I thought, man, my thighs are looking a bit thick and wouldn’t it be nice if my abs were just a little bit tighter?  Why am I beating myself up like this?  I’m a naturally curvy lady and I should be proud of what I have instead of having a negative body image.

Being a woman can sometimes be tough because everywhere you look there are models, actresses, singers who make a living flaunting their bodies, and it can leave us normal women feeling a wee bit insecure.

I’ve decided that I’m going to LOVE my body and appreciate it instead of being so hard on myself.  Nobody is perfect.  What is perfect anyway?

Positive thinking is sorta like working out.  You have to force yourself to work your brain muscles in order to keep those positive thoughts flowing.  So these are some of the things I am going to say when the mind starts to go negative:

I love my body because…

It allows me to live my life

It allows me to chase my little children around the park

It allows me to feel things and experience life

It is what God gave me, so I am going to nourish it with healthy food so I can maximize its potential

I will embrace my body and be thankful for all it has provided for me

I want to be a positive role model for my daughter and teach her that the shape of her body doesn’t determine her value in society

Who cares if you are too curvy, too skinny, too short or too tall?

We are all beautiful in our own unique way. Don’t forget that!  (that’s what I’ll be telling myself!)

Finding a Way to Heal and Learning How to Deal With It

This is a guest post from a colleague, Shannon Galton, who is in public relations and an amazing and insightful yoga instructor. She is on the path of enlightenment and is working towards healing wounds from the past. Here are her words on why we should deal with issues head on and the affects of what can happen if we take an avoidance approach. May her words inspire you as they have me.

It took me all of 29 years to realize that we as human beings make ourselves suffer. Don’t get me wrong, it is obvious we do not enjoy suffering. Whether it is from a death, divorce or financial crisis, we generally do not enjoy being put through the ringer. But some of us do not face our problems the healthy way, which leads to more and more unhappiness.

Here’s the thing: so often is the case, that instead of facing our problem and working our way through it, we throw it back into our mind. We bury it. We trap it. We cover it up, continue on with life, and it gets stuck down there in our soul or our subconscious or wherever you want to believe it goes. And it stays there.

It would be one thing if the problem just stayed put (wow, would all of our problems be solved). But, that’s not the way it works. This problem soon becomes exacerbated. It thrives on not being dealt with, and it forces us to unconsciously make decisions for the rest of our lives in a different way. Whereas, if we would have dealt with the problem head first, we could potentially have avoided years of subconscious torment. Face it, whether you want to admit it or not, once you bury your problems and do not deal with them, they come out in other ways. They are not happy buried in your soul or your mind. They find a way to resurface. Six months or six years later, eventually, they resurface. And more often than not, they have resurfaced in a completely different shape and taken on a life of their own.

So now is the time to deal with your past, starting with the problems you have buried. We need to untrap the negative thoughts that have stemmed from a major area of trauma in our past lives. We all have them! Because whether we like it or not, the problems that delve under the surface become traumas. Once buried into our subconscious long enough, they change who we are, how we think and our decision-making process. Simply put, they make us unhappy. It might take a few years, but it happens.

Learn to be honest with yourself about the problems you have not dealt with. Meditation, counseling, yoga, journaling….unlock the potential of who you can be, simply by confronting your past and beginning the journey to heal. Your mind, body and soul will thank you.