“Love thy neighbor, as thy self”, one of the Ten Commandments, tells us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and yet, loving ourselves is rarely anything we’re taught. The concept of loving myself, let alone my body, was never part of my early learning. In fact, I was taught to cover my body, and even be ashamed of it. What are the messages you received from family, teachers, religious leaders, magazines and movies about your body as you were growing up? Teen years can be especially difficult with all the hormonal and physical changes fueling much comparison and judgment of the attractiveness or not of your body. You conclude that you are your body giving power to any perceived bodily flaws reinforcing that you are flawed. If you’ve seen yourself and your body as undesirable, then the seeds for maligning and even abusing your body are deeply planted.
Your relationship with your body is not only critical to your overall health and well being, but also to generating everything you desire to create your phenomenal life. Emotions, thoughts and feelings have a huge impact on your body as they do with all your relationships. What if every cell in your body responds to every thought you think? Your body loves you and is doing everything it can to please you. When you judge it for having too much here, not enough there, it gives you more or less of what you’re criticizing. Diets rarely work because the reason to start one is based on judgment. Also, any beliefs you have about how hard it is to diet or exercise ensure that those efforts will be hard. Again, your body is giving you everything you’re expecting!
Life Changing Awareness
About 10 years ago, as I was looking at my body in the mirror beginning to judge all of what was wrong with how it looked, a revelation bubbled up that took me away from what I saw in the mirror. All of my life I had abused my body by eating junk food, pushing past my limits, exercising sporadically plus ignoring it’s warning signs and yet, it had never let me down nor given up trying to show me a different way. Realizing the incredible partner my body is as it continuously provides support even though I’ve abused it relentlessly, filled me with immense gratitude while immediately changing the relationship between my body and me. And, guess what? As I moved from judging to loving my body, it responded by losing weight with no conscious effort on my part!
Did you know that your brain and body feeds on sugar, salt, water and energy? What a concept! Especially since we’re constantly told to reduce if not eliminate sugar and salt from our diets, especially those of us with diabetes, high blood pressure.
Beginning a New Relationship with Your Body
Begin engaging with your body, using these tools from Gary Douglas of Access Consciousness, by asking questions about what it wants to eat, wear, do, then honor the answer even if it goes against all the “conventional wisdom” you’ve been told about what’s ‘good’ for it. As I’ve eaten more sugar and salt in the past 2+ years than in the previous 22 years, my weight has dropped to the lowest it’s been in over 40 years while my diabetes and high blood pressure are gone!
Are you wondering how you tell the difference between an answer from your body and one from your head that reflects your desires? Answers that come from your head are rooted in your thoughts, feelings and emotions. When you are craving attention, you may frequently want sweets. Obsessing about eating or spending often reflects wanting to fill the emptiness your feel. These examples come from feeling needy. Your body’s answers come from choice and knowing about what is best for your body at any given time. The energy of your body choosing what’s best is much lighter than your mind trying to fill a void. What feels better is your truth; what feels worse is a lie for you.
Anytime you’re feeling sick, tired or in pain, ask, “Body, what are you trying to tell me? “What would it take for this to shift?” What immediately comes to you is your answer – no judging, no second guessing.
Your body is on your side as your best friend and facilitator. Asking it what it knows and what it wants to show you can lead to some astounding answers that will transform not only your second more important relationship, but also your life and all your relationships.
