I have been struggling with weight loss for most of my life, well that is what I thought. What I realize now it was not about the weight at all, it was all about getting my mind healthy. As I write this it feels incredibly vulnerable, but I know I am not the only one who struggles with this, so my hope is this blog will find those of you who need it and those of you who are ready for a new perspective on themselves.

The thing is that I have always eaten healthy and got an average amount of exercise, but my weight never really changed much. Of course, I would do the up and down like most of us do, but no real drastic changes. The more I tried, the more I would judge and criticize myself, and the more my self-talk would focus on my weight and not being good enough. I constantly would think (and judge myself) about what I was eating, what I was doing and question WHY? I couldn’t lose weight. Having been a long-time believer in the mind-body connection, I even tried losing weight from that angle.

Looking back now it consumed a lot of mind space and utilized a lot of energy. In my mind, I could turn everything into a weight issue. Reflecting back, this is a pattern of thinking I had been playing out since childhood, so it was well ingrained and definitely repeated.

I know I am not alone observing this, our society has always had a strict view of beauty and for most of us an absolutely, unattainable one! (Although thankfully I do see this slowly changing).  I was fed these messages, and I ate them up! I felt I did not measure up!

This all changed after my husband passed away. Overall in my life, I took his passing as a sign from the Universe that I needed to make some changes. One of these changes was I took my Whole Person Coaching course to fulfill my career aspirations. But what it did for me was completely unexpected! In the course, I was coached numerous times and these common patterns, themes and beliefs started to come out. This began my journey to become my authentic self and loving that person no matter the size! And that is when I started looking at weight loss from a whole new perspective.

What I learned from my experience is that I was withholding love from myself, I was looking at my weight as a roadblock to my worthiness, as an excuse for anything that went wrong and I created thousands (probably millions) of stories in my head that perpetuated this belief… Unless you weigh less you are not enough, you are not worthy… subtitle… something is wrong with you unless you lose weight. This is pretty harsh messaging, and most of us would never say that to anyone out loud, but most of us, in some version or another, say it to ourselves on a regular basis.

 

It’s not easy to recall what the first step was in my transformation as the life lessons were coming to me hard a fast at that time. During those few years, the Universe was providing me with lesson after lesson which continually furthered my growth and pushed me further along my path to authenticity in all directions! What is clear though, is the changes that took place to my body!

Once I started really looking at myself and truly embracing and loving all of me, the weight just started coming off. The more personal work I did, the more I lost. I stopped judging myself and started loving the reflection in the mirror. I stopped the stories (in my head) that validated how I was ‘not enough’ because of my weight and started focusing on my being enough and being worthy and simply loving myself! The more I continued to move through things the healthier I felt, the more I wanted to take care of myself. Makes logical sense right, the more we love something, the more we take care of it.

I can honestly say now, that I am writing this blog from a place of worthiness, from a place of loving myself for ALL of me, a place of strength – mind, body, spirit. My body has responded amazingly to all of these internal changes – because I love it and appreciate it. It works hard with me, and the weight seems to be coming off but more important than that is, it doesn’t really matter to me anymore about the weight. Because before everything else, I know that my body is the perfect representation of who I am at this moment. I am sure though the more I work through my life lessons, the more my body will change. I see it happen all the time the more lessons I learn, the more my reflection changes and the deeper my relationship with myself gets. Don’t get me wrong even with all the work I have done there are still times when these old beliefs and patterns show up (they have been in place for years) but the difference is now they are more like little blips on the radar, and I have the tools to calm them before they get out of control.

I understand for a lot of people reading this it may seem a little different, it is definitely not the norm. We are taught if we eat healthy and exercise, we will lose weight but the critical component, in my mind, is that we also need to get our minds in order, let go of our stories, beliefs, and patterns that continually hold us back and love who we are right now! And if you take it outside of yourself (child rearing, plants, pets, relationships etc.) and really think about it, in order for anything to thrive, we need to feed it positivity and love! If all we are feeding it is negative, loathing messages (aka garbage) then it at most will just survive.

 

So why not make 2019 YOUR year to just LOVE yourself for who you are right now! And watch how you too start to thrive!

If you want to take it a step further and are interested in learning tools to help you live a healthier, happier life, join me for a 7-week transformational course starting January 14, 2019. For more information on the Healthy You! Mind, Body, Soul program fill in the information below.