What Is Your Relationship With Your Body?
When we think about relationships, the ones most focused on are those with our spouse/significant other, family, friends, and co-workers. But how’s your relationship with yourself? Specifically, YOUR BODY? I know for most of my life, my body was just this thing that existed. It was always with me, and did whatever it did. And for the most part, I liked it (I think). Well, let’s just say that I had no real issues…that is until I ended up overweight. My relationship with my body during my “curvaceous 250lbs+” days can best be described as abusive and self-sabotaging. Repeated broken feet, lack of exercise and the overindulgence of comfort foods led to a broken ME. During those years, my relationship with my body was to ignore it and just accept it for what it was. I didn’t think I couldn’t change it, nor I didn’t put enough of the right kinds of effort into it improving it. Despite the way I was treating my body, I took great pride and care in how I dressed, my hair and nails, my relationship with my Fiancé at the time, and my work. Can you relate?
How is it that everyday I could put so much effort and care into EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE except me?
Fast forward to the present, I’m seeing this vicious trend cycling through many of the women that I meet and even several that I train. We either do the bare minimum for ourselves, or we are more focused on doing the wrong kinds and less important things for ourselves – I’m talking about artificial cover ups. Artificial coverups are the minor or “easy” things we choose to focus (hair, nails, clothes, makeup) on rather than working on the foundation aka “Your body”.
Let’s take the neck up woman for example. The neck up woman goes above and beyond to make sure her makeup, hair and lashes are on fleek. Spending excessive time and money on extensions, falsies, luxury brands and more. That is then met with perfecting the art of capturing the perfect selfies from the neck up to hide what’s down below.
We take care of our outer appearance, the story or facade that we sell to the world, but the most foundational part of our existence is left out.
What would happen if we took even half of that cumulative effort to workout and make better food choices weekly? That neck up woman would grow into a full-bodied beauty. So to the neck up woman, I ask: Why are you living only a fraction of your life living neck up? Oh because you don’t have time? You have to do abc for xyz? GTFOH. Says who?!?! There seems to be some unspoken (and extremely incorrect rule) that we put everything before us and that our bodies aren’t worth the the time, money or work to change, or that it would be too hard to change. This is just not true. YOU ARE WORTH IT.
It wasn’t even really until recently that really I started thinking about this concept and putting more effort and understanding into my relationship with my body. The relationship we have with our bodies matter. How you take care of your body, how you treat your body, what you put into it (food, drinks, drugs), how much sleep and exercise you get, etc…all of this affect what you get out of it. All of these especially matters if you desire a smaller waistline, clearer skin, toned muscles, improved posture, etc.
When I started to reflect on my life and why I reached some goals but not others, it required me to look at my habits – specifically how they conflicted with what I said my goals and desires were. I started to survey my habits. And let me tell you, you can learn a lot about your relationship with your body just by taking survey of your daily habits. I absolutely recommend this to anyone who wants to get control of your health and fitness. Take a moment and think about what types of food are you regularly putting into your body. Is it a buffet of fast food, junk foods, etc. Do you drink water daily, are you getting adequate sleep? Do you workout? These are things that we may not give much thought to as we go about our days, but we should change starting NOW. Change starts from the inside out. So you have to access your inner you before you can change your outer you. Train your mind and your body will follow.
Do this mini assignment:
1. Think of something that you really want. To meet a new friend, take a class, lose weight, improve flexibility, get a promotion at work, earn your degree.
2. Then make a list of everything that you did today. What/how many of those daily things contributed towards making that thing you really wanted happen?
3. Next make a list of everything you did over the last week. What/how many of those weekly things contributed towards making that thing you really wanted happen?
If the things we are doing aren’t moving us towards the life and body we want, then why do them? Review the answers to your mini-assignment. If you aren’t moving towards your goals based on your currently habits, I challenge you to make a change. A change for YOU. Make a list of three things you can start doing every day to move you closer to life and body of your dreams. If you’d like, shoot me an email and share those things with me so I can be your cheerleader and help encourage you. Then START LIVING FOR YOU.
