The longest relationship you will ever be in is the one you have with yourself. Today we are going to talk about the relationship you have with your body because your body is an extension of self. Now there are endless perspectives we could take on this relationship but today let’s talk about the relationship you have with your body from the perspective of heart-centered choice.
Sometimes you forget that you have the power to choose your thoughts, and in that choice you determine how you feel. Your relationship with your body is established by those thoughts and feelings. Whether you have a healthy relationship with your body or one that’s a bit more toxic, you always have the power to choose where you focus, what you think, and what you believe, and it’s those things that will lead you to how you feel. You always have the power to rebuild your relationship with your body and make it healthier; and you do that one thought and feeling at a time.
Sometimes your humanity can get messy around your body. When I say messy, I simply mean you have picked up negative patterns of thinking from past experience, and now your present moment has to filter though that negativity.
But your present moment is always the perfect opportunity to turn inward and get heart-centered…
Let me give you some personal examples of my messy human experiences that I had to sort through along the way… That way you really know you aren’t alone in rebuilding that healthy relationship with your body.
I’ll just list some of the ones that were the loudest for you:
- Having a ballet teacher tell me that I was too big to partner with a boy because he would never be able to lift someone as think as me over his head.
- How about having so many mosquito bites on your legs that you feel like you are on fire and you can’t stop scratching and creating scabs. So your dad tries to stop you from scratching by telling you that you won’t ever be able to be on stage with all those scabs.
- My mom constantly telling me that she was skinnier then me… still unsure if that was just to make herself feel better or to try to initiate some sort of competition.
- My sister giving me her cast off “fat pants” as a declaration in front of my boyfriend at a family dinner.
- My brother loved grabbing at my stomach, laughing and calling me chunky, reminding me I was the only one in the family who wasn’t really athletic.
- Working for a doctor who prescribed pills to people for their “fluffiness,” which I took till it made my heart flip out.
- I also worked for a ballet company where I watched people do crazy things to their bodies so they could keep their jobs and feel good enough for their position in the company.
Keep in mind these are just the headliners…. There were so many other moments that I experienced that affected my relationship with my body.
Today I love my relationship with my body. We are in constant communication and I love listening to what she has to say to me. And she always responds in brilliant and beautiful ways when I giver here what she likes… sleep, meditation, thoughts and feeling of joy and optimism, food that feels good and doesn’t irritate her.
Are we perfect? No, but we are in it together and that feels really powerful. I got to this place by cleaning up the mess other people handed me. I sorted through my thoughts and made sure that what I was thinking was actually mine and not something someone else handed down to me.
So I want to look at 5 contrasting ideas that can feed the messy humanness or fortify a healthy relationship with your body. These 5 contrasting ideas can help you catch what might not really be yours and offer you the space to make some new thought choices that actually feel so much better.
- Habit of Criticism Vs. Habit of Appreciation:
If you are honest with yourself, which side of the contrast between criticism and appreciation do you usually fall? I am visual so it helps me to think of it in percentages. So what percentage of the time do your thoughts about your body come from criticism vs. appreciation?
Your body is a gift that your divinity gave your humanity so that you could create. When you establish a habit of criticism you start to chip away at that bond that you have with your body. Negative thought by negative thought not only do you tear yourself down but you rob yourself of what’s possible because you are criticizing yourself.
Optimism is a very powerful point of view and appreciation gets you there. When your thoughts get filtered through appreciation everything just starts to feel better. Appreciation builds you up and celebrates what is right and good or going well. And not only does it keeps the door open for you to experience more good feeling stuff, it also helps you get through moments that might be hard.
So make a choice. Remember you have that power to do that, to make a choice. What habit do you want to create for yourself? If you want to feel good, then step into building up to a habit of appreciation. Actively choose thoughts of appreciation and then watch the natural progression of your thoughts about your body. When they lean towards criticism just remember you are re-patterning and have the power of choice with each thought you think.
For me it’s no longer about the patter of criticism my family members pushed on me. I don’t see my body through the eyes of my brother or my sister. I see my body though my own eyes and I celebrate what my body can do and how it serves me every single day.
- View Your Body As An Enemy Vs. View Your Body As A Tool:
So these contrasting ideas are a little bit different then the last. When I ask you if you see your body as an enemy or a tool you might have to really think about it. Is your body something you fight against or bully into submission or something you get to use to help you do what you want to do?
Often the inner dialogue people have with their bodies’ leans more towards enemy. We have culturally been groomed to believe that unless our bodies look a particular way we are not good enough, worthy, beautiful, adequate or even “right” as a human. That dynamic sets you up to be at odds with your body. It all ends up feeling combative; whether you fit into the picture, but have to bully yourself to stay that way, or you miss the mark all together, and shame yourself for not fitting the mold.
When you sort through the messy human part and realize that you and your body are on the same team… talk about a game changer. I have said it before but it’s worth repeating. Your body is a tool that your divinity gave to your humanity so that you can create. It’s a tool to help you live out your dreams and create in this world of ours. It’s not only a tool it’s a brilliant tool… miraculous actually and it is working for you 24/7. Whether you are good to it or not, whether you see it as an enemy or not, whether you bully it or value it… it still shows up in the very best way that it can to serve you.
So you have a choice. If that messy humanness has tricked you into thinking you have to fight your body, take pills to make it fit into someone else’s ideal, starve it, work it out until it breaks down, or anything that sets you at odds with your body, you have the power to shift your thoughts and ideas around it.
Notice your thoughts and inner dialog. Bring your awareness to the motivation behind the thoughts and from there you have the power to make the choice. Continue physically and emotionally treating your body like it’s an enemy or embrace it’s power as an incredible tool.
Feelings of Resistance Vs. Feelings of Peace, Alignment or Harmony:
These contradicting ideas act as such a great check-in for so many parts of life. It’s really part of the Stream Kayak Principle that I talk about in my book, The Starter Kit and the River of Life Handbook. I have done lot’s of videos where I talk about this contrast and I will link one of them here << VIDEO>>
I personally use this check in all day long. When you feel that resistance in the relationship with your body and fuel it with negative thoughts, you move farther away from your own inner alignment, harmony or peace. Frustration, shame, disappointment, and disgust are all symptoms of being in resistance. You can feel it, that push against your inner truth, the fight that hold your focus on the negative.
When you choose to make room for inner alignment, harmony and peace within and for your body, you make room for possibility. You aren’t necessarily saying you want for things to stay the same, but you are allowing things to be in the moment and using what is to help you get where you want to go… this offers you harmony with where you are now.
Here is a personal example of being in resistance and then making a heart-centered choice to shift to alignment. We have all been there where our cloths don’t fit the way they used to. I put on a pair of jeans the other day and I could hardly button them up and they were so uncomfortable that I had to take them off.
I could almost immediately feel the resistance with in me. I started negatively pushing against myself. How could I let my body get so for off without knowing… boo… shame… hiss… Then I sat on the floor of my closet while I pulled on my “active” wear that I had not intention of making active and I put my hand on my heart and just took a breath.
I acknowledged the resistance and made a choice. Breath by breath I got back into my higher-level thinking, that place of alignment, and started choosing thoughts that felt better. Does my body feel off in other ways outside of not fitting into those pants? I had been feeling a bit inflamed. Ok, that was something I could totally do. Focus on taking down the inflammation and being a better listener to my body. What else did my body want that felt in flow and harmony? It wanted to dance. I know that sounds so silly but that is what it felt like it needed. So I turned on some music and danced all around the house while doing other things.
I had the power to shift a resistant moment that could have turned into a whole downward spiral into something that was really freeing. And I felt so much better making that choice for myself.
Activated Triggers Vs. Activated Indicators:
A trigger sets into motion patterns of thought or actions. Often they can have a negative effect on your relationship with your body. The triggers are connected to that messy humanness, that when left uncheck, can erode the relationship.
The trigger would have you believe there is no choice, just an extension of itself into action. The contrasting idea that you can use the trigger as an indicator, offers you the option to make a choice. It’s actually are very powerful shift in perspective.
If you use the trigger as an indicator you stop that pattern and figure out what the trigger is trying to tell you. Curiosity is key… Rather then taking direction from the trigger you let it show you what’s really going on.
There are all kinds of triggers and all kinds of messy humanness woven into your story that may need some attention. And you know what… that’s totally ok. Take it as it comes… seeing the power of your choice wherever you can. Let the trigger show you were to clean up the old patterns of belief that no longer serve you.
Putting on a bathing suite use to trigger me. I would be feeling so good in and about my life and then be asked to do something in a bathing suite. I would put it on and it would trigger thoughts of shame, disappointment and worthlessness. I would focus on all the things that weren’t “right” according to other people’s versions of what right was suppose to be. And I could feel myself shrinking down under the influence of the messy humanness that the trigger had set into motion.
Whether it was the voice of my ballet teacher, siblings, mom or other people I saw tragically hurting their bodies for the sake of fitting into a mold of someone else making…. It had become my trigger and my patter of thinking and it was up to me to use it as an indicator to help me clean it all up.
Now for the most part I completely enjoy being in a bathing suite. The experience is now mine and because I used the trigger I was able to clean it up and take it back. On occasion being in a swimsuit with people who I know judge their own bodies harshly can trigger the old patterns. I know they are seeing me through the eyes that they see themselves, and for a moment I pick it back up. But because of the relationship I have with my body now, I use that moment as an indicator… and it’s indicating I am thinking according their beliefs and not my own. It’s as simply as feeling my way back to my own beliefs.
I have a great friend who get’s triggered by out of the blue health situations. A random pain in her body can trigger her into a place of anxiety. It set’s into motion old patterns of thought of catastrophic things taking her health and happiness down. She can feel the trigger when it engages, and now she uses it as an indicator to re-pattern her thinking and beliefs out of the old messiness and into a place that is true for her now. She curiously goes back and figured out what’s old and belonged to other people, and what she believed today without that filter of the messiness. I have watched her not only take her power back but reclaim her joy and happiness… one thought and feeling at a time and one trigger shifted to indicator at a time.
No matter what the trigger may be, you have the power to use it as an indicator, and that choice helps you build a healthy relationship with your body.
Focus on Size or Weight Vs. Focus on How You Feel:
Sometimes I wonder who came up with the bathroom scale. No doubt it was a man who wanted to make money off of the insecurity of women. Why do you need to know how much you weigh on a daily basis? Does it really matter? Or is it a distraction that feeds the limiting beliefs that other people suggested for you. You know how you feel in your body, you don’t need numbers on a scale to tell you that. You know when things are off and when you feel really good.
Again we are conditioned to believe both on a conscious and subconscious level that our worth, significance, and ability to have a place in society are determined by how your bodies are classified. Rather then focusing on size or weight you have a choice to focus on how you feel. If you are building a healthy relationship with your body, your body will tell you when things are off, inflamed, or aggravated. It will also tell you when you are doing things that make it feel good and help it move more easily and with more joy.
Being weighed at work to see how well the pills were working… focusing on my size and weight and not how I felt… what a swing and miss for my relationship with my body. My heart would be working overtime so that the numbers on the scale would reflect other people’s standards for me. I felt tired and hyper and weak and thrilled to fit into other people’s ideals. I ignored how my body felt; focusing on weight and size and in doing so I was making a choice.
I stopped playing the game years ago. I don’t get on scales because those numbers mean nothing to me, and tend to pull me towards other people’s old judgments. If I go to a doctor’s office I turn around so that I don’t see it. I know when I am feeling good and I know when my body is inflamed, or carrying too much to feel it’s best. I know a range of sizes that usually fit but I’m not attached to them. The size is not a definition it’s a tool to help me purchase cloths.
You get to choose where you focus, what you kinds of thoughts you activate. When you choose to focus on how you feel you create an intimate conversation with your body. No one else really has the power to invade that conversation. Learning to actively listening to your body, not the limiting dialog of the messy humanness builds a healthy relationship with your body.
Keep in mind that you are not your body you have a body. No matter where you are in the relationship you have with your body I want to remind you that you are worthy, valuable, and significant just as you are and that you have the power to choose heart- centered thoughts about your body.
