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Today, I am blessed because I have you in my life.
I’m not exactly the touchy feely type. It’s true. In fact, many would call me (Dear Hubby) a black and white kind of person. Over the years, I’ve had a hard time accepting “soft” self-improvements-heck, I can barely stand doing yoga (yes, I consider that touchy feely). That being said, I firmly believe being kind to ourselves and speaking positively about ourselves is very important.
Being negative, constantly putting ourselves down, takes a lot of energy. What is truly sad to me is when I see someone who actually believes all that negative “garbage”. You know those people-in fact, maybe you are one. When you punish yourself with negative beliefs, you buy into more negativity. We become over-dependant on others to receive our positive reinforcement, instead of looking within. It feeds our lack of self worth, poor body image. It immobilizes us, stopping us from taking risks, wanting to change and allows us to be the victim. We stop seeing anything positive in life, instead life becoming full of doom and gloom. We begin to feel sorry for ourselves all the time, having a great “pity party”. “Yes - but” becomes our excuse mantra whenever we try to change our lives. “Yes, I should exercise, but I don’t have time” “Yes, I could make a healthier choice, but I had a bad day at work”. Believing in negativity, all that garbage that runs through our heads if we allow it, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I can’t lose weight. It never works” will in fact, be true. We will, at a sub-conscious level, work to achieve the worst-and fulfill our lives with failure, rejection, loss, disapproval-or anything else we might consider a personal catastrophe.
Part of getting healthy is taking care of the heart, mind and soul. We wouldn’t consider insulting someone close to us, putting someone else down, being disrespectful to the people we care about in our lives. Why is it acceptable to do that to ourselves??? IT’S NOT.
Positive, caring and respectful messages are what we need to repeat to ourselves daily. Self-affirmations are HEALING. They are messages that enable us to take responsibility for our health. They give us permission to grow, to change, take risks and create a better life for ourselves. Positive affirmations give us a chance to achieve our full potential.
I do this daily with three statements. I am: (is usually a statement of who I am) i.e. I am strong. I am caring. I am forgiving. I am capable.
I can: (is a statement of my potential) i.e. I can be assertive. I can let go of fear. I can succeed.
I will: (is a statement of positive changes in my life) I will make healthy choices today. I will take a moment to breathe deeply when I am stressed. I will take care of me today.
I encourage you to start small with these “I” statements. They will help you in your journey towards health. Steph
Filed under: Thoughts — Stephanie @ 11:01 pm
Regret…
“An intelligent or emotional dislike for personal past acts and behaviours”
I have regret. I’ll be honest.
A lot of people will tell you that regret is a useless emotion, but I disagree. It’s only now I see what I missed, am saddened for it and hopefully can share it with you in the hope that you won’t have “regret”.
I LET my weight stop me from living my life. I turned down invitations out because I couldn’t find something to wear. I turned down invitations because the event was outside and I might have to sit in a plastic lawn chair (God forbid it might buckle under my weight!). I said “no” to bike rides with my children, games of tag and walks in the park, because I knew that I couldn’t keep up. I feigned illness to avoid going to work related functions. The thought of being the “biggest” person in the room, whether it was true or not, was mortifying. I was convinced that everyone was staring at me. I went to only one Christmas party with my husband, certain that I was an embarrassment to him and that all his coworkers were laughing at his fat wife.
I LET my weight limit my career. Why apply for a new and exciting position when you were convinced that they wouldn’t even consider you because of your weight? I LET my weight kill potential friendships because I was convinced that no one would consider me worth getting to know. I said “no” – to everything whether I wanted to or not.
I regret not feeling like a beautiful bride, but rather one who wore the only dress that fit. I regret not loving myself and seeing value in my worth beyond my appearance. What I regret the most though, is that there are no pictures of me with my children, or husband or family. If something were to have happened to me 5 years ago, my children would have been left with only memories because there were no pictures of their mother. My insecurity, my lack of self worth, my poor body image prevented me from living my life. This is my regret.
Why share this with you? I hope that you will recognize what I finally did. About ½ way through my wellness initiative, I realized what I had done –and more importantly not done. I was giving away my power to a scale and it had to stop right then.
I now own a t-shirt that speaks volumes. It says, “Life does not begin in 5lbs”. Can you say that out loud? LIFE DOES NOT BEGIN IN 5LBS. Life is now, this very moment.
Stop giving all your power away to a scale. Stop living in regret and start living your life now.
Filed under: Thoughts — Stephanie @ 3:13 pm
