Women that I know and women that I work with are always asking me “How do YOU do it?”
They talk to me or hang out with me, and it’s very clear to see:
★ I am VERY comfortable in my body.
★ I am VERY comfortable around food (even around the things women think they’re not ‘supposed’ to eat)
★ I’m VERY comfortable being me (and trust me, I have a lot of ‘weird’ quirks and eccentricities that used to make me anything but proud of who I am).
This is who I am now…but it’s not who I always was.
But you can learn any new ‘way of being’ if you decide it to be so — if you choose it.
Because EVERYTHING is a skill.
We become good at whatever we practice — whatever we give attention and repetition to.
And we can DEFINITELY place intentional focus and direction towards whatever it is that we want to become ‘good’ at.
For me it was no different.
★ I HATED how I felt about myself in my body.
★ I HATED how I felt about myself around food (before, during, and after I ate)
★ I HATED how I felt about myself on the inside — how I treated myself with my words and my actions.
So I went out and intentionally changed those ways of being that I didn’t approve of (and want to accept from myself) any longer.
I intentionally practiced those changes until they became me — until I transformed.
And I believe that YOU are no different. I was about as fargone and disconnected from my body as you could be. Crazy-addictive/controlling tendencies with food. Uber-critical and punishing relationship with my body. Outright abusive and loathing relationship with self.
So yea, I may seem like I see the world in rainbow-colored unicorms, but I truly believe that if I can do it, so can you.
So what’s my answer for those that ask me “How did YOU do it?”
Well here’s what I would say about it today:
★I Learned How To EAT★
I went back and got ‘right’ with food. I got ‘right’ with my emotional (over)eating, and I learned how to feed my body what it needs so it is happy (all year long) and makes my job keeping it lean-(ish), fit-(ish), and pain-free super-simple and super-doable and fun!
★I Learned How To PLAY★
I went back and got ‘right’ with my body. I got ‘right’ with my fat. I called a truce. I decided to stop berating it, ignoring it, abusing it, and overworking it, and I learned how to CARE for it. We became friends, partners-in-crime to do all the things I never tried or was sitting on the sidelines wishing I had, and I went and PLAYED.
I learned how to paddle board, ice skate, roller skate, became friends with nature, started dancing, acted like a kid again, became a ‘girly girl’, and set myself (and my body free) after 30 years of feeling trapped. And if I can do it, so can you.
★I Learned How To LOVE ★
I went back and made amends with this idea that I’ve been being a bitch to myself my whole life, and that even though we are indeed wired to judge other people and ourselves (and that I’ve practiced it my whole life), that it doesn’t just change or go away overnight.
It’s a process. It’s a life-long commitment where I have to pass through a few stages. I need to get to know myself, trust myself, and pass through ‘like’ to get to love. It’s a process. One foot in front of the other. Same days are harder than others. But getting back up is NON-negotiable. Me, myself, and I are together for the rest of our lives whether I like it or not. We are together forever. That’s one thing I CAN count on and predict. So I can choose to work WITH myself or AGAINST myself. But I realized that I DO have a choice.
★I Learned How To LIVE ★
I went back and drew that line in the sand and decided I wasn’t going to miss out on my life any more. I wasn’t going to hate my experience of life just to get the body, the beauty, or the bank account that I (thought I) wanted. That burning myself out, exhausting myself, and sucking the life out of me was NOT worth it to obtain any jean size or $ sign, and that my own CARE and my own HAPPINESS needs to come first. Or the other people that I want to give it to will continue to have to “wait in line”.
Bottom Line …
I decided that my old way of living was NOT how and who I wanted to be anymore. And I chose something new. I wasn’t sure what it looked like at the time, but I didn’t care. I knew I needed to step into SOMETHING new…or else I would keep ‘feeding’ the version of myself I knew would destroy me and keep me in a cycle of pain, doubt, lack, and stuckness.
❤ You can CHOOSE (today!) to declare that you are finished with the beating yourself up, rejecting yourself, and giving yourself shit because you’re not at a certain weight.
❤ You can CHOOSE (today!) to end the ‘war’ you’re in against yourself (and each of us have our own unique war that we waged once upon a time) and lay down the ‘weapons’ of shame and blame and comparison and perfectionism that are keeping you from living in the ‘now’ of your life — they keep you stuck in the past or fearful of the future, and they further lead to you REJECTING you.
❤ You can CHOOSE (today!) to make this DAY 1 of a kinder, loving, more compassionate approach to ‘dealing’ with yourself, to transforming your body, to anything really.
Because what’s the alternative? And how long have you been trying out THAT alternative? And how is THAT working for you? I’d bet my money that it’s NOT working for you.
You do have a choice. YOU are the ONE thing you can ‘control’. BUt you have to CHOOSE it. You have to choose stepping into a newer version of yourself and a new way of being.
You DO have a choice. What will you choose?
Yours in Eatin’, Playin’, Lovin’, and Livin’,
Leanne xxx
🍴 💃 💋
