On Your Feet for Self-love

I remember the first time I felt self-conscious about my body. When I was in elementary school, we had two planned checkups with the nurse in a year. They measured our weight and our height. I distinctly remember walking out of the nurse’s office to go back to class and walking by two teachers who were standing there in the hallway waiting for their students. I don’t remember their names or even what they looked like, but I can perfectly remember their words. One of them said to the other “I cannot believe how that one’s body has changed this year.” Now, I can’t blame it all on that one incident and in their defense, they weren’t commenting on my weight because at the time I wasn’t overweight, but I had grown several inches and my body was changing. I did have some other things in my life that were already in play here as far as my inner dialog went but, this was the first time that I realized other people were looking at my body and judging me. I was going into 4th grade; I was 10 years old.
After a lifetime of wrestling with that inner voice myself and then as a life coaching learning how to understand it and then control it, I am now passionate about teaching my clients not to give that voice a say in their life! Here’s the thing, you cannot shame or beat yourself into healthy lasting change. It’s a sentence that makes sense when you say it out loud but how often do you stand in front of the mirror and do exactly that? I remember once, years ago, one of my sisters and I were planning our next diet and she seriously suggested that for motivation we take naked pictures of ourselves and post them on our refrigerator to shame ourselves out of eating! After a quick refusal, I said, “I have four sons that will starve to death and spend years in therapy if I do that.” The idea was rejected for the love of the children, thank goodness.
In all seriousness, so often I have a client who will come to see me wanting to make all these wonderful healthy changes for themselves, which is amazing, but in the same breath they tell me what failures they are, how lazy and stupid they are for being where they are. How much they can’t stand themselves in their clothes or in their skin. My friends, please understand, there is a difference between wanting to change where we are and hating ourselves for who we are.
Our inner dialog is always going, have you ever noticed that? That means you always have a voice in your head walking you through your day giving its opinion on the color of the sky or how you look in your jeans. Imagine, if you had an actual person following you through your day telling you how ridiculous you are and how terrible you look and how unworthy you are of self-grace and love and gratitude. How long would you put up with that?
What if you were sitting next to someone you loved, a friend or a sister, and someone, a stranger came up to you and your friend and started to insult them repeatedly? What if they said, “I can’t believe you wore that shirt today it shows all you back fat?” Or, “wow you are the worst mom in this room for forgetting a dessert in the lunch box today”. Or, “Nice hair! When was the last time you actually did something with yourself?”
Now, let me ask you this, at what point would you have stopped this person from hurting your friend and telling them to get lost? Would it have been the first verbal assault…the second? How long before you were on your feet defending this person whom you love with all the fire you possess? How long before you were on your feet with your fists clenched in outrage? And now, let me ask you this, why do you put up with this constant verbal assault for yourself? And to go further, how do you expect to be healthy and strong and make powerful changes for yourself and be this best version of you that you long for when you don’t feed your spirit with all the powerful love and encouragement it so deserves?
Your soul hears how you talk to yourself, it hears all those words. I always ask my kids are you building or breaking? How about you, are you building or breaking? If you are building, great job! Keep up the good work! But if you’re breaking, let’s talk about two simple things you can do to start changing this habit and start building today!
First, you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. So, take a good look at that terrible voice and, instead of judgment, really look at it from a place of curiosity. Ask yourself, “Where does it come from, why do I give it such power? Question it. Is what it’s saying to me true? No, very likely not. Take the time to identify it. Start paying attention to when you hear it. And most importantly start to replace it with kindness and grace. Get on your feet for yourself and make the decision to never listen to it again. And when it tries to break you down and stop you, don’t let it. Never let it again. Once you do that, once you become aware, you’re starting to build!
Next Practice. I’ll be honest and tell you that this won’t be easy. At first you will have to work at it. But once you identify this voice and realize what a jerk it is, you become anxious to learn how to quiet it. Use that sense of curiosity and the side of you that’s wise and knows the truth. The side that knows you more than anyone knows you. The side of you that knows you are worthy of self-love and desperately longs for it. The side that will stand on their feet and fight for you every time you need it. Until the time comes where you don’t need them to stand because now, who you really are, is in control. Practice until you can love yourself without struggle and you will change your life forever. The truly beautiful thing about self-work like this is when you make a change like that for yourself it spills over on those around you, and then you change the world.
Aimee Goodwin~ Life and Health coach