Can you embrace your body.. fully?

Take a moment to ask yourself that question: Can I fully embrace my own body? Can I accept the skin I’m in?

If you answered ‘No’, then you’re not alone.

91% of women hate their bodies.

How shocking is that?

How we feel about our body plays a crucial role in how we feel about ourselves overall.

If we accept our body and how it looks and functions, then we’re more likely to be happier, yet if we don’t accept out body fully, this can wreak havoc on our personal wellbeing, confidence and overall health.

Earlier this month I was invited to a special screening of the documentary Embrace, which revealed to me the true extent of body images issues throughout the world.

Body loathing and body shaming really has reached epic proportions with people all over the world unable to embrace and love their own body unconditionally.

All we have to do is look up at the billboards on the drive to work, or open a women’s magazine to see catch phrases that further dement our perception of what a body should look like: ‘Lose weight’, ‘Reduce cellulite’, ‘Iron out those wrinkles’ and so it goes…

With all the pressure to change the way we look – as opposed to encourage us to embrace our bodies – is it any wonder that 4-million cosmetic surgeries are performed in America every year?

Here we have, mostly women, unable to embrace their bodies and putting themselves on the operating table to have a part of their authentic selves, changed (and in some cases chopped off!)

‘I’ll take a little bit of your bum fat and deposit it in your lips!’

Sounds charming doesn’t it!

Yet it’s not the physical we need to change ladies, it’s the mental.

I too spent most of my life hating my body, resenting my body; my nose is too big, my skin is scarred from all those years of horrendous acne, my booty is saggy, my breasts aren’t big enough, my thighs are too chunky, and so the negative chatter would go on and on and on and on… until…

I decided to STOP the negative mind-chatter.

I decided to stop telling myself these horrible thoughts that kept me from being able to embrace my body; to love my body unconditionally.

How did I STOP the thoughts so I could have a healthier relationship with my body?

I started to look at the conditioning that I’d taken on as a child that had created a perception of myself that wasn’t true.

I had adopted the body insecurities of my mother, which she’d adopted from her mother, and who had adopted them from her mother.

These body insecurities that got in the way of me being able to embrace my body, had been passed down through the generations, and cemented into my subconscious through the influx of media images that try to convince us that we need to spend more, eat less, buy this, chop off that, all so we can fit in.

All so we can embrace our bodies.

We get brain-washed by these messages to the point that we start hating and despising our bodies; the bodies that are our vehicle for life, that perform such a crucial role in our life.

We lose sight of the fact that our bodies are still breathing, still pumping blood, still providing us with all that we need to function in this human world, and instead start berating our bodies for all of these things that are ‘seemingly’ not.

It was identifying these core beliefs I had taken on about myself as a very young child, and learning to remove the negative charge, that had me fall in love with my body.

Yes, I have fallen in love with my body!

That scar on my hip from when I picked off a chickenpox scab, and the speckled skin on my face due to years spent with severe acne, are signs that I have lived.

That I have experienced life, the ups, the downs, the learnings and the surprises; all of which shape who I am today.

Do I care that I am not a size 8? (Or size 6 or 4?)

No. I have the voluptuous hips to make a 50s pencil skirt look fab-o-licious!

The days of diets, bulimia, binge eating, depression, anxiety and round-the-clock boxing training are behind me.

Not because I have what the media would call the ‘perfect’ body, but because I have the perfect body for ME!

I have self-love and self-acceptance.

And self-acceptance and self-love don’t come from trying to make our bodies look different, they come from changing our perception of our bodies; changing how we see ourselves.

If you do get the chance to watch the documentary Embrace, you will see how a mother of three, unable to embrace her body, decided to get super fit – so fit she would compete in a body building competition – just so she could love her body; embrace herself fully.

What happened?

She got what the media perceive as the perfect body.

Was she happy?

No. She was the most miserable she’d been.

How could this be?

Because it is not our body that needs to change, it is how we ‘think’ about our bodies that needs to change.

Do you dislike or even ‘hate’ your body?

Do you constantly feel inferior, do you dread looking in the mirror, do you have self-confidence problems, do you try everything you can – diet, exercise, plastic surgery – to feel better about your body, only to find nothing works?

Now for the important question: Do you want to be able to truly embrace your body? Fall in love with every curve of your bootylicious self?

Then I’d love to help you clear out the childhood conditioning that is keeping you unable to embrace your body.

The two ways I can help you do that are through my 3-month online course Remarkable Relationships and my ten session One-on-One Intensive.

It’s through these two offerings that I will help you clear the childhood conditioning that has you unable to fall head-over-heels in love with you body.

Yes, it is possible peeps!

In these programs I share with you the exact methods that helped me do just that – have such a healthy relationship with ME, that I can love and accept and embrace all of ME!

So if there’s one message I can leave you with, it is this:

Stop trying to change what’s on the outside, and learn how to change what’s on the inside, for that is where you’ll find what you’re looking for!