As you may be aware, Friday is Valentine’s Day! Whether this day fills you with resentment for the love you don’t have in your life, feels like a day invented to sell cards and flowers, or genuinely helps you connect with that special person in your life, I have a radical request. How about asking “You” to be your Valentine this year? While this may sound like I’m asking you to be selfish, the truth is you can’t truly love another until you love yourself. Even the Bible advises this. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This does not say that you will love your neighbor MORE than yourself. It says love yourself and then love your neighbor AS you love yourself. Somehow, this point has gotten wildly misconstrued. Many women believe that it is wrong that they love themselves, or that they are not worthy of being loved. They hold the core thought that they must give every iota of love that they have to others to be of value. But you MUST love yourself and find your intrinsic value before you can completely and fully love another. When you give from your internal well of love without also filling it, soon you have nothing left to give. You then grow resentful. You want others to fill your well of love. You expect others to change in order to show their love for you, or you believe they are being selfish. But who is really being selfish? Isn’t asking another to change to please you—to make you to feel loved—the more selfish act? Particularly when you understand that no one can give you what you do not give yourself? So instead of asking […]
Give Yourself Mental and Spiritual Liposuction!
It’s normal in our society for women to turn to liposuction to help get the body they want. This is an expensive and invasive operation that literally sucks fat from the body. But suggest that they do their own mental and spiritual liposuction for self-empowerment and true healing and this strikes fear into women’s hearts. Why are so many reluctant to seek the easier and more permanent solution? No. 1, A belief that doing the inner work isn’t fast enough. Most women want instant results. Despite the lengthy and uncomfortable recovery and potentially painful and life-threatening complications, physical liposuction feels more instant. No. 2, Fear of the unknown. Most women are afraid to look at their inner workings because they fear the person they will discover. Let me give you some tough love here. That you and other women think you are so awful is totally and completely bogus. Have you murdered anyone lately? Have you robbed a bank? Seriously, if All-That-Is knows those secret thoughts and beliefs (and She does) and absolutely adores you, perhaps you can trust that you might really like who you find, too? No. 3, Looking for the answers outside yourself. We’ve all been trained that the answer is in the action, that other people/things/situations are the source of our happiness, that if we just do things the “right” way, people will love us and our body and life will magically transform. Let me be blunt. This is looking for love in all the wrong places! No. 4, Worrying about what other people will think. You . . . and almost every woman on the planet . . . were taught NOT to love yourself. You were told that it […]
Strengthen This to Create the Body You Want
Quick, name 10 things about yourself that you love. How’d you do? If that was easy, awesome! See how long you can make your list. If that was harder than you expected, or the negative things tried to get in the way, you have some work to do on your self-acceptance. And if it was really a struggle, don’t worry. You can learn to love yourself. How can I be so sure? Because it wasn’t too many years ago that I was so busy feeling unlovable that I couldn’t have named anything about myself that was special—much less have appreciated those characteristics. What a painful place I existed in most of the time. In my heart I knew that I was supposed to be happy, but I kept thinking the world had to change and everything had to align perfectly before I could find happiness. I am so grateful that I discovered that I held the key to happiness all along–and that this also revealed the path to releasing and maintaining my weight. That key was choosing to be happy now regardless of the circumstances. To let go of the expectation that anyone or anything had to change to make me happy. One of the ways I began to make that change—and that has worked well for my clients—is to begin appreciating your body and life as it is right now, instead of focusing on all the ways it needs to change. This includes looking for all the ways you CAN love and appreciate yourself right now. Self-acceptance is one of the areas you need to strengthen to Love Your Way Slim. When you fully accept yourself, you love who you are, exactly as […]
How to Set Yourself Up for Weight-Loss Success
Do you commit to eating healthy and exercising, but struggle with sticking with your plan? Do you desperately want to release the weight, but doubt your ability to create the body you want? Do you know how to diet and exercise, but struggle to bridge the gap between knowledge and action? Do you suffer from nagging health issues, and feel like your body is somehow broken or betraying you? Do you have a strong belief that you “should be” dieting and exercising, and judge yourself as “weak” for not doing them? At the root of all of these is a lack of self-trust. Self-trust is one of the areas you need to develop to Love Your Way Slim. Each time you question your ability to make a good decision, you are really questioning your belief in yourself. I used to unintentionally erode my self-confidence by being so afraid to make decisions that I often wouldn’t make any decision at all—which ironically was still making a decision and disempowering myself all at the same time. While I’ve always been careful of the promises I made to others because honoring them was so important to me, I wouldn’t think twice about making and breaking promises to myself. This presented a continual message to myself that I wasn’t trustworthy in my relationship with me. This lack of faith in myself fed my fear of making the “wrong” decision, which just perpetuated the cycle. As a result: Part of me would “hold back” from fully committing to the action I knew I needed to take. I constantly questioned–and therefore undermined–the diet and exercise program I was doing, thinking there might be something better. I was incredibly self-critical, and felt my past results […]
Why Releasing Weight is Not about Discipline or Self-Control
Over the 35 years I was caught in the rebound weight-gain cycle, it wasn’t because I didn’t know “what” to do. I devoured books on nutrition and exercise and several times I got into incredible shape. I even ran a half-marathon. Yet I couldn’t sustain it. Ultimately there was a gap between knowledge and action and releasing the weight for good. It took most of my life for me to figure out what was needed to bridge that gap. I thought it was about willpower. If I was just strong enough or disciplined enough . . . then I would finally have the body I wanted. And this is a belief held by many. The vast majority of people believe that being slim is about self-control. In reality, that belief was only making the gap wider. Because that belief actually made me feel flawed and weak—like I was a failure. I literally felt like I was less of a person because I could not maintain my weight-loss. This made me: Doubt my ability to create the body I wanted. Made my already intense self-criticism even worse. Eroded my trust in myself—and my body. Let me be clear. Releasing weight is ultimately NOT about discipline or self-control. And the more you beat yourself up for being “weak” or a “failure,” the more you keep yourself stuck where you don’t want to be. So what is required to bridge the gap between knowledge and action and lasting results? The answer may surprise you. It’s not about dieting or exercise at all. The answer is self-love. This is why a significant majority of diets and exercise programs fail long-term. For lasting results, you’ve got to change your core thoughts and beliefs about who you are, what you […]
It’s My Birthday!
I’m practicing some self-care and taking today off from blogging. But in honor of my birthday, I want to give you a present! I will give a FREE laser breakthrough coaching session to 5 women who register this week for my complimentary tele-seminar . . . Register now! http://loveyourwayslim.com/breakdietrules/ These powerful 50 minute coaching sessions will empower you to move forward in alignment with your wellness goals. Register now if you are serious about getting the body you want. I’ll select the 5 winners at the end of the day on Friday. Together we can do it!
Always Do Your Best–Which Sometimes Means Rest
When I woke up this morning, my mind, body, and spirit said, “Treat me gently.” So I’m showing myself self-love with rest and self-care. It wasn’t too long ago that I wouldn’t have listened. I would have made myself get up and workout anyway. There’s a fine line between knowing when to push past mental and physical resistance and when to ease up and give your body a needed break. Here are some tips to help you figure out how to listen to your body and honor its messages. How often do you give in? Are you regularly skipping treats and working out most of the time? Or do you scarf down every treat thinking it will be your last one and often blow off moving your body? It gets easier to tell when your body needs a little TLC when you are more consistent in your actions. Take out the judgment—yours or anyone else’s. Just observe what’s going on with you. Skipping an occasional workout because it feels like what you need in the moment doesn’t mean you’re a slacker. When you take out the self-criticism, you can tell if there is a pattern of negative thought that needs to be shifted, or if this a positive step of self-care. Listen to your body. How is your overall energy level? If taking a shower is exhausting, your body is screaming for rest. If you feel cruddy, but still have energy to get everything done, a gentle workout may actually help boost your immune system. Regularly meditate. When you practice quieting your mind, the messages of your body become clearer. The key is to listen to them, and not ignore them like I did […]
Is Self-Care Selfish?
If you are like many women, you may feel that self-care is selfish. You put everyone else’s needs first. As a mom, wife, partner, professional . . . you may feel like you don’t have the time and energy to move your body and eat healthy foods. But what if not making your self-care a top priority is really the selfish act? Your lack of self-care means: You may be cranky or short-tempered with those closest to you. You have to spend extra time and energy redoing or cleaning up things that went astray in your haste. You may do things for others, only to find that’s not what they wanted or needed. You may miss out on quality time because you are focused on doing rather than being. You may find yourself resentful of others because your needs aren’t getting met. You cannot go through life exhausted and stressed and expect to be the best possible version of you. Ask yourself, “Am I showing up consistently as the mom, wife, partner, professional I want to be?” Allow yourself to be really honest with yourself. If there is room for improvement, the answer is NOT to drive yourself harder. The real solution is to make your self-care an unwavering priority. Taking care of you first is the equivalent of being on a plane and putting the oxygen mask on BEFORE you help others. When you fill your energy reserves first you have more to give. When you make your self-care a priority you: See solutions that you otherwise would have missed. Have more energy so you get more done is less time. Have your priorities in better balance so you recognize that fun with […]
How to See Yourself as Sexworthy
One of my clients was going to have her kids out of the house for the weekend and was planning to surprise romance her husband. But while she was getting dressed, she began criticizing her body. She imagined her husband being as disgusted by her body as she was, and she felt unsexworthy. The negative self-judgment was so painful that she wound up spending the evening crying alone in her bedroom. I know that she is not the only one. Many women who struggle with their weight avoid or turn down sex with their partners, or hide their bodies in the dark and under the covers. They suffer from body shame. Often, what is happening is you are so afraid of being judged and criticized by others that you heap on the self-abuse to the point that you shut down and shut off everything but the pain. From this place of fear and despair it’s impossible to believe that anyone would find you attractive—or that you are worthy of another’s appreciation and love. But the painful truth is that no one else was in that room with my client. No one else was heaping on criticism or telling her she was unattractive. She was doing it to herself. She never even gave her husband the chance to see her, comfort her, reassure her, and demonstrate to her how sexy he thinks she is and how much he loves her. She took that opportunity away from him. And the negative thoughts she attributed to him—without his input or knowledge—are now a belief about him that she is carrying around that will impact their relationship in subtle ways. And it will impact her ability to release […]
Stay Connected!