Hello there
I hope you are doing well.
I hope you are surviving and thriving even though things are challenging in our world right now.
I hope you are taking good care of your body and your soul.
I have a little story to tell.
I am a weight loss coach who isn’t particularly skinny and I certainly don’t have flat abs.
I am a weight loss coach who thinks women’s bodies are magnificent.
Remember, I watch women give birth every week as a labor and delivery nurse.
So much of my motivation and healing power actually comes from my profound KNOWING that women’s bodies are absolutely powerful and amazing-capable of the greatest magic there is.
And I am quite confident in my own changing and aging human body-partly because I am blessed to be steeped in a world where women’s bodies are performing great feats while not looking like women’s idealized impossible bodies in the media.
I have the incredible gift of the constant reminder of what real beauty is.
What real women actually look like. This has been one of the honors of being a nurse and I am deeply aware of the constant shower of fake negative images we are all dealing with every day. But I thought I was immune. I was so connected and loving to my actual body.
And I am a powerful healer that can transform really challenging situations.
I was a bit smug, actually.
But.
Then I wobbled and I got lost.
I had a few too many people say that it must be difficult to have the pressure to be skinny as a weight loss coach.
I had a few comments about how it must be so hard not to be ABLE to gain weight and stay in alignment with my message.
And I had a coach who I love say something benign that got twisted. She said, “Weight loss is a visual niche. People need to see you and your results.”
Hmm. But my results and my clients results are in their SOUL. And of course, their eating and their self love and their bodies- yes. But in their very being and love for their fragile beautiful flawed bodies.
But.
I figured I wanted to reach more women so I should just get a flat belly and stop going on about souls.
How hard could it be?
I know what food is healthy for me. I know what feels good.
I can figure this out.
You can imagine what ensued next. I kept trying. I wanted it done fast. I wanted it done efficiently. It was an external imposed goal. So I rebelled against it while also implementing it.
So foolish.
Instead of using the beautiful tenants of Weight Loss for Goddesses that I knew worked. That I created after trying everything else! Instead I decided to do the things like making charts, and weighing myself, and feeling bad about myself and grabbing my stomach whenever I woke up in the morning to see if my stomach had disappeared, yet. And getting angry with my body for not being more cooperative.
Finally a friend- OK my therapist- said, “Is this really what you want to be doing?” And then it hit me. I started laughing hysterically! I had fallen under the spell again. (Just coming off a week of watching Harry Potter movies in the theater.)
But it is a spell. A spell of unworthiness. A spell of invisibility. Every. Single. Day. We are inundated with a powerful images and stories that say the truly beautiful real people around you are not enough. And that you must be different than what you are to be valuable and accepted.
Such Bullshit.
But it is so powerful that I fell for it.
I fell for the false idea that I wasn’t good enough to help women feel better and lose weight in a healthy balanced loving fun way.
That I had to look a certain way.
That I had to be tan and hairless and have a muscular stomach. (that was never happening!)
Even though I don’t know any living soul who actually looks like that!
And even though my amazing clients don’t even have that as a vision!
So I have gone back to the tenets of Weight Loss for Goddesses and broken the spell. Again.
I have come back to my beautiful body.
I have apologized and asked her for forgiveness.
I am back.
And I am feeling very very righteous.
I am straddling the two worlds of weight loss for health AND profound body love.
If we truly go at our eating and body issues from an angle of self-love and self nurturing-actual devotion to our bodies and our bodies needs -then we feel so amazing.
We eat better.
We move our bodies.
We clear the barriers to our power and our fear of being seen.
We end up losing weight- yes – if there is excess weight to be lost.
And we love our bodies all the while.
So, I declare that I am a weight loss coach who does not have 6 pack abs.
Weight Loss for Goddesses is about so much more.
And it takes into account the wobbles because wobbles happen.
The process of body love and acceptance is actually a spiral, moving closer and closer to a place of peace and vibrancy while taking into account our changing lives and the challenging world we live in. Weight Loss for Goddesses isn’t a step by step program it is a spiral. It is a spiral that takes into account our changing bodies, our changing hormones, having babies nursing babies, getting older having surgery – all of that those things aren’t mistakes or blocks or things to overcome. No- they are part of the delicious marvelous life of a woman. So let us get going.
Let’s love our bodies into health and remind each other how very beautiful we are.
xoxo
Let Me know if you have any similar experiences to share!
Also, I am going to be doing a class on breaking a caffeine addiction. Do you have any other ideas or thoughts about what other issues you would like me to address?