If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, it’s not appropriate to say to yourself. Treat yourself with respect to create the body you want.
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Wellness Tip of the Day: Do unto yourself as you would do unto others. Treat your body with love and respect. Say kind things. Take supportive actions.
How’s your relationship with your body?
When you think of your body, do you feel supported, empowered, and nourished? Or do you feel betrayed, let down, or frustrated?
How would your body describe its relationship with you? Would it feel appreciated, loved, respected, and well-cared-for, or would it feel neglected, abused, and unwanted?
When you look at your body, does it physically reflect the status of your relationship?
Many people have a negative catabolic relationship with their body. At best, they ignore it and at worst they are constantly critical, neglectful, and downright abusive in how they treat it. How long would a person stay healthy in a relationship like that? Is it any wonder it begins showing up overweight, aching, and breaking down with illness?
Who do you think started that catabolic relationship—you or your body? Unless you were born with a condition, chances are you hurled the first insult—whether a verbal assault, or less than nourishing food, or lack-of or too-extreme movement.
The good news is you have the power to create a better relationship. In fact, you have total control over the quality and type of relationship you have. It can be wonderful, loving, supportive, and fun—or not—all depending on what you do consistently from this moment forward.
But it is you that must first change for your body to show up differently. Regardless of the physical condition you’re in, you have to decide you want to reconcile, and examine your reasons why you want to call a truce to the war.
And then begin doing what you would do in any relationship to repair the damage. You might begin shifting the words you use when examining, or talking to or about your body. Instead of being critical, look for things to compliment.
Look for all the ways it’s supporting you, instead of focusing on all the ways it’s letting you down. Become more aware of what you’re feeding it, and begin to choose more nourishing foods. Pay attention to how much you move it—is it enough or too much? It will tell you what it needs if you will begin to listen.
Trust that your body wants nothing more than to have a positive anabolic relationship with you, and will knock itself out to respond to this change in relationship. But if the abuse has been going on for some time, be patient. While the changes will begin happening immediately, you may not see the difference for a little bit. It took time to get where you are and it will take a little time to get to where you want to be.
What would be the benefits of changing your relationship with your body? How different would you feel if you treated your body the way you want to be treated? What difference would that make to your health and well-being?
Together we can do it!
Wellness Tip of the Day: Your relationship with your body will be the longest of your life. Place a high value on treating it with respect, love, and care.
During my workout this morning, my inner critic showed up and started telling me that I was never going to achieve my fitness goals. I blew my internal whistle.
I took my rightful place as the Coach calling the plays of my life and reminded my Gremlin that it’s a member of my team. “Your job,” I told it, “is to help me give this workout my all.”
And it did. Each rep it reminded me of my form, asked me if the weights I was using were challenging enough, and pushed me to squeeze out one more rep, in many cases going beyond what I thought I could do.
That’s more like it!
One of the reasons so many people let that internal voice that tells them they aren’t good enough dominate their inner monologue is they don’t know their own power. They don’t realize that their Gremlin’s job is actually to help them, not hold them back.
When you give all your power to the Gremlin, it gets a little greedy and controlling. What player left in charge of the team wouldn’t start to believe they’re calling the shots? What’s more, the Gremlin likes being in charge!
This can result in a bit of an internal power struggle when people do start to claim the right to create their own lives.
There are ways to not only make this process easier, but to increase your ability to successfully reclaim the position of Coach in your life. Here are some tips to recruit and begin to train your inner critic to become the motivational voice that encourages you to move past your believed limits.
Look for the Truth. Those negative things the Gremlin is saying aren’t the Truth. It’s just playing on your fears. Figure out what is True. For instance, if it’s telling you that you always get lost, look for the Truth, which is that you know how to read a map, stop and ask for directions, or dial up the GPS on your phone. You always find your way eventually.
Treat your Gremlin with respect. Your Gremlin is a part of you and because of this you can’t kill it, beat it up, threaten it, or destroy it. Any attempt to do those things will just make it stronger. When it pipes up uninvited, thank it for the input and then remind it of the Truth.
Look at how and when it came into your life. Often we can think back and pinpoint when and how the Gremlin was created. It’s helpful to do this, but if you can’t remember, don’t worry about it.
Accept that it was created to help you. While it doesn’t feel like it, the Gremlin was created to help us in some way. Perhaps it was to avoid embarrassing situations. The problem is, how it shows up in your life now no longer serves you.
Give it a job supporting you. Think about how the energy of the Gremlin could be shifted to help you meet your goals rather than hold you back.
Remember you’re the Coach. Take ownership of your life and begin calling the plays. You have the power to decide how you are going to react in every situation. You can follow the Gremlin’s old game plan, or implement a new one that helps create the life you want to live.
How are you doing at being the Coach of your life? What can you do today to train your Gremlin to support you? How does that change your ability to meet your goals?
Together we can do it!
Photo by Naypong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Wellness Tip of the Day: Do unto yourself as you would do unto others. Practice saying to yourself what you would say to another. You deserve your own respect.
Wellness Tip of the Day: Do unto yourself as you would do unto others. Practice saying to yourself what you would say to another. You deserve your own respect.
Goss Coaching 