You’re inundated every day with messages about how you should fix your face, your hair, your aging skin, and your menopausal body. There are potions and lotions and cleanses and makeup and straighteners. But what you don’t hear a lot of is encouragement to love yourself exactly the way you are. So here it is. A first-hand account of exactly what it’s like to love your body.
Hello, hello my ambitious overthinking GOALfriend, and welcome to the podcast! I have such a lovely one for you today. It’s a replay of an episode from a little over a year ago that I’ve been wanting to revisit for a while. It’s a very personal episode, sharing the details of my self-love journey.
And in that vein, right here in the introduction, I’ll share how that self love has deepened even more over time.
I’ve had a busier-than-usual week this week, and when I woke up today, on what is normally my podcast creation day, I felt … empty. Not physically tired, exactly. My body is fine. But my creative cup doesn’t have any juice in it today.
And rather than asking myself to sit at my desk and grind out a podcast, I am gently and tenderly offering myself a different way of accomplishing this task.
This is a concept I teach inside the Get Your GOAL membership – the idea of meeting yourself exactly where you are without judgment and asking yourself what you can do right now, sustainably, to move yourself forward. We call them Peaceful Parameters.
It’s a tricky concept. Where you are right now with your eating habits, your mindset management, your sleep, your exercise, your water… I mean, they haven’t produced weight loss yet, so don’t you have to push yourself to do better? To eat exactly right, and drink exactly right, and do all the things?
No. You don’t.
Let’s come back to the podcast for a minute. You’re absolutely correct that if I were to put out a replay episode every single week for the rest of the life of the podcast, listenership would dwindle and I probably wouldn’t meet my business growth goals.
But Peaceful Parameters are designed to be revisited and changed. They’re not permanent, because you’re not permanent. You’re changeable, you have flow.
My creativity is definitely changeable and it absolutely ebbs and flows.
The magic behind Peaceful Parameters is that in order to meet yourself where you are, you have to open your eyes and really see yourself. Unlike every diet in the world that basically demands in a very all-or-nothing way that you just force yourself to meet a strict, fixed standard every single day, and you’re either on-track or off-track, Peaceful Parameters teach you that you are the track. The only standard that ever matters is the one you set for yourself.
So unlike every business plan in the world that tells me to block my time and batch my content in order to be successful, I’m honoring my own ebbing and flowing creative path. And I’m really happy to show you, by example, what it looks and feels like to love myself to my goal.
Peaceful Parameters is just one of many concepts that support you and teach you how to trust and honor yourself exactly where you are all the way to where you want to be. If this un-diet, loving yourself to your goal weight thing sounds good to you, consider this your personal invitation to join us inside the Get Your GOAL membership.
My friend, I think today’s replay of “Loving My Menopausal Body” will have something really special for you. Enjoy!
Hey, GOALfriend. Welcome to episode number 284, where we are talking about loving my menopausal body. You guys, I tell you all the time that around here we are all about making peace with your menopausal body. And I posted something on social media. Oh gosh, by the time you actually listen to this podcast, it'll be weeks ago, it was more recently for me.
But it was a while ago, I posted something on social media, about loving yourself and how it makes everything in your life kind of easier. And like weight loss will come easier to you and just being like, generally happier with your life will come easier to you when you love yourself. And when I put it out, I was like, “Oh, this is such a nice message.”
I mean, it totally vibes with my personal brand to love yourself. But I realized afterwards when it didn't, it didn't get a lot of engagement. And don't worry, I'm not outsourcing my self-esteem to whether or not my Instagram post got a lot of likes. But I noticed that it didn't get the kind of interaction that a lot of my posts get.
And I thought to myself, this wasn't very helpful. Like it was just really generic advice. And I don't love social media posts like that, like I am not the kind of person who loves like a, you know, a nice sounding quote, or just something that doesn't have a lot of substance to it. And I recognized that I totally prefer, especially here on the podcast, to give you something of substance, I love to understand a problem that we have in our lives.
We, you know, with our weight or with loving ourselves or with accepting ourselves or with menopause. And I love to give you a process for how to actually resolve that in your life. So what I wanted to talk to you about today was my personal journey with learning to love my menopausal body. And I was thinking about how much I love my body.
It was really funny. I sat down to do the notes for this podcast. And I was like, you know, how do I even know that I love my body? Like it was kind of a funny question because I don't, I haven't thought about it a lot recently. There was a time a couple of years ago, where, this was really on my mind, where I noticed that after years and years and years of really not thinking a single negative thing about my body like. I was so in love with my body. It performed the way I wanted it to, it looked the way I wanted it to. I never had really like any kind of illness like I really just it was so easy to love my body.
And then and then everything changed, as we say dramatically, when we start talking about menopause. As it happens. I was also right about the time that perimenopause like really started affecting my physical body was also when my sister died. So there was a lot of grief about her specifically, but also just grief about my body kind of wrapped up together in a way that I wasn't expecting.
And because of a lot of the physical changes that came with menopause that I really wasn't expecting, which is to say, I gained weight from over-exercising and under-eating, which is what you and I talk about so frequently. It's why the 5-0 Method actually even exists, is because of my experience with having been doing the same thing for years and years and years. Which is to say I was an endurance runner. I fueled my endurance running, but I well I feel my endurance running.
But then when I was running at a point where my body couldn't recover, and I was gaining weight, I continued to exercise the way that I had always exercised, but I thought “Oh, I must be overeating.” So I started cutting back on my food. So then I gained more weight because then I really was undereating and over exercising. My weight gain began specifically from the over-exercising and then I exacerbated that by trying to, you know, as they say, eat less and move more.
So this is why, truly, my menopause journey, my grief journey, my over exercise and under eating journey, is why I know all the things that I know about menopause. I went searching for answers. I had no idea what was going on. But what I did know was that the scale kept going up. I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I stopped being proud of my accomplishments. I started noticing that every time I got dressed, I would, it wasn't even a word, like, I would love to tell you like the thoughts that I was having.
But most of my thoughts were just sounds, they were just like, ah, like that disgusted noise that you make in the back of your throat, I realized that I really didn't like what was going on with me physically. And then once I recognized that that was going on, I did start really hearing a lot of the thoughts that I was having about getting older and how I wasn't looking forward to it and how it's all downhill from here, and I can't do the things that I used to be able to do.
And I was so sad about all of that. And the truth of it is that I actually spent a couple of years not feeling amazing. And that whole situation is really what drove me to understand, first of all, how to lose weight at our age, second of all, how to learn to love my body and respect my body and appreciate my body the way I had been used to. But also with changes.
I mean, my body changed, I couldn't simply slap on those old thoughts that I'd had when I was in my 30s and 40s. And still believe them, the way that I did, then like my body was different, it is different, it's continuing to become different as it ages. And I want to like I actively want to love myself. As I get older, it is a huge, I'm not even going to call it a goal, it is a, oh my gosh, I cannot come up with the word. It is that thing that you have for yourself value, there's the word. That's what I was trying to say. It is a value that I hold in my life that I want to love myself, no matter what.
Honestly, I'm gonna make that big of a blanket statement that truly no matter what happens with my body, I very much want to find a way to continue to love it, even if I love it differently than I did before. So that's why I titled this episode really specifically Loving My Menopausal Body because, for a long time, it was incredibly easy to love my young body.
Even though I didn't very much, it was incredibly easy to love, let's say my pregnant body. Although again, I didn't very much, I didn't enjoy pregnancy very much. I know that's an unpopular opinion for a lot of women. I didn't care for it. And I was really happy to be done. I appreciated the miracle of growing a life inside of me. But I didn't like the way it felt. Physically, I was uncomfortable, I did actually gain quite a bit of weight with both of my pregnancies. I was not in pain. That sounds like a really big word. But I did have a lot of sciatica and discomfort and heartburn. And I didn't have the worst of the symptoms that I know lots of people suffer with. So I don't want to go on about that.
I just had a bad attitude. Like I was doing no mindset work. In case that's not clear. I was doing zero mindset work on my relationship with my body. Truly until probably my late 30s. When I started running, is when I really started appreciating what my body was capable of. And from the capability. I started appreciating what it looked like and how I felt and really, really appreciated my good health and my athleticism, which I had never had when I was younger.
So it felt very easy to me to love my body, because I loved what it could do. And that I think is kind of where I want to come into this conversation about loving my menopausal body is because it doesn't do the things that it used to do on so many levels. Like it just doesn't do what used to so finding a way to love my body really required me to go looking for different reasons to love it.
And I want to offer you that I'm sharing my story. Not necessarily as a process. I do have a process for you. But I kind of want to tell you how I know now that I love my body. It's actually very similar to how I knew that I didn't love my body. I kind of hadn't realized until I sat down to record this podcast, just how often I tell myself that I love my body how often I think that I love my body how often I look for proof that I love my body like it has become so natural to me again.
After the process that I am going to share with you that I hadn't, I had really been taking it for granted is what it is. And it's why that social media post came out so bland like, “Oh, just love yourself.” Like, Duh, of course, you can. And it's super easy because you just can.
That's why I really want to enumerate for you today, how you might notice that you don't love your body, you might notice that you never look in the mirror, you might notice that when you're getting dressed, you get dressed really quickly, like you don't want to be all the way undressed at any one time. Because you don't want to look at yourself, you don't want to wear certain kinds of clothes, because you don't feel good. You don't accept compliments, you don't like to look at pictures of yourself, you don't really believe it, when somebody tells you that you look good. You never ever think about the good things that your body can do. But you do certainly notice when it feels tired, or when it feels sore, or when it feels creaky or when your knees are aching, or when you can't do something that you used to do.
And I want to offer you that it is available to you to feel different about your body, even without your body changing. And here's what I mean by that. When I was like really struggling to love my body, and struggling with menopause and struggling with the weight gain, and just really struggling… I'm going to leave the end of that sentence off because I felt like I was struggling with literally everything in my life for a couple of years.
Even after I started doing some of the mindset work, and after I had worked through some of the grief. And after I had done all the 5-0 Method things to, you know, lose the weight and got to the weight that I wanted to be and felt like my body was doing some of the things that I was happy about. And it looked good. Like there was still a period of time where I wasn't loving my body. I was, I think I'll say I was neutral about my body. And I do feel like that is an important stage to go through.
Especially if you are starting from really disliking your body really feeling like your body can't be trusted, really feeling like you don't like the way it looks like you might even use the word I hate my body. If you are coming from there, passing through neutral, doesn't feel amazing. I don't want to sugarcoat that it doesn't feel like this is the best thing ever. And you might almost not even notice it. In fact, truly, you might not even notice how much you do love your body until you compare it with how different it is from when you didn't.
So until I sat down to make this podcast, I hadn't recognized all of the ways in which I'm doing all the things that I used to do. Years and years ago, when I was younger, it just, it feels so different now because what I'm admiring is different. Like I'm not looking at my young body and thinking, Oh, my skin is so smooth and wrinkle free. Because it's not, you know, looking at my body and thinking, Wow, I'm so impressed that I can run, you know, 30 miles at a time or 68 miles at a time or whatever like, because it doesn't, doesn't do that at all anymore. Like there are there are things that I admire about my body. And almost none of them are the things that I used to admire about my body.
So I hadn't recognized that what I'm actually doing on the daily is so similar to what I used to do, you know, seven, eight years ago. So here's what I do. Now, that tells me that I really love my body. Like it makes it so clear how much I love my body.
We have a mirror at the end of our hallway. It's not a super long hallway, I have literally no idea how many feet it is, I couldn't even begin to guess I'm not great with spatial relationships like that or judging distances. But it's a hallway. I mean, it's the length of my bedroom and the family room at the back of the house. So there's a good long stretch of hallway and we have a full length mirror at the end of it. Because it really is truly in my house, the only place where you can step back far enough to actually see your entire body. My house is full of weird angles that make it really difficult to place a full-length mirror. But so every single day, dozens of times a day like when I'm walking back and forth to go to the bathroom or change my clothes or do anything in the back of the house. I look at my body in the mirror I look at myself walking down the hall.
Every single time I'm like, looking good, I love what I'm wearing, even if I'm wearing like pajama pants and a big T-shirt and have my hair up or whatever. Like, I always, I noticed very recently that I always give myself a compliment. And I almost always smile at myself because it looks so friendly when I smile.
I've talked before about how before we renovated our bathrooms, we used to have the biggest mirror in the entire world. I mean, this thing was six feet tall, 12 feet wide. It wasn't really, again, I'm bad with special relationships or distances or sizes. But it was a huge mirror. My house was built in the 90s. So the bathroom is completely open to the bedroom. So you couldn't be anywhere in my bedroom or my bathroom. Without seeing yourself in this giant mirror. We took down the giant mirror and put up other mirrors which are more normally sized. But they're still big enough that you know when I walk from, you know, one part of the room to the other or get into the shower or whatever.
I don't have to see myself but I do always, I always look in the mirror, especially, and cover young ears if you've got somebody else listening, but especially when I'm naked, I like to look at my body and admire what my 53 year old body looks like. And I often tell myself that I look in the mirror, I'm like, I'm 53 years old. Look at this body of a 53 year old. I love to look at myself in mirrors.
And you can hear that however you hear it. I know. It sounds kind of kind of egotistical, and I'm going to leave it out there for you. This is available to you, you could love to look at yourself in the mirror. I think I've mentioned in fact, I know I've mentioned probably more often than you need to hear it. But I've mentioned several times that I am going to the gym this year with my kids and I'm working on strength.
So the other thing that I very frequently do, going in and out of the bathroom or in and out of the shower is I flex my muscles. You are learning so much about me today. But I love love, love to see the muscles in my legs. I love to see the muscles in my arms. I love to see the muscles in my back like I am looking, in my opinion, so strong. And I love to notice that I especially love it because of course when we go to the gym, you know how gyms are. One entire wall is nothing but mirrors. And it's where we usually work out because we work out with free weights.
And so anytime I'm like lifting dumbbells, or squatting or really almost anything except the benchpress, because of course, you're laying on your back for a bench press. But anytime we're doing anything I love to watch, well, I watch my form in the mirror, some of it really is making sure that I'm doing the exercises properly.
But some of it is I'm just admiring how strong I am. How good I look, how proud I am of myself for my efforts, for being there and putting in the work. So I love to look at myself, which sounds so funny. Because I mean, especially, because I do often tell you don't worry about what you look like gravity is gonna win this war. And it totally is. And that doesn't mean that you can't admire yourself.
I noticed the other day, I was filming a shorts video. And I was wearing like a V-neck shirt. And when I watched the replay again to edit the video, I noticed that the skin on my chest is starting to really wrinkle and look my age. And I was like “Oh my gosh, look at how different that is than it used to be.” And it occurred to me very, very briefly, that I could dislike that about myself. But it reminded me like in that same instance where I was like, “Oh, I maybe I shouldn't like this.” I was like, “Oh, that looks like my grandma.”
I don't know what your relationship was with your grandmother I had one grandmother who was perfectly lovely, but I didn't see her very often. So I didn't have, you know, a very close relationship with her. But I had a grandma that I was very, very close with that I loved dearly and even though she was very young. Looking back now, my grandmother at my age had adult grandchildren. But so in my memory of her she was an old woman but she was probably my age and I just remember I always just thought that she was so beautiful. She really put herself together. Like she was always wearing jewelry. She always had her hair done. She just really liked to look good. I remember how soft her skin was.
And she was just such a loving grandmother, that as soon as I saw the wrinkles on my neck in my, in my chest in this video, it totally reminded me of my grandmother. And so it was instantly, I was filled with love. And I was like, Oh my gosh, someday my grandchildren, if I ever have them, someday my grandchildren are going to look at the skin on my neck and the soft skin on my arms with my wrinkles, and the skin on my face with wrinkles. And hopefully, if I do my job right, they're going to associate that with love with somebody who like cares for them and loves them and listens to them and wants to know everything about them.
And it just it was so easy. It was so easy on both ends of the scale here, it was so easy to look at that and think “Oh”, because I mean, that's what we get told as women that wrinkles are, you know, the antithesis of everything we want. But also, it was so easy to just instantly associate that with love.
So therefore, I chose to love my body in that instance. So I've already kind of covered this. But the other thing that I do very frequently is, really admire what I can do. The truth of it is that I cannot do a lot of the things that I used to do, I very rarely run anymore, I don't find it to be nearly as pleasurable as it used to be, I don't have the desire to run the way that I used to I don't feel competitive about running the way I used to, which was a big part of my desire with it. But I do still love to walk.
I find walking to be very therapeutic for me in much the same way that running was, which is to say that I very frequently think about podcasts. When I'm on the treadmill, I like to listen to music, I like to just spend time in my head, I really don't think of walking as exercise it is of course, but I don't, I don't want to do it because of the exercise nearly so much as I want to do it. Because I love being in my own head and enjoying my own thoughts and thinking, really working things out about what I'm going to do with my work day and planning podcasts and things like that.
So I love to notice when I'm walking at a pace that feels nice and brisk, that my body still really enjoys that kind of thing. I love to notice how when I am working on flexibility, that I still have not quite as much mobility as I used to, but I do still have mobility. That's actually something that I'm going to put on my vision board, if not for the rest of this year, then definitely for next year. Working on mobility, it's something I'm becoming aware of, and something that I'm really thinking about making sure that I continue to work on. That's really beside the point.
I love that I have so much creativity that I wake up feeling not necessarily physically energized, but like mentally energized I am, I am having such a creative explosion in my life that you all are getting the benefit of here on the podcast and definitely in the Get Your GOAL group. Like I feel like I'm really stepping into my stride as a teacher in the Get Your GOAL group like with our recent Weight Loss University and just some of the concepts that I'm developing and thinking about my business even in general, like not even necessarily something that you would get a benefit from, but something that I feel benefits my brain is just thinking and strategizing about my business.
I love that I'm keeping my brain as active or possibly even more active than my body, I love that my brain and my body can do that. I love that I can balance when I'm putting on my socks and shoes, which is something that I do for fun. I literally stand on one foot while I'm putting on my sock and my shoe on the other foot. I love that I can carry in groceries, I love all of the things that my body is capable of doing.
And I make a point to hear when my brain wants to compare it to things that I used to do. And if my brain wants to go there, I ask my brain to remember that at some point in the future, I might not be able to do this. Therefore what I'm doing right now is 100% worthy of admiration and love.
I also just love, and I apologize to people who actually do speak French, but I love my joie de vivre, like I just love how much I love myself. I love that I have such energy and it's not always physical energy. It's not always mental energy and it's not always both of them at the same time. But in general, I feel like I just have an energy of joy and love of my life. And so grateful for that I'm so I'll even say proud of that. I love that I'm the kind of person who can feel that, because I've worked at it.
I don't remember if I've ever told this story before I, if I did, it was such a long time ago. And I couldn't even begin to remember what podcast it might have been it was, if I've ever told this story before, it was. It was definitely from the Let's Run podcast. So you know, 5, 6, 7 years ago, whenever that would have been, and I'm not even sure then anyway, I had somebody tell me when I was in my 20s, that I was the most negative person they had ever met.
And I really hope that you are shocked and surprised by that, because I remember that it happened. And I can't even imagine why somebody would say that to me now. Because you wouldn't. A person would not describe me that way. I would not describe me that way. I can't even fathom being the kind of person who just walks around feeling negative, I remember what it was like. I absolutely did. The person was not wrong. Let's just be honest here. That person who described me that way, was not wrong. And it has taken me years of work and dedication to be who I am now. And I do not take that for granted at all.
The other thing that I do that I notice, which is how I know that I am loving my menopausal body is I am so fascinated by how my body is changing in a way that I was not when I was pregnant or even, like when I was going through puberty like that could have been fascinating. I just found that mortifyingly embarrassing. And then like I said, when I was pregnant, I just, I didn't appreciate anything about time.
But now, now that I'm going through menopause, I find my body fascinating. I find menopause fascinating, like just the entire science of how a body could change so much in one lifetime. And why a body would change, which by the way, is still a mystery to scientists and me. But I'm so intrigued by that, like, what is the function of menopause? Because clearly, it had some evolutionary function, otherwise, we wouldn't have it. So in what way? Is this the best thing that a woman's body can do? Why was this an advantage? Because it is. And I love thinking about that.
I love thinking about bodies just in general, like I, the more research that I do about how our bodies work, the more I understand about exercise science and muscles and bones, and everything about the human body is so, so, so fascinating. I love that I have one, I love that I am an experiment of one who gets an up front and close and personal front row seat to watching my body age and be different than it used to be. It's so amazing.
And the other thing that I noticed, the more that I love my own menopausal body and this to me, and you can hear this, how you hear it, I'm sharing all kinds of things that you can, you can just judge me for in your own way, it's totally fine. But I noticed that I love other people's bodies, even more than I used to.
I grew up in a really fat-phobic family, which might sound ironic, but it, well, it shaped me in a lot of different ways. And one of the many, many, many reasons why I became a personal trainer was because I had already worked through, I thought, so much of that fat-phobia. And I really wanted to be helpful in a way that wasn't like, oh, you should change or you have to change or it's important to lose weight. I know that some people still hear that message from me. And if you do, I promise you it is never where I think it's coming from. I am always coming from I want for you what you want for yourself and I really, really want you to lose weight in an environment aka me talking about it through the lens of self love, rather than trying to hate yourself thin.
So anyways, I admire all bodies in a way that I didn't used to and I find it to be so liberating. So fun is so enjoyable to notice when my brain does try and offer me like a really old thought from a long time ago and really hear how out of place it sounds in my life now.
I love my body, I love your body. I love all bodies. They're fascinating, they're changing, they're changeable, everything about your body, specifically, and also your body in the very general sense of every body in the world, I find to be so lovable.
And I want to offer you that as possibly your way in. So here's what we're gonna talk about the process of what I do, what I did, and what might work for you. Because let me tell you something, if you put up a mirror at the end of your hallway, and you try walking towards it, and thinking loving thoughts, you are going to feel miserable. That is not the way to go about loving your body.
Like don't start, especially if you're starting from someplace like I hate my body, or I don't feel good about menopause, I don't want to get older, like all of all of the negative. Yuck, that is so readily available to all of us in so many ways. But don't just try and jump from I hate my body to I love my body. Be really okay with passing through neutral. And maybe even before you get to neutral, just understanding that this is even available at all, to anyone, ever. It's why I made this podcast, I want you to hear that these thoughts are even a thing in the world.
We are surrounded by women who talk negatively about their bodies, we are surrounded by messages, everywhere - on TV, in magazines, on the internet, on social media, about how much we should hate getting older, how much we should hate our whatever size your body is, literally from either end of that.
With all of the different messages that are available to us today. We are taught and have exposure to constant messages about not loving your body. And that's why I want this podcast out in the world so that you can just hear that it's even available to you. And the other thing that might seem available to you is to start by admiring other people's bodies and not in the way that you might do it right now, which is to say, she's got such a perfect body. And that's not available to me.
But recognizing that every body's body is just that. It's a body. Like every body exists in this flesh suit that does all the weird things that bodies do. Some of them look one way, some of them look another, like, start with even seeing if you can feel a fascination by the wide variety of bodies that exist in the world. And from there, come at, I'm going to call it an admiration, because that's a little bit gentler and possibly easier to tiptoe up to than love but an admiration for the fact that bodies can exist in so many different shapes and sizes and forms like nature is amazing, right?
Coming at it like that can help you tip toe into the mindset work that I did very intentionally that I will offer for you, which is to say that I really sat with all of the negative things that I was telling myself that I started to recognize all of the thoughts that I was having about my body. I had been ignoring my thoughts about my body for years and years because they were very frequently just really nice.
I mean, I didn't really have to listen in on that I really took it for granted how much I loved my body. So it took me a while to recognize that I was saying mean things about my body at all. I hadn't been listening. And when I did, I will be honest, let me be fully transparent. It was not easy.
This is the thing about mindset work that I try to be very very upfront with you about – listening to your thoughts does not feel like getting licked by kittens. It does not feel good. The reason those thoughts whatever they are about your body are about weight loss or about anything. The reason they are slowing you down from getting what you want is because they feel terrible.
This is the crux of what we talk about here, the two-step tool and you find your thoughts you decide if they're helpful. The way you know if they're helpful, is if they feel good. Everything else, all the stuff that feels terrible, is unhelpful. And it's right there in the title. They feel terrible.
So, being gentle, and yet firm with myself, don't mind Blossom, she's sitting next to me on the couch, she just got up to stretch a little bit that was her jangling; feeling, being gentle, but firm, with listening to your thoughts, recognizing them as thoughts. And then being done with that for right now.
Meaning here's what I mean by this, I sat with my journal for about five minutes a day. And I found five thoughts at a time, there were hundreds of them available to me, I was hearing negative messages about my body hundreds, probably 1000s of times a day. I didn't try to find them all at once, I found a couple of them. And then I closed my journal. And I got on with living my life and letting my brain be the way it was.
I think this is possibly the most important thing that I can offer you about mindset work, you're not going to get it done in a day, or two days or a week, or even a month. It's an ongoing process. I would say that I spent at least three years. No, well, okay, two to three years, not loving my body. And then a good two to three years, practicing loving my body, listening to the thoughts that I was thinking, really intentionally doing this work.
And so it's really only been within the last maybe year or two, that I've, I've gone back to not where I was before, because we never go back. But I've gone back to not really paying very much attention to it because it feels so easy to love my body again.
So knowing that it's going to take you a good fair amount of time to sort through the thoughts. Don't be in any hurry to find them. All right now, this really is a gradual process, that at some point, you won't even necessarily recognize how far you've come until you recognize how far you've come, which is one of the next things that I will offer you.
I really intentionally celebrated anytime an automatic, loving thought popped up, like when I would hear something nice about myself when I was in the middle of feeling absolutely terrible about basically everything. When I would hear a nice thought I'd be like, “Oh my gosh, that was a nice thought.” And I would really pay attention to it and like, listen to it and give myself credit and really celebrate that I felt that way about myself.
What I want to offer you for this process, I did not label this 123 and 4. So let me do that for you right now. Number one is simply recognizing that not hating your body or not feeling the way you feel right now is available to you at all. Just at all. Like these are thoughts that exist, you can have them in your head. So that's step one.
Step two, is to find the thoughts that you do have and just be really, really kind with yourself when you do so. Don't try and find them all. Don't try and sort through them all. Don't try to feel all of the yucky feelings. Find a couple of thoughts. Feel one of them at most. You don't even have to do that every day. Label the thoughts as unhelpful if they are if they don't feel good, they're unhelpful. And then let your brain do the work.
That's actually step three, is the letting your brain do the work that letting your brain do the work thing. I think that might be the hardest part for lots of people. I include that as part of the two step tool, even though I just gave you three things. I didn't clear it as part of the two step tool is to simply let your brain do what it will with these thoughts. And that sounds so passive. But in reality, it feels well it feels like you should be doing something more but also it doesn't feel passive when you are allowing the allowance of the thoughts to exist in your brain and knowing that your brain is doing work behind the scenes does actually require some noticing on your part, oh, my brain is doing its job, my brain is going to take care of this, nothing's going wrong here. If that thought pops up again, we're all good.
And then the fourth thing is to really celebrate, when you notice any kind of a non-negative thought. Anytime you automatically offer yourself even the tiniest compliment, notice even the tiniest thing about how you feel good about yourself, really bring it up to the surface and celebrate it.
That practice of celebrating when you feel good, and allowing your brain to do what it will do with the things that feel bad. The combination of both of those things, is what I think made this process move I'm gonna say faster for me, even though I just described it to you as a years long process. Truly, that is faster.
I could have, I could have spent the rest of my life hating my body. I could have. It happens. I know people that this has happened to and by happened to I mean, that they didn't put in the time or the effort to do this kind of mindset work.
This is not something that will just come to you naturally. As you lose weight, you will not magically start thinking fantastic things about your body. It's work on your part. It's work to love yourself. And it's totally worth it. Let's come back to my social media post where I told you it's totally worth it to love yourself. When you love yourself, what you feel is love. And it's amazing to me how even if you are thinking thoughts about your own body, when what you feel is love, that love really spills out to like everybody in your life.
It is so much easier to love other people when you feel love inside your own body for your own body. It is an amazing place to be and it's available to you, my friend. Thank you so, so much for listening. I really hope this was helpful for you. I'll talk to you again soon.
