"We have to focus on what matters – how we feel and how we feel about ourselves." ~ Michelle Obama
Do you remember the little girl (or boy) in you? The boy who ran, jumped, danced, laughed anywhere and everywhere he felt like it – before someone told them to be quiet, that they were too big, too loud, too much.
The kid who didn't even know what a Libra was before someone told them their height was wrong.
The child who just ate – before someone gave them a mile-long list of "bad" foods and they feared eating and distrusting themselves.
After more than two decades of struggling with food and my body, I have spent the last four years reconnecting with the little girl in me and learning again. And it was lovely. The little girl in me before she was taught to suck in her tummy, lift her breasts, hide her flaws, ignore the rumble of hunger in her tummy, or endure the excruciating pain of perfect heels because beauty is pain and only thin things.
We were born into bodies that we loved. Bodies that fascinated us. We learned to walk, jump and dance without even thinking about what we looked like.
Our relationship with food and our body was simple, joyful and magical.
We are born into bodies that know how to eat. They know what they need when they need it. They know why they feel best and what they don't, and instinctively they want to move and feel good.
They also have all kinds of built-in functions designed to communicate with us so that we can hear their signals.
But everything is slowly changing. We hear people joke about weight gain. We hear people around us talk about being fat, losing weight, or otherwise being self-critical. We are warned about "bad" foods – "be careful, you will get fat if you eat this" as if it is something we should be scared of.
And we are told that we are what we eat, as if we were good or bad, depending on what food we consume on a particular day.
We begin to look at ourselves and our body critically. We learn that eating is comfortable and we learn to numb – to ignore the messages we receive from our body.
The little children in us are pushed aside. They get quieter and quieter. We stop trusting them and eventually forget all about them.
Suddenly the wonder and the joy with which we looked in the mirror are replaced by feelings of disgust, distrust and shame. We feel frustrated, discouraged, stuck …
Instead of carrying the joy and wonder to our body we were born with, we waste decades in the infinite trance of self (and body) criticism, hunting for external solutions to create anything Go away.
Because we were taught. The sickest thing of all is that it's usually in the name of "health".
Like you, I grew up in a society in which I learned that certain ways of looking, eating, living and being are good and everything else is bad.
These messages first became destructive to me as a teenager when I read my first diet book and began my first attempt at losing weight, getting fit, and eating healthier.
I was pretty small, but every time I looked in the mirror I saw a reflection in the mirror that I hated because no matter how small I was, I was never small enough.
There was my life before that terrible Atkins book and my life after. I just ate before the book.
According to the book, every time I ate my favorite chocolate or even just a piece of toast, I felt bad and worried about getting bigger.
Over time, as I continued to try to follow someone else's rules about what to eat to be "good" only to keep failing and gaining weight, the guilt grew every time when I ate, shame and judgment almost anything.
My inner world was filled with an omnipresent worry: I have to pull myself together and get well. I have to get this weight under control.
I would start and stop a new "Weight Loss" or "Fitness Journey" every other month. I swore this time would be different because this time I had the perfect plan, the perfect goals. This time I would be strict. This time I would be good. This time I was motivated enough to stick to it and I would work extra hard.
It never took very long. I would always "screw up", lose motivation, "fall off the car" only to end up feeling even worse.
We pray for the day when we will finally lose weight and all our problems will be over. The day when we can finally stand in front of the mirror and feel how we used to feel – before the world said we, our bodies, were a problem that we had to solve and gave each other a thousand different "solutions", that only make things worse.
And we have learned that the solutions to get there are to achieve goals. They are in the performance. You are in limitation. Deprivation. Suffer. Harder work. More discipline. More motivation.
If we only achieve the weight, food, water, lifting, running time / distance, step goals (and stick to them) we will be happy and healthy. Then we will live the "good" lifestyle.
So let's try. Most of us have spent our entire lives trying, failing, and trying again.
Which part of it is healthy?
Exactly none.
But this is how our population was programmed to hunt health and happiness. To achieve through this distorted need – to achieve goals or see visible progress over the mirror or the scale or whatever.
However, human health and well-being was never about performance or goal setting. It is not the result of how much you can limit or deprive yourself, how much you suffer, or how hard you work.
It is a moment-to-moment measure of our state of mind and body, and it is constantly changing based on a variety of different factors – only some of which have anything to do with our decisions and none of which have anything to do with them whether or not we have a thigh gap or what the scale says.
However, these things can change or destroy our mood, our inner peace, our attitude to ourselves and what we as human beings consider capable or valuable.
We ride or die based on whether external measures of success make us feel like we are doing something right.
Forget how we feel and what we need – just be good. Be successful. Follow the rules, hit the targets, look good on the outside.
Less than 5 percent of people will ever be "successful" at the whole weight loss / fitness issue, and since I was one of them I have to ask: How do you define success? We are "successful" at what price?
Yes, I failed for years, but I was also "successful" for years. I finally had what everyone chases through all of the diets, lifestyle changes, fitness travel attempts, etc. for their entire life.
Was I happier? Better person? Healthier? No.
Sure, I've seen it. I was celebrated for how great I looked, how hard I worked, how inspiring my "discipline" and "self-control" were. My Instagram account was peppered with #fitspo and before and after. I regularly had comments like #bodygoals and questions from desperate followers how they too could achieve the same "success".
But in reality? It destroyed me mentally and physically.
Even after losing weight, my life still revolved around the inner war between what I believed I was eating and what I should "eat" to be "good" or "make progress" or to hell. just trying to keep up with the progress I've made. Because at that time I was using food as a coping mechanism for everything. And because achieving goals, forcing "lifestyle changes", and even succeeding in losing weight don't magically resolve these types of nutritional problems or self-destructive, self-sabotaging behaviors.
In the end, I had bulimia and binge eating that were so severe that I went to bed many nights fearing that I would die in my sleep because I would be so sick from what I ate.
But at least I was celebrated every day for my "weight loss success". At least I looked good. Correct?
It's all so toxic.
Because we were taught to demonize certain bodies.
Because instead of confidence, kindness and compassion, we were taught rules and restrictions, hard work, self-control and "success at all costs" while ignoring the underlying causes of weight and weight, while ignoring food struggles.
Forget how we feel. Forget what we need Forget the cues we get from our bodies when they try to communicate. Don't stop this.
Just behave and do what everyone else tells us to do.
We are so caught up in this trance of obsession with all of this that we don't even realize how miserable it makes us, how much of our life is consumed, or how much damage this obsession and all these messages are doing to our health, happiness and peace of mind.
We waste decades not only distrusting our bodies and parting with them, but also rejecting and fighting them.
Why? For the health? Luck? To feel good? Because that's exactly what everyone does, do we think that's what we should be doing?
We wonder why we fight so much while we are completely separated not only from ourselves but also from our bodies and even at war.
No matter how difficult it is, your body can and should feel at home. It should feel safe, loving, calm, and centered. But it's very difficult to ever get there if you always struggle with it.
Taking care of ourselves and our bodies should never be associated with work, punishment, suffering, or anything that requires motivation, discipline, or even lifestyle changes.
What do you think determines your lifestyle? Your daily decisions.
And what determines your daily decisions? Your programming.
That is, your thoughts, beliefs and behavior patterns. The vast majority of these have become so fully developed and incorporated into your brain over the course of your life that they are operated on an autopilot.
That is why they are so difficult to change and it can feel like we have no control over them – because until we actively work to change these things we somehow have no control over them.
We simply go through life in a trance, repeating the same thoughts and behaviors day after day. If for some reason we're not happy where we are, that has to change. Change what's going on inside and out.
The greatest tragedy of all is that all of the outside noise has made us stop trusting ourselves, choosing what to eat, and often even upholding our worth as humans.
All of this affects our decisions because we treat ourselves as we think we deserve to be treated.
Really, most of us just want to feel better, right? We want to feel healthy, happy, good in our skin, comfortable in our clothes, at peace and fulfilled.
Stop trying to punish and suffer your way there.
A healthy life should not make life more difficult. All of this should make life easier and better, and make us feel better about ourselves.
It is time to give up healthy living goals, lifestyle changes, and getting on and off the fitness travel trolley every few months. It doesn't work.
No more food rules and restrictions.
Leave the plans and goals and to-do lists behind.
Trench removal, suffering and struggle.
Leave the fear and distrust behind you.
Exchange it for love. For self-acceptance. Self-goodness. Self-compassion. Awareness.
Get to know yourself so that you understand what is going on inside and you get stuck in patterns that do not serve you. Here lies the power.
Start finding your way back to that little kid who felt like a superhero before the world taught him (or him) to fear, doubt, and live for success and goals.
Forget about all the things that you think you should do and reconnect with yourself and your body.
Pause and note. Emotionally and physically – what do you feel? Where do you feel it What does it want to tell you
Try to put your hands over your heart and just breathe.
Ask yourself, “What do I really want now? What do I need? "
Tell yourself and your body: "I love you and I listen."
Pay close attention to how you feel physically and mentally before and after you eat. Before reaching for what you know will make you feel terrible, ask yourself, "Why do I want it?" Is your body physically hungry or is it a thoughtless, learned behavior?
Ask yourself, "Do I really want to feel how I will feel if I eat it?" If you find yourself answering, "I don't care," ask yourself why. Why do you intentionally eat something that makes you awful?
As I started to ask myself these questions, I realized that I had done it to myself on purpose because I didn't think I deserved to feel good. This was very helpful information because then I could start exercising compassion and figure out what I was punishing myself for, and eventually stop.
We are born instinctively and know how to eat, but by the time we reach adulthood most of the ways we eat and live are learned behaviors.
The nice thing about learned behaviors is that we can learn to change them if they don't serve us, but it starts with awareness and kindness, not goals and restrictions.
The more you love and honor yourself and your body, the more you feel at home and connected. The more at home and connected you feel, the more you can hear your body telling you what it wants and needs .
You will recognize and trust indications of hunger and abundance. You recognize emotions and manage them more easily without always having to numb or stuff them. You will naturally feel compelled to move around in a way that makes your body feel better because you can hear your body when it asks for it.
The more you live from this place of love, trust and connection, the calmer you will be and of course the better you will begin to treat your body.
Then health and happiness really have a chance to flourish.
You don't need another weight loss or fitness trip. you need a trip back to the place within you that is only love and trust.
The little child I talked about earlier? This child loves you, trusts you and knows what you are worth and what you are capable of.
The child is still inside you and you need each other.
About Roni Davis
Roni Davis is a coach, writer, public speaker, and podcaster who helps women rebuild trust, compassion, and connectedness so that they can eat their relationships with themselves, and theirs Life can heal bodies and live a healthy, peaceful, joyful life. Find her on RoniDavis.com for her "It's All In Your Head" podcast and check out her free mini-course, "5 Days of Basic Weight and Food Freedom Practices," which teaches mindfulness, meditation and CBT strategies of awareness, peace and body connection and self-friendliness.
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