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Posts tagged with “body”

Shedding Layers of Pain and Learning to Love Our Bodies

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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection.” ~Buddha

I cried when I watched the YouTube clip of Amy Pence-Brown standing in a bikini in a crowded marketplace in Idaho.

In the clip Amy asks people to write on her body. Her arms are wide open, she has a blindfold on, she has curves and cellulite, and she is completely vulnerable.

Why did she do it? Because she wanted to say: Here’s my body, complete and real. You can choose to accept me or reject me, but here’s my body. I want to …

Overcoming Sugar Addiction: A Guide to Breaking the Sweets Cycle

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“It’s not until your eyes adjust to the dark that you can finally grasp—and if you let it—be astonished, by the light of your own being.” ~Andréa Balt

Sugar was my best friend, my confidant, and my (not so secret) love. She provided me comfort and companionship. I went to her when I was happy, sad, anxious, excited, celebratory, scared, and broken-hearted. Social gatherings were centered around my infatuation with her.

I loved the taste, the experience, the social aspect. I loved the visual experience, the artistry, the display case of the perfectly frosted cupcakes and dusting …

How Obsessing About Your Body Gets in the Way of What Matters

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“Focus on what you want your life to look like—not just your body.” ~Sarah Failla

Growing up I never had much concern for the shape or size of my body. Perhaps once in a while the idea of losing weight or beginning an exercise routine crossed my mind, but it was always fleeting and I was quickly back to gossiping with my best friend or writing a note to my boyfriend.

Once I entered college I gained some weight, what with the unlimited access to Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch (something that never, ever crossed the threshold of my childhood home) …

Consumed by Food? 6 Lessons on Overcoming Disordered Eating

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“The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow. Don’t give up.” ~Robert Tew

For a good twelve years of my life, I was obsessively consumed with food.

I had this unhealthy relationship with my body and my eating. I simultaneously loathed myself and desperately desired to be skinnier, while also compulsively binging until I couldn’t move.

For months I would restrict. I’d eat some fruit for breakfast, green peppers, and ranch dressing for lunch and a few bites of whatever was in my fridge for dinner. I was also hooked on diet pills and exercised …

3 Ways to Slow Down and Take Better Care of Yourself

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“Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

It’s interesting how easily we forget to appreciate the simple day-to-day luxuries that we are granted with our body.

We assume that as we exhale, there will always be an inhalation to follow.

We assume that when we lay our head down on our pillow at night, our heart will beat, our blood will flow, and we will open our eyes in the morning.

We go on day after day, running around with a mile-long to-do list without taking a moment to check in with …

50 People, 1 Question

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If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be? Fifty people answered that question, and the answers after the two-minute mark really make you think.

How to Listen to Your Body (and Become Happy Again)

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“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos—the trees, the clouds, everything.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?

You don’t want to make a fuss about tiny health annoyances.

But you feel lethargic for no apparent reason. You get constipated, especially when you travel. You have difficulty sleeping.  And your hormones are all over the place.  You hold onto that niggly five or ten pounds like your life depends on it.

Sound familiar? I’ve been there too.

I was working at a dream job and living on the French Riveria. I was paid …

Managing Chronic Pain: 5 Lessons from Being Hit by a Truck

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“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

You know how people say, “It was like being hit by a truck”?

I know what they mean.

But the impact took over ten years.

It was a cold, snowy January, and I was in my car, singing along to the radio.

I was doing a steady, careful sixty miles per hour, in the middle lane of a busy British highway. I was on my way to deliver my first solo course for the company I’d …

Stop Resisting: Surrender to Your Body to Transform It and Your Life

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“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Most people don’t realize that your relationship with your body affects your entire life. Why? Because if you are fighting with your body, you are fighting with yourself. And if you are fighting with yourself, you are resisting what you truly desire in life.

I know too well what it feels like to fight with your body. I had the same fear as most people…

If I love my body as it is today, it will get worse. I will gain more weight. If I keep my constant …

Forming Healthy Habits: 3 Tiny Choices That Create Huge Change

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“It is better to make many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

Seven years ago I was a sedentary, over-caffeinated, unmindful, somewhat neurotic meat-eater with a bit of a drinking problem. My meals came out of boxes with chemical compounds for ingredients and had little in the way of anything that grew outside or came from a field.

I made excuses for not exercising, but in reality I was so insecure that I didn’t think I was strong enough to be athletic. I was afraid of making an …

How to Find Your Purpose When Your Life Is a Mess

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“What is my purpose here and how may I serve…in the midst of all this confusion?” ~Wayne Dyer

Your life is a mess and you can’t do anything about it, right?

Wrong.

You may be closer to the answers than you think, even while right in the middle of the chaos that showed up.

You ask yourself, “What happened to the life I had where I knew my purpose?”

All you know is that a rug you didn’t know you were standing on was pulled out from underneath you, leaving you in a heap. You want a magic carpet to …

The 3 Pieces of Recovery from Addiction or Depression

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“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~Brené Brown

When I started graduate school, it was safe to say that I was running away from things. I’d recently ended a nine-year relationship and I wasn’t planning on dealing with it.

Upon the birth of my nephew, my father, a long-term addict, had begun rekindling his relationships with his three daughters. I didn’t recognize, though I should have, that this needed dealing with too.

I began school so that I’d have something to pour my …

Learning to Love Your Body: 4 Steps to Self-Care

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“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

My life has been one big hate-fest of my body.

I don’t know when or how it developed, but I have been comparing my body to others’ for as long as I can remember. I was never happy, never good enough. There was always work to be done, goals to achieve.

Not only was I constantly on the latest diet that most likely was extremely bad for me, but I was also mentally beating myself up every step of the way.

The self-talk was …

How to Start Feeling at Peace with the Way You Look

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“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel” ~Steve Furtick

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had issues with the way I look. Back when I was at school, I stood out, being one of the only Asian students in a small English village. This heightened my awareness of how different I looked in relation to my peers and started my obsession of comparing myself with others.

It is often stated that adolescence can be a painful period in everyone’s life, and mine was no exception. By …

Love Your Body, Love Yourself: You Are Not Alone

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“Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” ~Sri Chinmoy

I hated myself when I was a kid.

I was overweight and starting to really like girls, but they didn’t like me.

I didn’t want to take my shirt off in front of them, so I didn’t go to the pool. And, when my parents made one last ditch effort at their marriage and moved to Coral Springs, Florida when I was in fifth grade—away from my friends and my hometown of Davenport, Iowa—I didn’t go to the beach.

Any …

Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?

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“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” ~Benjamin Spock

I used to believe that I was my thoughts. I really believed that everything happened well because I had analyzed and planned and prepared. I didn’t even know that I was doing this. I didn’t know there was any more to me than my thoughts.

I also used to believe that there was something seriously wrong with me, so thinking about how to fix myself was my main pastime.

All my life people told me, “You’re too sensitive,” “so intense,” “you’re just so emotional.”

I told …

Loving Your Whole Body, Even the Jiggly Parts

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“When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” ~Miguel Ruiz

When I was in fifth grade, the boy who shared the desk next to me said that I had a “roller coaster nose.”

At that age when things were starting to sprout from places I didn’t know things could sprout, and everyone’s watching each other develop under the microscope of pre-pubescent angst, that little comment sent me into a 10-year-old tailspin.

I would spend hours examining my nose from every angle in the mirror, only to affirm that indeed …

Healing Depression by Taking Care of Your Mind, Body, and Spirit

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“Suffering is not caused by pain but by resisting pain.”~Unknown

Prior to my twenty-second birthday I was spiraling down a self-destructive path, partying at all hours of the morning and drinking excessively to numb my pain. I was a rebel with a cause, as the lure of the nightlife kept me away from my dysfunctional home.

I was searching for love and happiness in all of the wrong places, but the universe stopped me dead in my tracks, both literally and figuratively, when my brother committed suicide.

Devastated by the loss of his presence in my life and the close …

3 Ways to Trust Your Body and Trust Yourself

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“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

I trust that the body knows everything. It does. Absolutely.

Did you ever just get a feeling—maybe something in your body that tells you something is wrong or just not right? Or maybe it gives you hints of unfailing happiness, joy, and earth shattering love?

If we would stop giving so much power to the mind, the ego, and just sat still and tapped into our body’s wisdom, we’d experience a healing power so great that it could prevent or reverse illness, disease, hate, self-loathing, …

Integrating Mind and Body: Be Present, Reduce Stress

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“Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.” ~Astrid Alauda

I don’t believe in the mind/body divide. I can see the gap between them, the one that we put there, but I have little faith in it. In the past month, I’ve learned that in order to live fully, I need to overcome that self-imposed gap.

We all have different mental, emotional, and physical capacities. You could probably run a 5k race, but I’d struggle to even walk it. I know I can work through some of the most difficult decisions, …