Change your body?

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.” Carl Jung

Last night I had dinner with a woman who told me that she had tried to love her body, but she could not. She had been told to love her body to lose weight, and this put a lot of pressure on her. Ouch. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to love her body to lose weight, but she does have to stop fighting with it. The first step toward change is acceptance. Acceptance means you will work with your body to achieve your weight goals. When you accept your body, you trust your self. It is not automatically easy, and it takes courage.

The result of not trusting your self is, you lose self-respect. Then, you feel cowardly. Then, you get mad at your self, and act in a self-destructive way. You may eat mechanically, out of anger, frustration, or boredom. Then, eating is not about physical hunger or appetite, it’s not a response to your senses, it’s a self-destructive habit. Self destructive behavior is an example of fighting with your body.

Does this mean you have to love your body no matter what you see in the mirror? Absolutely not. When you use your eyes and look at your body in the mirror and it looks out of shape, it doesn’t feel good. When you accept your body, then you are free to choose to do what feels right to change it. Instead of fighting with your self by condemning your body, you can decide to work with your self, to pay attention to how your body feels, what messages you are getting from your six senses, and what you know, to achieve a healthier body.

When you don’t accept your self, you are creating stress inside. When you don’t like your body, you are condemning yourself. You are creating hostility inside that will bug you and press your buttons every time you look in the mirror. The result is- you will unintentionally, punish your self by self-destructive eating.

Change won't happen over night or even in a week.  What will change overnight is your attitude.  Once you stop fighting with your body, you won't look at food the same way. Instead of resenting your body, you will work with it, doing what you know and feel is good.  In fact you will be using your intuition, and your body will respond.  That's a guarantee.

When things are not ideal, it is not easy to face them. But it’s a fact that not dealing with reality will not change it! Instead it’s helpful to realize that the present is the foundation for the future, and that accepting what is real means you can change it.