At any given moment, we have the choice to live in a space of love or fear.
When we come from love, we are accepting, kind, generous, abundant, loving, happy and carefree. It doesn’t mean we are necessarily 100% ok with where we are or what is, but we are allowing ourselves to be who we are and to love who we are in the moment.
For many of us who are healing from childhood trauma and difficult experiences from our childhood, self-love and self-acceptance can feel like an impossible task.
In our eyes, we were “bad, therefore, we have to be “punished”. In essence we become our own judges and executioners and the sentence is often life without the possibility of any joy – forever and forever. Ouch! That was the case for me and I see it for many of my clients.
The beauty is that awareness of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours is a huge stepping stone towards us choosing love over fear.
I’d like to share a story of a former client that moved me deeply and whose transformation has been astounding.
“Jane” is a smart, loving, kind woman who for several decades has been obsessing over food, exercising even on vacation so she could control her weight and feel like she had control over her life.
During one of our sessions she caught herself in a very old and familiar pattern.
After dinner and close to bedtime she would put on her pajamas and would say out loud to herself: “I am FAT”.
She told me she’s been doing this for most of her life. Her husband would listen and tell her it wasn’t true.
But … beauty is in the eye of the BEHOLDER, and she beheld “ugliness” and not beauty.
However, Jane had decided to change.
She chose to stay open to the possibility that even at a few pounds over her “comfortable” weight, she could embrace her beauty and call herself beautiful – just as she was right then. And she did.
One night recently, she caught herself literally in the act and before she got to the “F*t” word, she chose a more loving word: beautiful.
She said out loud: “I am beautiful” much to her husband’s joy and approval.
Jane and I worked together for a year until last summer.
This week I reconnected with her by phone to hear how she was doing and how she was feeling about herself.
The first thing Jane said to me when we started our talk was:
“Priscilla I’m SO HAPPY. Life is SO good.”
The amazing part: she meant it. I felt it in my bones.
Jane told me that our work together created a lasting PARADIGM-SHIFT for her.
She said that she went ….
From feeling: Insecure, unlovable, ugly, fat, unhappy, miserable, depressed, disconnected from her body, in a lot of pain, and obsessed about food and weight.
To feeling: lovable, beautiful, radiant, happy, fulfilled, joyful and genuinely living the best years of her life.
Jane shared that she no longer exercises incessantly. She has adopted a “flexitarian” diet which means she is comfortable eating what she wants when she wants it (an impossibility to her before) and she embraces self-love over a cruel and unattainable ideal of perfection.
Her new default is: “What’s the most loving choice for myself?”
WOW!
I was so full of joy when I spoke to her. During our work together, Jane had created lasting change from the inside out and now she feels like she’s living the best years of her life.
But not everyone’s quite yet on the self-love train as Jane.
Let’s be honest. As women we are harsh judges. The few excess pounds, the belly pooch, the cellulite. Even if everything looks “ok” we still are wondering why we aren’t a size or two smaller, right?
The truth is that joy, happiness, love and self-acceptance are an INSIDE JOB. We can be overweight, we can be a work in progress AND we can be beautiful in this moment IF and WHEN we decide we are beautiful.
At any moment, we can choose more loving and kind words to say to ourselves. We can stand in front of the mirror naked and tell ourselves we are beautiful because we really are. We are magnificent creatures who bring life into this world, who impact the lives of so many people we touch and because we ARE beautiful!
In a culture where it seems taboo to embrace our own beauty, I ask you:
Why wouldn’t we tell ourselves and the world that we are beautiful? Why wouldn’t we believe it to be true?
Since choosing love over fear, Jane has transformed her relationship to herself and to her family. Her kids find her to be more present and more kind to herself which gives them joy and peace.
The kicker: her husband thinks she looks younger, happier and has regained her light and is glowing.
Above all, Jane had come to me to find inner peace. Now she embodies it in everything she does. Well done Jane!
Technically, Jane is a few pounds over her “normal” weight and yet she seems to be at just the right intersection between self-love, self-acceptance and “beautiful”.
She has reclaimed her own inner beauty and her power. She is beginning to really EMBODY all of who she is. All that energy she used to reject and punish herself is not being redirected towards self-love and a kinder way of living.
If you want to lose weight or improve some aspect of your body, I’m not implying that you shouldn’t. What I am saying, is to choose to be loving to yourself every single step of the way. It will make the process much more pleasurable, much sweeter and you will be learning an invaluable skill: to love yourself which is one of the most powerful activities you could choose.
The Radiant Woman Program + Retreat is designed to support you in tuning into your inner radiance and to develop life-long skills of self-love, self-acceptance, and forgiveness that will support you in playing a bigger game and embracing the wholeness of who you really are.
You deserve to feel radiant and to genuinely be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself “ I am beautiful.”
If you’re not there yet, I invite you to join us at the Radiant Woman Program + Retreat.
