Things I love about my body

I have been immersed in my Love Your Body program; busily listing why you should love all the  parts of your body, creating meditations to help you love your body, recording EFT ( tapping) audios to help you love your body and researching the benefits of positive thinking and affirmations on your body.

I've been reading positive body image blogs and joining Facebook pages that promote body love.

One of those pages, The Militant Baker is holding a Body Love conference next year which will be AWESOME!! She posted a Crowdfunding video this morning ( go check it out on her page) or better yet go donate some money to get this conference happening

IT all got me thinking about my own awesome, beautiful body so I thought I would share with you some of the things that I love about my body.

(1) I love my hair.
I started going grey in when I got divorced, had a baby and met the love of my life all in the same year. Now you have to understand that I have a cow's lick and if you don't know what that is consider yourself blessed by the Hair Fairy and move on. And that is where the first few grey hairs popped up, right at the front of my hair.

So I did what any sane 30 year old does - I went straight to the hairdresser and got her to dye my hair black ( I was already dark, dark brown) , except for the piece of hair at the front, that we dyed platinum blonde. Result? Sheer awesomeness!

I only did it the once though because frankly, life is too short to sit around waiting for your hair to change color ( but that's just me).

Now my hair is a mix of grey, white and the remnants of dark brown and I still love it. My silver highlights are taking over and I'm okay with that.

(2) I love my hands.
If you know me you know that they are usually festooned with as many large rings as I can comfortably wear on them at any one time.

I'm still looking for the perfect thumb ring.

And no, you cannot have too many rings. Ever.

(3) I love my breasts, always have.

They are not as pert as they once were. I remember my sister and I worrying about the pencil test when we barely had boobs. The pencil test, for those of you that don't know, is whether you can hold a pencil under your breast, if you can your breasts are too saggy.

Mine are now at the point that I could probably hold a whole pencil case under there quite happily. And you know what? I'm okay with that too. These breasts have fed three babies, I've lost count of the times my babies fell asleep sucking and all the hours I nursed them to make them feel better or cam them down.
In the right bra they still look magnificent.

(4) I love my face.

Artist unknown but I adore this pic

Complete with eyes that shine, a mouth that smiles and the odd wrinkle to show that I have lived.

(5) I love my butt.

Curved just right, not too big and fills out my jeans just nicely thank you very much.

(6) I love my big, soft belly.

It is soft and jiggly and bears the scars of stretch-marks from my babies and surgery (so I don't have any more babies!!)

(7) I love my arms.

For all encompassing hugs and with all my soft jiggly boobs and belly, I give great hugs.

(8) I love my legs.

They reach all the way from the ground right up to the curve of my arse - perfect. I used to get teased about how skinny they were but I still loved them even then. Yes, my thighs touch but my knees are not knobbly and these legs carry me through my days.


I could go on and on because, lets face it, my body is pretty damn spectacular....... and so is yours.

If you are struggling with body issues then sign up  for my newsletter (Click the link on the sidebar at the top of the page) to find out all the details of the Love Your Body program and how you can get your hands on it.

So tell me what parts of your body do you love?

How to fall madly, deeply, passionately in love with your self every day

Last week I wrote about falling in love with your partner as it has been a bit of a love fest at my house for a while now. And falling in love with your partner is great.

Much of the time we protest that relationships are hard work.

That we have to take the time and consciously put effort into keeping love, passion and sex alive in our relationship.

The truth is  relationships with others are easy.

Sure we have days where the sound of our partner's voice is like nails on a blackboard ( for those of you young folk its not a great sound. Google it. I'm sure somewhere there is a Youtube video of someone demonstrating it - pause while I check Yup! Here you go )

But most of the time it only takes a few minutes for us to remember that time he brought us flowers...... he had picked himself.... for you ( yes my honey did that for me recently!) or that text he sent that says"Yr my drm boat" ( another gem from my honey!) and we go all mooshy and squishy inside and sigh and feel waves of love swirl around us like moonbeams on a dark night.

EASY.

EFFORTLESS.

There we are back in love with our dreamboat.

No, what is hard is falling in love with yourself, over and over again.

Forgiving yourself for the stupid things you have said or done.

Loving yourself  in spite of the fact that you are 20 pounds overweight and haven't exercised for months.

Loving yourself even when your hair just won't sit right dammit!

Loving yourself  when you opened your mouth and something stupid, hurtful and even as you say it you wish you could take it back but you can't.

Loving yourself even when it feels like nothing is going right in your life right now , in fact it's just one giant suckfest and then the car breaks down or the vacuum cleaner packs up when you haven't vacuumed for weeks and you have people coming over in, like, five minutes. ( that happens to you too right?). Or you have just lost your job and have no idea how you are going to get another one.

Loving yourself is something that we all pay lip service too.

Then we fall into the trap of beating ourselves up....... because we ate cake.

Or we put ourselves down  for not exercising this week ( month, year!)

Or we lie in bed going over all the stupid things we have done for the past week ( month, year, decade!)

Or we obsess over the kilo ( or two, three, five) we have gained. And then we go on ( yet another) diet and then beat ourselves up for failing at that too.

And so starts the never ending loop of just not being, quite good enough.

We measure ourselves against the latest "it"celebrity/model/pop singer. We look at their skinny bodies in all the magazines and wonder why we can't look like that 24/7. Forgetting that they have (a) a stylist (b) a personal trainer (c) a nanny to look after the kids and (d) a chef to cook for them or at least a nutritionist to help them.

So how do we just STOP the endless diatribe against ourselves and START  truly, madly, deeply loving ourselves?

I Love YOU!

Just like in last weeks article.

We start by looking ourselves in the eye as we wash our face, apply our makeup and any other chance we get and say, out loud "I Love you. You are awesome and beautiful and talented and I just wanted you to know how much I love you."

Yup all of that, while making eye contact.
By telling your self how much you love you , you start to reconnect to your own innate wisdom and self belief and you stop looking for outside validation.

I value my.....

Start each day by writing down a minimum of three things that you value about yourself. I do this at the same time as I do my gratitude journal.

This practice helps reaffirm that who you are has inherent value and worth, because you do.

We tend to think that who we are is represented by our bodies but as all the great teachers tell us "You are not your body. You have a body but you are not your body" take a moment to think about that.

Gratitude

Give thanks for all the things that you have present in your life and all the fun stuff that you get to do. Far too many of us move through our day taking it for granted but life is precious and taking a moment to give thanks for your body; your sense of smell, the things you can taste or hear or touch, the fact that you have two functional legs and can run and jump and walk wherever you want to go, these things are a blessing.

Just ask someone who can no longer do those things.

Get up, dress up, show up

 I work from home and it would be super easy to never get out of my pj's but guess what? Yup every day I get up, dress up and show up just like I am off to work... because I am.

I wear matching underwear ( if you're a guy you probably don't realize how great this makes us girls feel) and I dress as if I am off to work including  jewelery and accessories. I don't necessarily wear make up because that is a some days yes, some days no thing for me but I always make an effort with how I look REGARDLESS of whether I am leaving the house or not.

Why?

Because it makes me feel great.

I don't have outfits that I wear om "special "occasions because being alive is a special occasion.

So get up, dress up and show up for your life


 I am launching my

 LOVE YOUR BODY REVOLUTION program soon.

 Sign up for my newsletter for all the details of when it's coming.


 In the meantime here's a wee taster of what is coming.

  .Love your body audio Free Gift






Leave me a comment with one thing you are grateful for about your body. I'd love to hear from you or come join me on my Facebook page