I've always had a difficult relationship with my body.
Traumatic early life experiences laid unhealthy foundations.
I stopped seeing it for what it achieved, and as something to fight against instead.
I still find it hard to make my peace with how I look, size, shape, tone, wobbles, etc etc blah blah blah.
Yet after feeling rubbish lately, I'm reminded how precious it is.
It's not perfect but it's all I've got - chronic conditions and all!
When we're burnt out though, we put our body to one side and battle through anyway.
I've got no time to see a doctor.
Don't wait for 'if only'...
How many times have you ignored a health issue and it got so bad you HAD to stop?
It's such a common pattern - The Marching Soldier. Keep going until you collapse!
On the other side of recovery, your body doesn't feel the same.
Maybe you couldn't exercise the same way.
Or perhaps you lost confidence in your fitness.
However it appears, there's a choice here.
We could give in to our inner critic, or we could accept where we are and restart and rebuild our bodies.
I'm trying get better at this.
I enjoy exercise and feeling strong, but my body doesn't always play ball.
After several life phases of poor health, I realise how resilient it is.
I get back on the horse, head to the start of the path and regain my fitness levels slowly and steadily.
It's boring and annoying, but doing something is better than doing nothing.
Eventually, things get close to normal and your fitness returns.
Don't choose to suffer in the short-term, or let perfectionism get in your way.
Appreciate what your body does for you
You don't have to love your body.
I know there's a big body positivity movement out there - if you're into it, that's cool.
For a lot of people though, loving without any judgement and cheerleading is hard, and a step too far.
Liking your body, or appreciating what it does for you is good enough.
It's certainly better than hating your body and wishing you had someone else's.
To stop hating your body, lean into what's unique about it.
Even identical twins have different bodies, from the impact of gene expression, and environmental differences.
No one else on the planet has your body. That's amazing.
So, for our mindset and habit shifts today, let's go for a gratitude-focused approach.
List 3 - 5 things you've done with your body that made you proud or chuffed.
Here are some prompts to get you going:
- Slept well
- Carried a human
- Created a human
- Got into a yoga pose
- Built things for others
- Achieve a sporty activity
- Recovered from injury or illness
- Created art - visual, written, music, science
- Offered a much needed hug at the right moment
- etc etc
What themes did you notice?
Were any related to a personal or professional challenge?
How many were linked to other people?
Pick one thing from your list to try out over the next 7 days and let me know how it felt.
I don't expect this one exercise to immediately shift decades of other messages you give yourself about your body.
If you never start, you'll never change.
When we repeat a task, it goes from difficult to automatic.
The key is persistence.
Remember this exercise each time you negatively judge your body to shift perspective.
Over time, you'll realise your outlook has eased.
You only have one body in this life - make friends with it and it'll serve you well.
Take care,
Sabrina
Burnout Coach | Neuroscientist | Art-based Practitioner
P.S. Fed up of bashing your body and self-sabotaging your fitness goals? Let's work out what's really going on. Book a free 25m call with me to see how I will help.