Holding onto extra body weight sucks. It can consume your thoughts. You can spend so many years berating your body and yourself for not being able to release the weight. You can go to the gym religiously and eat all the “right” foods with little success. It can feel impossible to release the weight, and in the meantime you feel like a big failure. The weight struggle is real for so many people. I have been there. If you are reading this, perhaps you can relate.
So much energy is frankly wasted, when obsessing over calories, restricting yourself, hours exercising, buying into all the latest dieting crazes, only to either lose weight (and gain it right back when you begin eating again) or fail to actually lose any weight.
It doesn’t have to be this way for you any longer. I have found that when you are able to the root of your particular weight issues, you are able to free yourself from the dieting roller coaster once and for all.
In my years of working with spiritual women, I have learned that in order to have true success with releasing weight, you have to take a deep dive into the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual causes of your weight struggles. Releasing weight is not just about diet and exercise.
If you think that diet and exercise alone will help you lose weight permanently, you will be disappointed. Eating nourishing foods and moving your body are just one ingredient in the weight loss formula. Exercise can help you feel stronger, more confident, burns calories, reduces stress hormones and helps your mind relax. Eating nourishing foods can absolutely feed your body the nutrients it needs for optimal functioning.
But weight issues are more complex than just throwing on walking shoes and going for a run and eating carrots. Weight issues have physical, mental, emotional and spiritual causes, and usually it is a combination of all of them. And just exercising is like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It might help stop some of the bleeding, but you still have a deeper wound to heal.
And as we are each unique and divine, so is the root cause of our weight issues. You can have a physical body imbalance that triggers weight gain; even some medicines can cause your body to retain extra weight, but I find that there is always an emotional upset or trauma (real or perceived) that is the actual root cause from where the physical manifestations begin to blossom.
I often find that if you dig and dig some more, you will find that the root cause of weight issues (and quite frankly all health issues) is lack of love. Love of body. Love of self. Sounds kinda cheesy, but it is true.
Lack of love can look like a million different things; not feeling worthy, depression, low self esteem, sabotaging yourself, addictions (all of them), people pleasing, door mat, etc.
So you can go the gym like a boss and cut all those carbs and you will see your body shrink most likely, as long as you are doing all those things. What happens when you stop cutting carbs though? You know what happens; you begin to put the weight right back on. This is because you have not gotten to the root of your particular weight issue, and the weight just keeps coming back not unlike a weed.
When you don’t truly and completely love your body, you can find yourself constantly berating yourself, quietly in the comfort of your own mind. If you walk by a mirror and think, “OMG, I am so fat!”, how do you think your body will respond to that? Is this love and care? Yet we do this to our bodies all…the…time. It is not helpful.
And if you think about it like this, everything is energy. Everything has a vibration. This isn’t New Age stuff either; this is scientific fact. Everything has a frequency. Thoughts. Emotions. Objects. And if you are in a constant state of thinking bad thoughts about your stomach, your thighs, your butt, arms, chin, scars, stretch marks, cellulite, etc you are eating spoonful after spoonful of lower vibrational energy. Yum yum.
Love, however, is high vibe frequency; the highest. What if you thought loving, kind thoughts about your body, yourself, your life? How do you think that would feel? Which would you rather eat spoonfuls of? Love or hate? I know which one I prefer.
Let’s go back to the self loathing for a minute though. If you are thinking negatively about your body all throughout your day, how do you think it will affect you? Your mood? Do you think it would affect your food choices? The way you dress or carry yourself? Perhaps you would sit around more because, why bother? Or maybe it would get you fired up to make a resolution full of willpower and action (for a few weeks).
Do you see where weight issues are not as simple as going to the gym and eating more vegetables? I hope I have enlightened you on this. You gotta heal the root cause, and that root cause is ultimately healing your lack of love of your body.
When you can come into alignment with your body and body love, magic happens. The choices you begin to make are more effortless, flowing, feel really freaking good. You walk by a mirror and smile more. You begin to appreciate all that your body has done and does for you every moment of every day. You feel more confident in your skin.
You may be wondering where to begin loving yourself and your body more. As simple as this sounds, place your hands on your heart right now and say out loud, “I love you”. Seriously, it is that simple to begin to shift the energy. If this feels really hard and uncomfortable for you, that is your clue that you have some work to do. Keep telling yourself that you love yourself. You can even pick one body part and write a letter of gratitude to it (ie your arms, your booty). This kind of work begins to shift the energy and vibration.
There is deeper healing that needs to happen, but those exercises will get you started. I love you, and I know that you can reach any weight release goal you may have. I believe in you. Do you believe in yourself?