Love yourself, love your body!

Everyone is here for a purpose. There are no accidents. There is a reason for you to walk this earth.

You are given 1 life, 1 body. How you treat your body will determine how well you will be able to fulfill your life's purpose.

You can hate your body all you want. You can spend countless hours and energy looking at every "flaw" in the mirror, wishing that you looked like someone else, wishing your body was made differently, comparing yourself to everyone in this group, or to the pictures that you see in magazines. OR you can choose to free yourself and live live to accept the body you were given- to love it, to honor it, to take care of it and treat it well, and to focus on keeping it healthy. You can be thankful of the many amazing things that your body is capable of. Your health is everything. Once it is gone it is very difficult to get it back. Once you reach the end of your life you will wish that you had spent more time loving yourself, enjoying yourself than wasting so many precious memories and hours hating what you see and limiting yourself to the things that you do.

We are all unique. No two bodies are the same. Most of our "flaws" are generated in our minds and formed from the opinions of others and what someone else has told us that we "should" look like. You may have a background of abuse where someone belittled you and ripped away all of your self esteem and self worth- that is my story and I will tell you more about it this week. We look at women in magazine, online, in "fitspiration" posts on Facebook and think that is what our body should look like. We fail to understand and recognize that we are comparing ourselves to a standard that does not exist. These pictures are often photo shopped, Their "flaws" are removed. They are slimmed down, butts lifted, boobs are lifted and made larger, blemishes taken out, etc. We are comparing ourselves to an unattainable image. As young girls we are bombarded with these images and believe that this is what we are supposed to look like. We spend too many hours comparing ourselves to other people's successes and journeys and quit ad give up if we are not having the same results, yet we fail to look at the progress that we have actually made.

We waste so much precious time by:

1. Comparing ourselves to others- comparision is the thief of joy

2. Starving ourselves, taking diet pills, purging, etc

3. Hating everything that we see when we look in the mirror, wishing we had bigger boobs, smaller waist, smaller hips, a different nose, etc

My challenge for YOU is to spend more time doing these:

1. Being thankful for the body that you were given. Be thankful for the opportunity to walk this earth.

2. When looking in the mirror STOP the negative chatter. Redirect your thoughts. Focus on what you do LOVE about yourself- ask yourself if you would want your daughter speaking to herself the way you are speaking about YOURself

3. Spend time focusing on being healthy. Exercising the body, fueling it with healthy foods, taking time for rest and relaxation, hydrating it.

4. Find a fitness goal that you want to reach and GO FOR IT!

5. Stop being ashamed of scars, stretch marks, etc. These tell the story of your life and are beautiful

6. Choose healthy and fit over skinny.

7. Stop obsessing over physical features. Every body is made differently.

8. Let go of things that people have said about your body. Do not put worth in what anyone says about you. Their judgement shows their insecurities about their own body.

9. Do NOT participate in women bashing. I see it all the time on Facebook.

10. KNOW that you ARE beautiful!!!