Today I'm focusing on giving myself tons of radical self love. After reading Sonya Renee Taylor's book "The Body is Not an Apology", I realize how fantastically important this type of love is not only for our Bright line eating journey, but for every aspect of leading a fully expressed life. In Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, radical self love transcends even self esteem or self acceptance. You can picture self love as being an island, surrounded by rocky shores and tumultuous waters all around it. Self acceptance is like the trees growing and thriving on the island. And self esteem is like the ship battling through the stormy waters, constantly being batted off course and, each time as it tries to get into closer proximity to shore, it gets pushed back by the under toe of will power and ego. Will power, is a depletable resource. When it runs out and we are pulsing through sheer exhaustion, we can crash our ship and fall into the "danger and destruction" zone.
We radical self love, there are a few core tenants to live by:
1. Accept and celebrate your body exactly where it is today. "Getting there" is just part of the arrival fallacy. There is no "there". We are whole, perfect, and complete just where we are today. Which is the only time there is. In this very moment. If you focus on your weight, your will lose your bright lines. If you focus on your bright lines, you will lose the weight. We are so much more than a number. It is the voyage that makes the progression into a right sized body so enjoyable. We come for the vanity but stay for the sanity. It is through a right framed mind that we can truly capture the rapturous moment of satisfaction in the body we possess today.
2. Stop comparing yourself to other people. We are all uniquely different. The only person you should be comparing yourself to you is you. Are you 1% better than you were yesterday? Did you do one small thing in the direction of your goal body? How are your bright line eating habit stacks coming along? If you invest diligently on a daily basis into your bright line "system" of actions and support, your right sized body will follow. Just like we keep our eyes on our own plate, we need to keep our eyes on our own bodies.
3. Stop body shaming in its tracks. This phenomena has been going on as long as media has been around. We are flashed air brushed images of the perfect face or the perfect body through multitudes of social media outlets on a daily basis. Children as young as 10 are feeling the angst of body shaming. The beauty industry is worth over $500 billion a year. There is lots of money to be made by making vulnerable people feel inadequate in their bodies. There was a movie filmed several years ago called "The Danger of Poodle Science" featuring Dr. Deb Burgard who specialized in people with eating disorders. This satirical film described how the health of dogs were determined by how closely they resembled a poodle. Be careful who you compare yourself to.
4. Get more connected with your body. Spend more time touching and being in connection with your physical parts. Enjoy massages, physical connection and intimacy, and take nice hot showers. Feel the joys of movement, of playing tennis, or buying a new piece of clothing and feeling the texture of the fabric on your skin. Ingest your beautiful BLE food. Watch the sunset and see how it makes your heart sing. Eve Ensler explains that prior to writing her famous comedy skit The Vagina Monologues, she suffered from a very distorted body image and was very disconnected from her body. Writing this skit helped her to reaffirm her physical space and to increase her capacity for sexual intimacy and enjoyment.
5. Radical self love requires daily practice. To become masterful at anything, you need to repeat a behavior until it becomes automatic. James Clear explains this in his book The Atomic Habits. Stack your habits so you are easily triggered to practice self love every day. Take small steps each day so you feel like you are achieving something tangible. Even if it is looking at yourself in the mirror each day and telling yourself, with real believability, that you love and respect your body in the form it is in today. Repeat. Over and over again. Incorporate your positive affirmations during your meditations. Bake it into your mindset. Build it into your identity.
We need to enjoy our bodies, wholly and completely, in the form it is in today. There is no perfect nirvana sometime in the distant future. Today is all we have and it is all we need. By loving ourselves, we diminish our own critical eyes on the bodies and forms of other people. So constructively, as a tribe, we collectively reduce our own internal biases and prejudices and judgments of other people's bodies. We can work together to reduce the ailment of body shaming in our society. We can become the change we want to implement. Trust your body's own innate intuitions and instincts. We are perfect. Love yourself today!
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