Mini #1: The pressure of ’body love’ & what I do

In this mini episode, I’m sharing some thoughts on this thing that we call ‘body love’ and loving all aspects of your body.

After working with a lot of women, I have found that often going from frustration and hate and disappointment and trauma with your body, making that jump to body love, it's like way too big. It's like a bungee jump. Some people wanna do it. A lot of people are like, ‘No, thank you’.

If you know you have a toxic relationship with your body and you know there's dieting, there's harshness, there's unkindness…or another way of thinking about it is: Are you a bully to your body? Are you harsh, mean, critical? Always picking on the flaws, always pointing out the squidgy bits, the fat bits, whatever.

If that is the relationship you've had with your body and you want to shift it, it can be really helpful, instead of jumping from like A to B or doing this massive bungee jump to try and get to body positivity or body love to actually just aim for appreciation and maybe even just neutrality.

So, it could be that you're not necessarily saying that you start doing affirmations about how much you love the cellulite on your legs, but you might just really start to appreciate your heartbeat and the fact that it beats and you don't do anything about that. You don't make it happen. You don't force it to happen and it just beats, maybe you appreciate your lungs, expanding, contracting, expanding, contracting. Maybe you think about your toes and how they help balance your feet. Maybe you think about your skin and how awesome it is.

Yet maybe it has blemishes, maybe it has scars, but it contains you, it protects you. Maybe you want to think about your hair or your sight or your nose.

Really do a deep dive, just a scan of how you can appreciate your body a little bit more and then instead of jumping to, ‘I love my body’ thoughts, think about more neutralised thoughts like: I appreciate my body / I have a body /I'm learning to acknowledge my body / I'm learning to respect my body with the choices and food that I eat.

You don't have to go from, ‘I hate this' to ‘I love it, everything's fine, I love everything about it’

But a great middle ground while you shift your relationship with food is appreciating your body and I honestly guarantee as you appreciate your body more, the way you treat it will naturally improve, the choices you make will change because with appreciation over time comes building respect and with respect comes different choices.

When you're bingey and criticizing yourself, there's no respect going on for your body, for your temple, for your vessel but as you cultivate appreciation, you cultivate all the ways that your body gives to you. And yes, there's maybe stuff to work on and that's okay, but you can actually focus on all the ways that your body serves you. You can appreciate that and hopefully build some respect.

Respect for your body is actually incredible and that can take you so far and completely transform your relationship with food and relationship with your health.

You don't have to unconditionally love every aspect of your flesh, but we can appreciate it, we can respect it. And therefore when we respect and appreciate something, we honour it with our choices and actions.

Want to see BIG results in your energy, belly, skin and hormones?

Then chances are you need some personalised support (hint – that is what I do!). Click here to find out more and to book your call with me.

Resources Mentioned

• Find out more about working with me here – and book your call.
• Find out more on how to deal with constipation – here and here
• Find out about the BIGGEST mistake people make in supporting their digestion here
• Looking for free-from recipes? Then check out all my yummy recipe here

Head to kezihall.com/blog to stream from there or subscribe to the Gut Goddess Show on iTunes and then it will delivered to your device every single week.