In the last few years, I’ve had the extreme pleasure of fully regaining my worthiness and completely detaching it from my physique. A number of these universal truths contributed to that process.
I want to share five mindset shifts that helped me in my process, and that you might find helpful as well, whether you’ve just begun your journey to body acceptance, or you’re well on the way.
Due to the stimulants of nicotine and caffeine, and the gnawing hunger pains, I rarely slept. Even when I tried to lie down I was jacked up and restless, barely able to shut my eyes. So I took pills to sleep. What a gnarly existence. So many vicious cycles they're impossible to trace. I slept about an hour a night. But sometimes I was so tired from partying, jet lag and an utter lack of nutrition, that I'd stay asleep for 15 hours straight. As you can see, insecurity and the endless desire to look perfect were the only consistent things in my life.
The fitness industry—from gyms to clothing manufacturers—collectively produces more propaganda than North Korea, a lot of it just as crazy.
...the truth is, we’re all tired. Every single one of us. By a certain age, we are all nothing more than an army of broken hearts and aching souls, desperately searching for fulfillment. We want more but we’re too tired to ask for it. We’re sick of where we are but we are too scared to begin again. We need to take risks but we’re afraid to watch it all come crashing down around us. After all, we’re not sure how many times we will be able to start over.
Showing your friends and family only the parts of your life where you have it all together is like letting those people look at a book’s cover or maybe flip through it, but not letting them actually read the book… and then wondering why they don’t understand the story line. We are all too good at keeping a distance between us and others. We hide the ugly parts, the sorrows the fears. Especially the fears. We wear “emotional armor” in an attempt to protect ourselves from being hurt if someone rejects or hurts us. We keep our vulnerability to a minimum in order to prevent others from hurting us, but in doing so, we maintain an extra space between us and them.
