Celebrate your body
“Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate.” Women’s Health UK.
When so many of us look in the mirror we only see our flaws. We see things that we wish we could fix. “my thighs are too big, I am getting a zit, my eyebrows are too bushy” We tweeze and poke at ourselves. We eat that donut of piece of cake only to say “well I need to get on the treadmill for an hour for that”.
I challenge you to flip that way of thinking on its head. What if we could celebrate going to the gym or a yoga class as a way to bring more health to our bodies any minds. What if every time you got ready to go to the gym you had the same enthusiasm as when you are getting ready to go to the club with a group of friends? As you put on your workout clothes or yoga paints you said to yourself, “ I am getting ready to celebrate this amazing body that supports me every day.” Would that make you want to exercise more?
We all know the benefits of exercising, stronger, leaner bodies, endorphins. Yet for so many of us it is just one more dreaded task on our to do lists. So many people are falling in love with yoga because it is not just another work out. Yoga is a way to join our minds, bodies and spirits. Yoga means union. It slows us down and brings us together in a way our busy lives make us forget. In each pose or asana we become more aware of how our bodies can move and what they are capable. I teach noncompetitive yoga. Each pose is a celebration of the amazing ways that our bodies can move. It is not about if you can get into scorpion pose it is about celebrating that our bodies can move. The more we practice the more our bodies can achieve. Each time we practice we are able to see what new and wonderful thing we can do.
As a culture we are constantly putting our bodies down. Finding each flaw. What if the next time you look in the mirror you take just a second to see how beautiful we are. What if the next time we don’t feel like going to the gym we remember that each movement, each minute of the treadmill is to celebrate and support our bodies to continue to working hard for us. To continue delivering to us what most of the time we take for granted. You can place note cards on our mirror and when we look at them remember to celebrate these amazing bodies that we have. Let us try to remember to treat our bodies like we would a lover. There may be an occasional disagreement but most of the time we honor, cherish and love our bodies.
