I love my body more than...a journey of self love...

I had heard someone say that every time she was tempted to eat something that blatantly was not good for her she told herself "I love myself more than cookies," or candy, or whatever it was that was tempting her. I adopted this motto and took it to heart. My diet of self love began sometime in June and by October, I was lean, fit, and moving into my speed limit birthday better than I could have ever imagined.

It all began when an old boyfriend I had reconnected with briefly at the beginning of the summer told me that I was 95% perfect, but the remaining 5% wasn't physically attractive to him. I was wounded, but I remained in a positive space and said that was so contradictory to his actions over the last few weeks. He wasn't someone I was interested in a long term relationship with, but I was still wounded. I was shocked but recovered quickly enough to tell him it must be hard to tell me something like that. I held space for him as he told me how shallow he was, how cowardly, and how he was already questioning his decision and must obviously be insane. While my ego was bruised, I was struck by the extraordinary courage it took for him to say something so completely ridiculous to my face. I would have expected something more along the lines of "it isn't you, it's me," or "this just isn't working for me." He hadn't been able to keep his hands off of me for the last month. So this came as somewhat of a surprise, if not the most unbelievably amazing reason to tell someone adios. Wow, 95% perfect? That's still an "A" in anyone's book.

While I knew his reasoning was shaky, it did push some significant buttons and I knew there was work to be done. I found myself spiraling into the depths of rejection, abandonment, feelings far greater than the initial insult. I was undesirable. I didn't even want him, but he rejected me! How could this be? It wasn't him, surely it was me. My head can be a bad neighborhood and sometimes it isn't wise to go there alone. I spent six weeks circling the drain of my life. Then, I decided enough was enough.

It has been amazing how this motto has transcended food. It has allowed me to look at dating, relationships and work with a different attitude. I practice self love all the time. I blow kisses at my reflection in the mirror. I treat myself to candle lit dinners with myself as my own date. I leave myself voice mails as if from a lover telling me how hot and sexy I am. I stand in front of the mirror naked, starting with my hair and moving down my body to the tips of my toes with affirmations of self love and acceptance. But a journey is begun with a single step, and for me, it was coming to terms with the fact that I wasn't loving myself very much to first, be involved with such a flaky guy, and second to hand over my psychological power to someone I didn't trust very much...Me. I began my journey with the motto "I love my body more than..." At first it was cookies, because loving my body meant I was taking better care of myself and cutting out sweets seemed the natural thing to do. Through the summer, my self love, and trust in myself grew to great proportions and the weight fell off easily. I signed up to do Pilates to strengthen, but my sheer love and self will to take exquisite care of myself transcended everything else. It is now December, and I am 25 pounds lighter. And I'll tell you it was effortless once I made that shift in my head that the only person that was going to take impeccable care of me was me. More on that later....Hope you enjoy my journey