Love Yourself like Jack loved Rose (and avoid large bodies of water)

It’s my belief that the human body has the potential to heal itself given the correct tools. We have so much human potential yet many of us are caught up in old habits, patterns, rituals, and limiting beliefs. 

How many times do you find yourself replaying a past event, almost like the movie in your mind and coming up with different scenarios or endings to the story. Now these new stories can be positive or negative, but either way, they are keeping us clinging to the past and recycling old emotions.

Most of us have stress in our lives and this can often come with feelings of fear which can stop our body from renewing and healing.  If we can learn to cope on a physical level, then this will in turn support us on a mental, emotional and spiritual level as well. We will be able to heal body, mind and spirit.

Imagine the feelings of joy, the energy and vibrancy you can feel when your whole body is renewing and regenerating. Imagine how your mind would feel, being mindful and alert and how free your spirit would feel in the knowledge that your cells are constantly renewing.

Unfortunately, most people are disconnected from their bodies and this includes their personal attitudes to their own physical body. These people don’t see the the body they want, rather they are disappointed and these disappointed feelings may go back for years.

How many beliefs do you have about yourself that have stayed with you since early childhood. I can think of so may examples of the power of words from others and to myself that have stuck with me. Things like ‘too skinny’, ‘must be anorexic’, ‘underweight’, ’96%, what happened to the other 4’! all statements which made me begin to question myself. Things like  ‘Am I good enough in comparison to…’, ‘who says?’, ‘Am I a failure?’ and all this begins to affect the way we see ourselves and how we see our bodies. We start to believe that we are not good enough as we are. Not only that, it compounds the idea that our body is separate from Us and the consciousness residing in there.

But at a cellular level, everything is perfect. As long as we don’t interfere with it, by bringing stress into our lives, then our cells can carry out thousands of chemical reactions with total trust and acceptance. The only thing that interferes with this is Us. Maybe we bring the stress into our lives or we ignore the signals that our body gives us, the tiredness, the emotions, the physical symptoms, the monkey brain… we just keep going in our old patterns, because we find it so hard to reset and refresh and maintain a new and better way. We try, but often fail and turn our backs on healthy lifestyle choices that enable us to thrive in our bodies.

I have heard it said that everyone should meditate for 20 minutes a day and if you’re really busy, then you should meditate for an hour! This allows us to truly own or own thoughts rather than remaining victim to them. We can rid ourselves of the cyclical, possibly inherited thoughts, limiting beliefs and live in this moment right now.

For our body to renew, we must learn how to reconnect to it. Every feeling we have is communicated to fifty trillion cells. And who sits at the centre of all this? Not the brain, the brain does not make the decisions, you do. It is us who makes poor lifestyle choices, and bad decisions. Sometimes I wonder about the decisions we make for ourselves, would we also make them for a friend. I doubt it. We would never do to a friend what we do to ourselves, almost without thinking. Forcing the disconnection with the body, making it more undesirable and eventually changing our attitude towards ourself too.

If we can remind ourselves of how amazing the human body is, how it communicates for us if we do not interfere, and how it is our most intimate ally in good times and bad, perhaps our attitude will begins to change. Our body never fails in its loyalty to us. It carries out everything it can so that we can survive and thrive.

When you connect to your body, you improve its wellbeing. And actually knowing this helps too. Are you aware of the feedback loops in yourself? What you give your body, it gives you straight back. And the same applies to your mind and spirit too. A negative thought will bring you negative feedback and a thoughtless or negative action will do the same.

A recent study showed that people who committed to doing something at a set time AND place were a lot more successful than those who simply had the goal to do it. This is why its best to set up Implementation Intentions to help you stick to a new regime when trying to create a new, healthier habit.

But it is difficult as unless we are conscious about what we are trying to achieve then we will fall right back into our old habits within just 24 hours. We really need to be consistent to make these new improvements stick.

So what can we do?

Did you know that we have on average 70-80000 thoughts a day and that 90% are repeated from the previous day. So taking this into account can help to explain how we may become fixed in our ways of thinking as the majority of thoughts are old ones.

So first, instead of becoming cross or defensive with yourself, take the opportunity to become aware of the your behaviour and embrace the discomfort it brings. This discomfort will be the catalyst for changing your ways in the future.

Next, set a plan for how you are going to meet this goal. Break it down into small steps so it is manageable and measurable. This is great for counter training!

Finally, change the associations you have. Replace the information you have that confirms your failure or feelings of not being enough with at least two positives to counteract and challenge your negative belief. Do this each time you notice yourself doing or talking to yourself in a negative way. Do this in every facet of you life (the books you read, the TV you watch, etc.)

These 3 things will help you to make lasting change. 

My mantra: ‘Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong” 

This is the reason I mentor all my patients & customers throughout their treatments as simply offering a solution and sending them away to get on with it will never yield the results that we all truly want.