It’s time to clean our house and get rid of all the self-loathing talk. You know what I am talking about—all those hateful remarks that you say to yourself when you think that nobody is looking? And what about those swipes that we take at ourselves out loud with self-deprecating humor? No more “Yeah, well if I looked like her—maybe!” Or “Whose looking at me anyway?” I am so done with it. It’s out of here—how about you?
The new year is looming—and it is time to clean out the painful stories that we tell ourselves about our bodies and our self worth. I love transformation—and it’s that magical time of the winter solstice where we can go inside and do the work that we need to do in order to be ready for whatever is next in our lives. And I am counting on all of us having a sexy 2010!
But how do we get from one place to another in our lives? The single most important thing that I have learned is that we can’t get where we are going unless we are not only grounded in our bodies, but in a place of loving ourselves from the inside out.
I have an ongoing personal “hate my body” garage sale—and you know what? I still have items that need to get off the shelf and out the door. The barrage of incoming data of why I should be dissatisfied with myself is constant—and trust me - the negative messages do creep in. It is like the dust on my furniture—no matter how much I clean—if I am not constantly vigilant, it covers everything again.
None of this is new for any of us. In my case, body image issues have haunted me my entire life. I am an expert on comparing my thighs to the trees in the Redwood Forest. Oh yeah—I am funny. But I am really hurting myself every time I crack a joke about my body. Learning to love myself was something that was hard for me to do. It didn’t matter what I had “accomplished”—none of that mattered. Deep inside I was wounded as a feminine being. Is any of this familiar to you? Come on - I know that you have most likely read much of this stuff before - whether it is on my blog or somewhere else.
You know what I am talking about—just like you know how you take your tea or coffee. We have all heard it before (was it Oprah?), on how all of us women share this great big collective consciousness filled with a legacy of apologizing for ourselves—and our actions. We know that somehow, without our consent or even our knowledge—we have somehow been shaped as sexual beings through the sexual ideals of whatever men thought we should be. One year we are Madonnas the next year we are Cougars.
Really?
I don’t know about you—but I am ready for all of us to have one great big collective consciousness garage sale! Let’s get rid of the junk! Do we really have to carry this around with us any longer? It is all so last century—or was it the century before that?
How about turning that old tired place of disconnection from our bodies to being in a place of self-loving, self healing and sexy self empowerment? Yeah - I know that you have probably heard something like that too before. But hang in there with me.
This is not a make over. We are already here. And through out 2010, the beginning of a brand new decade, I am going to be talking about creating a more sensual you. Today, we are going to start with what I think are some basic foundation exercises that in the beginning will feel like exercises—but after a month or so of these exercises they will turn into practices. You will simply start to incorporate exercises into your life where ever you are—you will figure it out!
