After 25 years of doing body work as a sports massage therapist, I have listened to people talk about being at war with their bodies.  How they hate this or hate that about their own figures.  Not to mention girlfriends having conversations about nipping this or tucking that, or losing weight, or dieting.
Isn’t it about time we made peace with our bodies?
Last week I went to see the movie EMBRACE by Taryn Brumfitt a woman who posted a unique before and after picture on Facebook.  Her before picture was her in a fitness contest with what most people would call a “perfect body”.  Her after picture was her after giving birth to 3 children with a huge smile on her face and a heavier and more mom type body.  She said when she did the body building competition she discovered she wasn’t happy, it was too much work and obsession to maintain that body!  And now she is happy, because she has embraced her body as it is.
Our bodies change throughout life.  Especially as women, we morph from puberty, to pregnancy, to menopause all the while having our bodies change shapes and sizes.  Why is it we fight it so much?  Is it pressure from the media to be in our “perfect” body?  Or selling us yet another diet program?  Magazines telling us what we need to look like? (when even the magazine models don’t even look like that!).
It has been on my heart for a long time to help people (myself included) to accept and love the body they have.  To help them stop comparing their body to other’s bodies.
When I was young and first married, I was really obsessive about what I looked like physically, always trying to lose weight, and comparing myself to the magazines I subscribed to: Shape, Fitness, Vogue.  One day my husband said to me.  You need to go and sit outside of a public building and look at people coming in and out and compare yourself to them (real people and not the magazine models).  I think he was on the right track, because after doing this I decided I was not so bad after all.  Comparing isn’t good, but comparing myself to the magazines rather than real people was even worse.
What are we doing setting ourselves up like this?    It is so sad that we are wasting so much planet time obsessing about how we should look.  What if we just accept ourselves the way we are?  What if we stopped judging others based on the way they look?
Isn’t comparison and judgement (of others and especially ourselves) the real problem?
What if we accept ourselves and others just the way they are?
Let’s transform our body images by changing the way we think about our bodies.
After watching the documentary I was grateful this body movement has been started, but I was always taught if you bring a problem to the table, you should also offer some solutions.  So here is my solution.  Marcia Germaine Hutchinson, Ed.D wrote and published a book back in 1985 called TRANSFORMING BODY IMAGE (available on Amazon). I have had this book for years and often thought I should do a class on it.   I think now is a good time to start!
So if you are interested in joining a group, please call me, I will be forming groups and starting to help people EMBRACE their own bodies as a life coach.  Groups will be 10-12 people.  And then I will start another group.  If you are interested in joining one, you can email me  with “Transforming Body Image in the subject line.  Please include your phone number in the email so I can call you and invite you to a group.
Cheers to your health,
Paula