Let Your Body Feel Special

Let your body feel special. She deserves it. She needs it. She is interconnected with your soul and allowing your body to feel special transforms your spirit. This is what really matters. 

Give your body first right of refusal.

Meaning refusal to wake up early and meditate.

Refusal to go to the gym and workout.

Refusal to order the salad over the burger.

Refusal to choose a walk outdoors, instead plopping in front of the TV for an hour.

Does this seem counterproductive to health? It’s not. You can’t always be ON.

You can’t always be expected to choose to do the thing that is good for you…the thing you should do. Why not?

For exactly that reason. It becomes the thing you SHOULD do.

Instead of doing it because you feel better doing it, it becomes the thing you heave and sigh over. You know.

The thing you mumble and grumble about, you put off, ignore, or downright refuse to do without giving yourself the RIGHT to refuse it. Meaning you punish yourself over it. So. Not. cool.

She gets first right of refusal and also…

Give your body absolute permission.

100% permission. Same coin, different side.

She has complete permission to eat those doughnuts.

She can run an extra mile if she wants to, or stop and walk halfway through because it just-isn’t-happening-today.

She has permission to move and groove the way she likes.

Permission to follow the healthy menu plan to a T, and then binge on sugar one day a week.

Permission to hit snooze this morning.

Permission to be inspired and stay up all night reading an awesome book KNOWING tomorrow will bring heavy eye lids and a need for too much coffee. 100% permission.

This works exactly the opposite that you may think. When you give your body permission, without chastising some preconceived notion of perfection you failed to follow through on, you will be surprised how often she willingly sides with you on the healthy stuff.

When you are for her, she is for you.

You will not go off the deep end and slip into some kind of never-ending, sugar-eating, sitting-on-the-couch, watching-reality-TV, insomnia-living-existence. And if you did, well, it would be okay because you gave her permission.

Come on now, really?…you are not going to. Lay off your body.

She needs a break every once in awhile without you hawk eyeing her, assuming she can’t handle herself and come back into balance.

She can, she will, BUT not until you give her permission.

Give your body something for nothing.

We reign over our bodies with rewards/punishments/sentences.

If you do this THEN you can have THAT. Too bad you did it THIS way, now you are going to get THAT. I will love you WHEN you look like THAT.

Stop it. Give her something for nothing. She will adore you for it.

Are you waiting to wax your eyebrows until right before that big interview in 3 weeks? Why?

Give her the eyebrow wax now, just because she’ll feel good for it. Not for anyone else.

Throw in a facial while your at it, she deserves it. How about waiting for the pedi until sandal season when OTHER people will see your toes?

She sees your toes everyday, give her the pretty now….just because.

I will tell you a secret. My body loves going to the gym with me. Not because she loves working out because…well, if you KNOW me, you know my body doesn’t love working out (hence my seriously short and simple workout videos).

She loves going to the gym with me because sometimes we go there for her with no expectation or requirement of leaning her out and toning her up.

I take her to the gym and we sit in the steam, then take a whirlpool, and a 30 minute HOT shower. We use the disposable razors, too much shower gel, lots of lotion, and like, 5 separate fluffy towels. We sit on the cushy couches, have a tea, and read the paper for a few minutes. Then, because it is the gym, we don’t have to clean the shower, or wash the towels, or even put away the paper, so we head out for lunch.

We went for nothing other than to enjoy a leisurely bathroom ritual, because she likes that. Now she doesn’t fight with me about going to the gym, because sometimes when we go, we go for her enjoyment not her blood, sweat, and just-get-skinnier tears…she isn’t expected to give me anything in return.

But she does. When we do this, my body SINGS for me.

Give your body thanks.

Don’t hate, appreciate. Put on an attitude of gratitude. Whatever, you get this right?

Don’t blame and shame your body. Anyway, she is completely neutral. Yes, she is.

If this seems to contradict everything I wrote before it, well, it probably does. I do that sometimes.

Really though, these body practices -allowing your body to feel special- in truth is about allowing your soul to feel special IN YOUR BODY! (I think I said this on the front side) Your body is neutral.

But you don’t have to be. And generally you aren’t. Most likely you are either loving her or hating her, often times the latter.

This is sad because she’s been there for you, and is carrying your precious, precious soul. Often times through your life she has taken the brunt of it to protect you.

She’s padded herself with fat for protection.

She’s broken her bones so that you could be reminded to wake up before your heart broke.

She’s gotten sick, full of fluids, phlegm, and snot so that you could expel some nasty sludge that you were holding internally in your psyche.

She’s rocked your jeans for you and helped you get noticed in the right kind of way.

When it was needed she has become a wallflower to keep you safe from the wrong kind of attention.

For so many of us she has taken external abuse that is unimaginable, unthinkable, and yet make up our stories of this-really-happened-and-thanks-to-her-we-survived-it.

She’s held that for us without a word on return.

I guarantee she’s taken internal abuses from you, shaming, hatred, accusations, disgust, and distrust all coming from the mind she houses and protects with blood, tissue, flesh, and bones.

This is unthinkable in sisterhood, unforgivable really, but she’s remained neutral through all of it.

So be grateful and let your body feel special. She deserves it. She needs it. She is interconnected with your soul and allowing your body to feel special transforms your spirit. This is what really matters.