What Would You Think About If You Weren’t Obssessed By Your Body?

Strip away the thoughts in your head that deal with how much you’re eating, what exercise you should be doing, and your busy ‘to do’ list, and you are left with one dominant thought.

If all you want is to have the best body of your life in order to make you happy, I can guarantee the thought you are trying to silence is “I am not good enough”.

The secrets that you carry inside from childhood through to the present day have shaped and formed this erroneous belief that you need to do more to atone for your sins, your crazy thoughts and your flawed human nature.

I know who you are …

• you could have done better at school but you didn’t really try
• you lost your virginity to someone you didn’t love
• the first man you fell in love with left you for someone else
• you dropped out of university because you were partying too hard and missed too many classes
• you married the first man who proposed because you were afraid no-one else could love you
• your children drive you crazy and you don’t think you’re a good mother
• you always wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, an animal activist, a vet or a politician but you settled for something far less
• your current job bores you to tears but you earn good money and are too afraid to leave
• your marriage is emotionally barren and you have unsatisfying sex if at all
• you drink more than you should to numb the pain
• you don’t visit your parents often enough
• you binge in secret and sometimes take laxatives afterwards to compensate
• you rely on sleeping tablets more than you should
• you have thought about having an affair (or had one)
• you smoke or do recreational drugs
• you search on facebook for your ex-boyfriends
• you know other people are far worse off and yet you always want more than what you’re got
• you want to run away, or sleep and never wake up

All of these things make you feel like a bad person — of course you’re not good enough. Let’s face it, you are more fucked than anyone could ever know.

Let me tell you that any or all of these so called ‘flaws’ are what makes you wonderful, beautiful and good enough to deserve all the joy and happiness that is knocking at your door. This is the shadow that is cast when we stand in the sunlight, this is the night to our day, the other side of the coin.

Without experiencing pain, loss, disappointment, failure, and destructive behaviours you would never know pleasure, relief, excitement, success or miracles. The only way to have no shadow is to stand in the dark.

Embrace the bad as well as the good. Stop suppressing what isn’t nice, cease condemning yourself for your negative impulses and welcome them instead.

I no longer choose to judge this thought or behaviour, and instead acknowledge that it is a part of who I am right now. My flaws make me the interesting, complex, authentic, intriguing creature that I am.

I do not need to fix anything — what serves me will stay and what is no longer needed will simply fall away. I love my shadow because it reminds me I am walking in the light.

Forgiveness is not necessary my friend, because there is nothing to forgive ♥

→ photo : .sandhu