It has been 4 years since I wrote this post and so much has changed in my life. I took that very large body for an 800km walk in hopes that I would finally fully come to love her, but to my amazement as much as I came home a different person I still really struggled with acceptance of me and my body. However, the last 4 years have been a real journey of ups and downs, of course spending the last 2 years in a world full of Covid restrictions and not really being able to go to a job has given me some real space to go into my heart and soul unlike any other time in my history.
The world right now seems to be full of polar opposites in every way but I think it is so prevalent in the body and diet culture. There are images and messaging about getting thin and beautiful, make up videos and filters that actually change the way that a face looks. Then there is an entire “Anti-diet” culture that seems to have arisen and at times the messaging can make us question whether we should be eating clean and healthy foods, whether it is still okay to want a smaller, healthier body. Can self-acceptance of our bodies also come with wanting it to be something different? I think searching deep within you will find all of the answers that you will need, your body has the answers, just trust.
So what’s the update, I became really ill in the last 2 years, my sugars and my diabetes were completely out of control, and in the words of Louise Hay, there was no sweetness in my life, actually, I was denying myself the sweetness. I still dance, meditate and walk to keep my body moving, I still love food directly from the great mother and I still don’t always practice what I preach. However, I have found amazing baseline nutrition with a company that I have come to love and that has changed my health 360 degrees. That is a story I will share in another blog.
So as always, I am still perfectly imperfect, but as I age I am enjoying being who I am without apology, I hope you can do the same too!
Love Karen
A friend of mine posted this meme on her Facebook page and it inspired me to tell a snippet of my story.
When was the first time someone told me I was fat?
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Grade one the boys in the class decided to have a competition about who was the fattest in the class, me or the biggest boy in the class.
It was girls against boys. There were more boys in the class than girls. … guess who was the crowning champion of being the fattest?
… You guessed it!!
Me.
Sometimes I will still cry for that little girl, but as I am approaching 50 I no longer feel the utter pain that she felt.
For my entire life…. I was the fattest kid in school.
Whether it was true or not; whether others thought it or not; whether that day was never remembered by any other kid … but for me, from that day on I BELIEVED I was the fattest kid in school.
Until recently, no matter what room I entered I would look to see if I was the fattest. If I was I could barely cope, could barely talk to anyone, BUT if one more person in the room was bigger than me I could breathe and not have the internal panic attack and want to leave.
In my last year of Elementary school, I was crowned the Snowflake Princess. When I look back on it now, though I may have given the best speech and sang the best song. I think the adults felt that a bit of pity for the fat kid might be a good idea. Well, lovely intentions, but the name I received in town was Snowbank princess….and it stuck!!
There were many other moments, but those 2 stuck and they bore holes into my soul.
They created my belief system about myself. No matter how much I did no matter what I accomplished I was always going to be the fattest kid in school. As I grew up, I took that to fully believe that I was going to be the fattest in any group I was in.
As I sit here as an almost 50-year-old woman, I realize that it such a crazy perspective to see your entire life from. EVERY accomplishment, Every great thing I have ever done was overshadowed by what I thought of my body. Chances that I didn’t take because I was the fattest kid in school. Relationships I wouldn’t fall into because no one could possibly love the fattest kid in school.
The copious amounts of money I spent to lose weight, the years I spent as a closet bulimic, all because my point of view was that I was absolutely ginormous!!
middle
Well, guess what, here is the rub, I wasn’t…. I wasn’t ginormous. Sure I was bigger than some of my counterparts, but not by much.
I look at pictures of me in my 20’s and 30’s and I cry because the girl in those pictures, tho not a Budweiser model was by no means as big as I saw myself in my head.
The irony is, that the size I am now, which is the largest I have ever been, is the size I saw myself my entire adult life. See manifestation really does work!! This body….where I am now….. not the perfect size 5 I had attempted to get to my entire life…….
THIS body and I are finally at peace.
I have finally come to a place of actually loving my body. Every. Single. Piece.
It has taken some real concentrated effort on my part to get here, inspiring courses, great coaches, meditation and most importantly a desire for my beliefs to be different!!
Guess what happens when you love your body, you feed it fresh, live food, and let it enjoy little treats now and then. When you love your body you move it and exercise it because that is what it wants, not because some fitness magazine told you to. When you love your body you sit with it in meditation and ask for its opinion. When you love your body you head outside and let it meet all the trees and enjoy the sunrise and the sunsets. When you love your body, if you have done all of these great things for it and loved it up, without opinion it will land exactly where it is meant to be. Not where someone else is, but uniquely and beautifully exactly the shape and size it wants to be.
For me and my journey, loving my body lead me right to something called NIA, it is a way of moving that helps me to sink deep into my own self and be in love with who I am. The energy, emotion, and movement that I get from my Nia practice are unlike anything I have ever done. So much so I started teaching. My desire is to help and guide people into this amazing loving journey with their bodies, a journey that allows peace, a journey that gives space for self-talk other than how the body looks. I am blessed already to begin to see the changes in the mindset of some of the women who have come to my classes.
As I round up to my number 50 year, here is my little piece of wisdom that I truly wish that my 20 and 30-year-old self knew. And maybe some current 20 and 30-year-olds or anyone for that matter who is still in a hate relationship with the amazing vessel you have been given to walk this earth on for an extended time.
Here it is…..STOP!!
I know sounds too simple, but it is not.
Just stop hating whatever it is you think is wrong with you, making that choice to stop the hatred towards yourself is the biggest and most important step. Find the tools to help, not the tools to help you lose weight, but the tools to help you live and love your body…it is a better toolbox.
Learn to love every movement it makes, love every morsel you feed it, I promise there will be so much peace on the other side, you may just wear horizontal stripes or polka dots and love yourself in them!!
And please know this, if you don’t get the job because of your size, it isn’t the right job, if you don’t get the guy or girl because of your size, they are not the right person. If you don’t go after your greatest desire because of your size, you will slowly kill the spark and greatness that you were meant to share, the world is waiting for your unique you!!
It is the biggest cliche out there, but life is short!! It is way too short to spend your entire life hating the body of the person you are destined to be with every day of your life.
In love light and laughter
Karen
P.S. Please don’t take this post, to assume that I think I am done!! Hell no!!
But with concentrated effort every day I am at a better place than I was yesterday.
