By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
It’s that time of year where the advertising is coming in loud and consistently. It’s all about getting a beach body or a bikini body. You too can have one a swoon-worthy beach body that will look fab in a bikini in 6 or 8 weeks depending on which diet or exercise system you buy right this second.
However, to be clear, you need to get on that now, or you’re going to be an utter disaster the first day you hit the beach. You’re going to look like a whale out there. It’s going to be humiliating. But don’t worry. You’ve still got time, so get on it.
It makes me ill. It really does. However, you know it’s coming this time of year. Frankly, it’s not just this time of year; it’s every day of the year. However, the beach/bikini body drumbeat is loudest in the Spring.
Recently, I’ve noticed an ad popping up in my Facebook feed from Gaiam. I think it bothers me more because it comes from Gaiam. “Get a yoga body in 21 days” it promises. It shows an artistic photo of a very thin woman naked in bound ankle pose. It’s done in a way that preserves her modesty and anonymity.
I know the woman who teaches that course. I respect her work. I would guess she lost control of the marketing when Gaiam picked up her course. As a life-long yoga teacher, I’m certain she knows that any and everybody is a yoga body and that yoga isn’t about getting a tight hot body. It’s about transforming your relationship with yourself and to the divine.
Here’s what I know: Your body is a work of art. She’s amazing in every way. If you woke up this morning, you’ve got a lot to be grateful for.
However, if you need a little help here are my top three tips for loving the body you have right now.
1. If you want a beach body, take your body to the beach.
Wear whatever you want that makes you feel comfortable. If you want a yoga body, roll out the mat and start doing yoga. You might also consider studying the yoga sutras.
Stop waiting to be a different size to be the person you want to be. You are never going to be thin enough to be magically confident. However, you are bold enough to have the life you want right now.
Whatever you’ve been putting off doing, or wearing, or going, until you lose that last ten or twenty pounds, do it now. Quit making your size or shape be a scapegoat for you living the life you want to.
2. Start treating your body like you would if you had the body you want.
Eat the way you know you should. Exercise the way you know you should. Then fucking relax. Really. If you’re doing your best for your body, she will return the favor.
Want to be a size 6? Start acting like a woman who is a size six. What would she eat? How would she exercise? What would she wear? You don’t have to look it up. You already know what you think the answers to those questions are. Start being her now. Start treating your body the way you would if she was exactly the body you wanted her to be.
Love is a behavior, not a feeling. If you want a body you love, start behaving like you love the body you have.
3. Get yourself on Google and search photos of Hollywood stars that aren’t photoshopped and who aren’t wearing pounds of makeup. You know the ones. You’ve seen them.
I’m not suggesting you do that so you can make yourself feel better because those people look like hell. I’m suggesting you do it because those women look like real human women.
The standards you measure yourself by aren’t real. I know that we all measure ourselves by standards that are total fiction. Take some time to really examine the truth of the standards of beauty.
What makes you different makes you beautiful. You don’t want to look like everyone else. You want to look like the best version of you, and that’s never going to happen when you’re trying to look like some version of someone else.
Lisa Hayes, The Love Whisperer, is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the newly released hit book, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan.
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