Hello friends BEAUTY, on this occasion the admin wants to share an article entitled #YEAR OF YOU! A How Bourgeois Mini- Series. Lesson ONE: Love, Nurture, Champion YOURSELF!, we have made good, quality and useful articles for you to read and take information in. hopefully the post content is about which we write you can understand. Alright, happy reading.
***Ack! Sweet readers, please go easy on me with this one. I never meant to make this post so personal. It's SCARY putting your vulnerabilities and deepest fears out there on the web! I firmly believe though, that one of the biggest gifts in life is having each other. We're not alone! And navigating through life's trials and tribulations together can be such an amazing, beautiful thing. I promise that not all of the installments of this mini-series will be this deep, we're going to have fun too! As always thank you for your caring comments and warm encouragement. I hope that taking the risk of sharing my inner-most struggles is testimony to how dedicated I am to the following ideas and the belief that through camaraderie, openness and love, we can make the world a more gentle and positive place! ***
Dear Friends,
WELCOME to the first installment of a new How Bourgeois mini-series!!! If you missed the introduction post from last week, <------ br="" link="" s="" the="" there="">
Together we're going to explore eight fun, simple and EFFECTIVE things that you can quickly and easily do to change your life! Tackle any problem, big or small, with these eight tools, you're surely to see some brighter days! So come along with me and let's get HAPPY!!!!
That's the article: #YEAR OF YOU! A How Bourgeois Mini- Series. Lesson ONE: Love, Nurture, Champion YOURSELF!
You are now reading the article #YEAR OF YOU! A How Bourgeois Mini- Series. Lesson ONE: Love, Nurture, Champion YOURSELF! with link address https://zoneskincare.blogspot.com/2014/03/year-of-you-how-bourgeois-mini-series_11.html
***Ack! Sweet readers, please go easy on me with this one. I never meant to make this post so personal. It's SCARY putting your vulnerabilities and deepest fears out there on the web! I firmly believe though, that one of the biggest gifts in life is having each other. We're not alone! And navigating through life's trials and tribulations together can be such an amazing, beautiful thing. I promise that not all of the installments of this mini-series will be this deep, we're going to have fun too! As always thank you for your caring comments and warm encouragement. I hope that taking the risk of sharing my inner-most struggles is testimony to how dedicated I am to the following ideas and the belief that through camaraderie, openness and love, we can make the world a more gentle and positive place! ***
Dear Friends,
WELCOME to the first installment of a new How Bourgeois mini-series!!! If you missed the introduction post from last week, <------ br="" link="" s="" the="" there="">
Together we're going to explore eight fun, simple and EFFECTIVE things that you can quickly and easily do to change your life! Tackle any problem, big or small, with these eight tools, you're surely to see some brighter days! So come along with me and let's get HAPPY!!!!
Would you believe me if I told you that the key to solving many internal dilemmas essentially came down to one teeny tiny solution? That if you simply learned to love yourself, truly, genuinely loved and accepted yourself for exactly who you are, that many of your struggles would begin to fade and recede?
It sounds too good to be true. Kind of simplistic. A little new-agey, right!? But, it's true!
Please do me a favor. Stop for a second, take a deep breath and just hear what I am about to explain. Roll it around in your mind for a bit, and I think you will come to agree!
When the springtime is new and the sun begins to shine down, and the birds sing their songs, we often go outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. We sit in the grass, our squinting faces to the sky, taking in the glorious day. We might even, in a rush of excitement and springtime happiness, hurry out, while leaving our bulky coats behind. All is well on on our little picnic blankets in the sun, that is.....until the wind blows.
And wind is wind. There is nothing that we can do to stop it really. But there in the middle of our nice day, we have a choice to make . We can either let that wind make us feel cold and retreat back inside, ending this lovely afternoon, or, we can say to ourselves: "Wow! It's the springtime wind. It smells so wonderful! I think I'd like to fly a kite!"
Surely you've heard this type of analogy many times before, but life is all about what you make of it, how you react to it. Attitude is everything! Well, AT LEAST 90%!
But what does this have to do with learning to love and accept yourself?
Wait. What DOES attitude have to do with loving yourself???? (Hold on one second........... I need to check my notes.)
....................................
........................................................
.....................................................................
.................................................................................. **crickets **.......................................
JUST KIDDING! I knew all along that attitude has EVERYTHING to do with loving yourself!!!! ;)
Here's how I see it, accepting and liking who we are does not come easy for most. Many, if not all of us grow to become our own worst critics. A positive attitude is the most powerful catalyst to changing set ways and learning to like ourselves!
Without awareness of our attitude and inner voice, this whole self-acceptance thing wouldn't happen!
Take a moment to think about what an average day of inner-dialogue would be for you. What do you say to yourself on a daily basis when you look in the mirror or get dressed in the morning? What types of "truths" do you tell yourself as you work, whether at a job or at home?
As an example, I know what my typical, without awareness daily dialogues are to these questions so I will share.......
Just so you know, I'm not compliment-fishing. I'm just answering the above dialogue questions to
1) give an example and 2) show that I'm just like everyone else. We all have our times of doubt.
I often look in the mirror and say without fail: "Oh, you're so chubby. Why can't you be thin like everyone else? People must think I'm a joke. Look at my hair, it's so frizzy. My skin, my skin is terrible. I feel sad. I feel unattractive. I feel really inferior......"
Do you want to know something funny? To this day, unless I am "practicing" self-acceptance (which we'll talk about in just a sec!) I can not look straight at myself in the mirror! It's true! It's always been a running joke with my friends, I do this strange head tilt when looking in the mirror. Do you know why? Because I've always HATED the way that I look, and when looking in the mirror, I conditioned myself to not be able to really look straight ahead and fully at myself. Sad. :(
Here is a (sorry, grainy) photo that I took of myself this morning. It was going to be for a spring/summer outfit post, but I realized that I need better lighting for that. You can see that I'm tilting my head, and even here, I was trying to be aware of looking more head-on.
This learning to like and accept yourself stuff is an on-going process. Until it becomes second nature, it takes persistence. You just have to keep chugging along...........
Cheryl suggests a version of the following exercise: Each day, make sure you stop and take a moment to look into a mirror. You might have to force yourself to do this, or perhaps you look in a mirror many times a day to do things like brush your teeth, comb your hair, or to look at your outfit. Regardless of how often, every time that you do look in a mirror, stop for a moment and tell yourself simply: "I love you."
At first this might sound crazy. And even more so, it might FEEL CRAZY! I know for me, I felt like THE BIGGEST WEIRDO facing myself in the mirror and saying: "I love you Lauren!" And if you are anything like me, you might feel the surprise emotion of shame like I did. Shame for saying something that felt pompous at first like: "I LOVE ME!" All of my life I felt that being vain was something one should not be. Looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself how much you LOVE you..... it can just feel really vain at first.
But here's the truth, we're not talking about "loving" your awesome bod, or your gorgeous hair and just telling yourself that you're "all that." Those elements are superficial compared to your true self, to your soul. Learning to overcome your worries about physical characteristics comes with acceptance and attitude work AFTER first learning to love your INNER self. I am talking about caring for, loving, accepting the real you, deep inside. It all begins there!
Many of us didn't get as children or don't receive now, all of the safe nurturing, encouragement and warm affection that we need to navigate this world. That's OK though, because you have YOU. And learning to care for yourself with gentleness and devotion to your little inner voice, that my friends.......can change your world!
Look in that mirror and say: "Hey you! Eight-year-old me with the plaid framed glasses and the tangly, messy hair...... I love you! You're perfect just the way you are." " Hey me! Thirty-six-year old, fluffy me with the head full of GRAY HAIR..... I love you! I wouldn't have you any other way. YOU ARE ENOUGH."
Then give yourself and imaginary hug or a high five, or whatever. Look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself: "I love you for who you are. You are enough."
Your inner voice has always said : "I was a hyper-active child who's bounciness and noise annoyed my parents." Your new message can be: "But you were enough, you were good, you were fun. I love you."
"I was made fun of every single day as kid. I was too fat, too ugly, too afraid, too awkward." Now you can say: " I love you because you were and are YOU. I wouldn't want to be anybody else. I like you a lot. It's ok, you are enough."
"I've made mistakes. I didn't apply myself in school. I should have a career. Am I the best mother that I can be?" "It's ok. I love you. I think you're fine, you're great. You are enough!"
Give yourself permission to heal, move forward, GROW, BLOOM, SHINE!!!! :)
You're not making excuses for shortcomings. You're accepting yourself for who you are. Accepting the past in a loving way and moving forward so that your FUTURE decisions, your FUTURE dialogs can be made in positive ways, so that your FUTURE is happier!
So does this exercise make sense? YOU NEED TO LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF FIRST.
Now comes the nitty-gritty stuff. The part where you ACCEPT how you are and what is. That acceptance helps to propel you ahead, away from doubt and into stronger, better feelings and problem solving!
Again, I'll use a personal example so that I can better illustrate this point. This example will be about body image, but you can apply the concept to any area in your life that you struggle with or brings you stressful emotions......gray hair.....relationships with family....anything!
So, I've always struggled with confidence, especially surrounding my body image. I'm only five feet tall, so that's been hard enough. I was made fun of for the way that I looked, starting in first grade. I can remember the exact day that it began, it's as clear as a movie in my mind. Little six-year-old, first grader me, asked to use the restroom. I quietly walked down the hall and to the girl's bathroom. Somewhere half-way through the trip, a group of second grade girls came in (they seemed practically ANCIENT to me at the time), they banged on the door to my stall and one even climbed on a toilet next-door and peered in laughing. When I came out, they were all pointing and laughing. I was mortified and terrified and crushed. I ran out. They never stopped. This went on for years. Girls and boys, I was an easy target for them. Small, with funny plaid-rimmed glasses, I had a propensity for being anxious and I cried when my parents dropped me off at school. In middle and high-school the teasing my merciless. EVERY DAY I was taunted, called "fat" or just antagonized for whatever reason. The funny thing is in retrospect was that I WASN'T FAT AT ALL! But, I thought I was..... I hated myself. The bullying never stopped. Even in college the boys who lived in the apartment below us love to call out rude, non-flattering things to me when I rode by on my bike.
The sixteen years of those messages really sunk in. They became MY inner dialogue of not being good enough or thin enough or pretty enough. I gained the freshman 15 and lost it, then gained some weight again when I became a Mother. Over the years I have beat myself up inside and have felt guilt ridden about it. I've joined Weight Watchers four times in the past fifteen years, each time losing 30 or more pounds and each time, eventually, slowly, gaining it back.
In the long-run 95% of all diets fail. This is an absolute, scientifically proven truth. Yes, diets can and do work. Weight Watchers did! BUT.... if we do not change the way we eat permanently, making food and exercise a LIFESTYLE CHANGE, 95% of the time, the weight-loss will come back. While balanced and reasonable, the reason Weight Watchers works is because it is comparative deprivation and a deviation from your normal eating habits. Once you stop RESTRICTING your calories, you begin to slowly eat as you did before, therefore, the weight comes back on. Much worse I should say, is that with the weight gain comes guilt! Shame! Self-hate! Each and every time that I would work so so hard to lose the weight, only to have it return, I'd just feel so horribly guilty and sad. I would feel like a terrible failure and I would hate myself even more than before the diet.
This is why diets don't work. Restriction does not work in the long-run. What does work is changing the way that you look at food, becoming aware of why we eat the way that we do. Is our eating emotionally based, or is it something else? Awareness and lifestyle changes, not deprivation are the key to positive, permanent change. If you'd like to learn more about this topic, I can not recommend the book "Intuitive Eating" by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch enough. I love this book so much and find it such an essential guide to self-acceptance and finding a healthy balance, that after reading the library's copy twice, I bought it for myself!
Wait. What DOES attitude have to do with loving yourself???? (Hold on one second........... I need to check my notes.)
....................................
........................................................
.....................................................................
.................................................................................. **crickets **.......................................
JUST KIDDING! I knew all along that attitude has EVERYTHING to do with loving yourself!!!! ;)
Here's how I see it, accepting and liking who we are does not come easy for most. Many, if not all of us grow to become our own worst critics. A positive attitude is the most powerful catalyst to changing set ways and learning to like ourselves!
Without awareness of our attitude and inner voice, this whole self-acceptance thing wouldn't happen!
Take a moment to think about what an average day of inner-dialogue would be for you. What do you say to yourself on a daily basis when you look in the mirror or get dressed in the morning? What types of "truths" do you tell yourself as you work, whether at a job or at home?
As an example, I know what my typical, without awareness daily dialogues are to these questions so I will share.......
Just so you know, I'm not compliment-fishing. I'm just answering the above dialogue questions to
1) give an example and 2) show that I'm just like everyone else. We all have our times of doubt.
I often look in the mirror and say without fail: "Oh, you're so chubby. Why can't you be thin like everyone else? People must think I'm a joke. Look at my hair, it's so frizzy. My skin, my skin is terrible. I feel sad. I feel unattractive. I feel really inferior......"
Do you want to know something funny? To this day, unless I am "practicing" self-acceptance (which we'll talk about in just a sec!) I can not look straight at myself in the mirror! It's true! It's always been a running joke with my friends, I do this strange head tilt when looking in the mirror. Do you know why? Because I've always HATED the way that I look, and when looking in the mirror, I conditioned myself to not be able to really look straight ahead and fully at myself. Sad. :(
Here is a (sorry, grainy) photo that I took of myself this morning. It was going to be for a spring/summer outfit post, but I realized that I need better lighting for that. You can see that I'm tilting my head, and even here, I was trying to be aware of looking more head-on.
This learning to like and accept yourself stuff is an on-going process. Until it becomes second nature, it takes persistence. You just have to keep chugging along...........
When I'm working on the blog or getting things accomplished at home, when I'm not practicing awareness of my attitude, my internal dialogue always goes like this: "Is this blog post OK? They're not going to like it. My blog is so boring. I'm embarrassing myself, I should stop." And I also say things like this last night when I burnt myself AGAIN while making dinner: "Ugh! I can't cook. I really can't. I'm such a failure. I'm always burning myself AND the food. I don't think they even like what I make. I'm not cut out for this."
GOSH I SOUND WHINY! But I assure you, there is a big difference between pity-party and negative inner-dialogue. Having a pity-party for yourself is a deliberate choice, often done when seeking consoling and support. On the other hand, when you carry around true self-doubt, the things that you tell yourself are usually said while on auto-pilot, without awareness. Your daily conversations quietly become your own truths.
Most importantly, YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF UNTIL YOU VALUE YOURSELF!
Most importantly, YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF UNTIL YOU VALUE YOURSELF!
OK! So now it's time to learn how to turn our spontaneous, negative, words and reactions into conscious, positive, BEAUTIFUL, HELPFUL, EMPOWERING dialogues of self-love and acceptance!
Remember in my last post, I was talking about the book that changed it all for me? It's called "The Art of Extreme Self-Care" by Cheryl Richardson." This book is invaluable, go out and find a copy if you haven't already!
Cheryl suggests a version of the following exercise: Each day, make sure you stop and take a moment to look into a mirror. You might have to force yourself to do this, or perhaps you look in a mirror many times a day to do things like brush your teeth, comb your hair, or to look at your outfit. Regardless of how often, every time that you do look in a mirror, stop for a moment and tell yourself simply: "I love you."
At first this might sound crazy. And even more so, it might FEEL CRAZY! I know for me, I felt like THE BIGGEST WEIRDO facing myself in the mirror and saying: "I love you Lauren!" And if you are anything like me, you might feel the surprise emotion of shame like I did. Shame for saying something that felt pompous at first like: "I LOVE ME!" All of my life I felt that being vain was something one should not be. Looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself how much you LOVE you..... it can just feel really vain at first.
But here's the truth, we're not talking about "loving" your awesome bod, or your gorgeous hair and just telling yourself that you're "all that." Those elements are superficial compared to your true self, to your soul. Learning to overcome your worries about physical characteristics comes with acceptance and attitude work AFTER first learning to love your INNER self. I am talking about caring for, loving, accepting the real you, deep inside. It all begins there!
Many of us didn't get as children or don't receive now, all of the safe nurturing, encouragement and warm affection that we need to navigate this world. That's OK though, because you have YOU. And learning to care for yourself with gentleness and devotion to your little inner voice, that my friends.......can change your world!
Look in that mirror and say: "Hey you! Eight-year-old me with the plaid framed glasses and the tangly, messy hair...... I love you! You're perfect just the way you are." " Hey me! Thirty-six-year old, fluffy me with the head full of GRAY HAIR..... I love you! I wouldn't have you any other way. YOU ARE ENOUGH."
Then give yourself and imaginary hug or a high five, or whatever. Look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself: "I love you for who you are. You are enough."
Your inner voice has always said : "I was a hyper-active child who's bounciness and noise annoyed my parents." Your new message can be: "But you were enough, you were good, you were fun. I love you."
"I was made fun of every single day as kid. I was too fat, too ugly, too afraid, too awkward." Now you can say: " I love you because you were and are YOU. I wouldn't want to be anybody else. I like you a lot. It's ok, you are enough."
"I've made mistakes. I didn't apply myself in school. I should have a career. Am I the best mother that I can be?" "It's ok. I love you. I think you're fine, you're great. You are enough!"
Give yourself permission to heal, move forward, GROW, BLOOM, SHINE!!!! :)
You're not making excuses for shortcomings. You're accepting yourself for who you are. Accepting the past in a loving way and moving forward so that your FUTURE decisions, your FUTURE dialogs can be made in positive ways, so that your FUTURE is happier!
So does this exercise make sense? YOU NEED TO LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF FIRST.
Now comes the nitty-gritty stuff. The part where you ACCEPT how you are and what is. That acceptance helps to propel you ahead, away from doubt and into stronger, better feelings and problem solving!
Again, I'll use a personal example so that I can better illustrate this point. This example will be about body image, but you can apply the concept to any area in your life that you struggle with or brings you stressful emotions......gray hair.....relationships with family....anything!
So, I've always struggled with confidence, especially surrounding my body image. I'm only five feet tall, so that's been hard enough. I was made fun of for the way that I looked, starting in first grade. I can remember the exact day that it began, it's as clear as a movie in my mind. Little six-year-old, first grader me, asked to use the restroom. I quietly walked down the hall and to the girl's bathroom. Somewhere half-way through the trip, a group of second grade girls came in (they seemed practically ANCIENT to me at the time), they banged on the door to my stall and one even climbed on a toilet next-door and peered in laughing. When I came out, they were all pointing and laughing. I was mortified and terrified and crushed. I ran out. They never stopped. This went on for years. Girls and boys, I was an easy target for them. Small, with funny plaid-rimmed glasses, I had a propensity for being anxious and I cried when my parents dropped me off at school. In middle and high-school the teasing my merciless. EVERY DAY I was taunted, called "fat" or just antagonized for whatever reason. The funny thing is in retrospect was that I WASN'T FAT AT ALL! But, I thought I was..... I hated myself. The bullying never stopped. Even in college the boys who lived in the apartment below us love to call out rude, non-flattering things to me when I rode by on my bike.
The sixteen years of those messages really sunk in. They became MY inner dialogue of not being good enough or thin enough or pretty enough. I gained the freshman 15 and lost it, then gained some weight again when I became a Mother. Over the years I have beat myself up inside and have felt guilt ridden about it. I've joined Weight Watchers four times in the past fifteen years, each time losing 30 or more pounds and each time, eventually, slowly, gaining it back.
In the long-run 95% of all diets fail. This is an absolute, scientifically proven truth. Yes, diets can and do work. Weight Watchers did! BUT.... if we do not change the way we eat permanently, making food and exercise a LIFESTYLE CHANGE, 95% of the time, the weight-loss will come back. While balanced and reasonable, the reason Weight Watchers works is because it is comparative deprivation and a deviation from your normal eating habits. Once you stop RESTRICTING your calories, you begin to slowly eat as you did before, therefore, the weight comes back on. Much worse I should say, is that with the weight gain comes guilt! Shame! Self-hate! Each and every time that I would work so so hard to lose the weight, only to have it return, I'd just feel so horribly guilty and sad. I would feel like a terrible failure and I would hate myself even more than before the diet.
This is why diets don't work. Restriction does not work in the long-run. What does work is changing the way that you look at food, becoming aware of why we eat the way that we do. Is our eating emotionally based, or is it something else? Awareness and lifestyle changes, not deprivation are the key to positive, permanent change. If you'd like to learn more about this topic, I can not recommend the book "Intuitive Eating" by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch enough. I love this book so much and find it such an essential guide to self-acceptance and finding a healthy balance, that after reading the library's copy twice, I bought it for myself!
Where I'm getting at with all of this diet talk (insert YOUR personal issue here) is this: you take a negative self-dialogue and you become aware. You learn about the roots of this incorrect "truth" that you sell yourself, and you learn about ways to overcome your misconceptions.
For me, it was researching online, finding this book, and (most importantly) starting with a clean slate and accepting who I was! I gave myself permission to stop punishing myself and criticizing myself when I was NOT on a restriction diet. I started there.
For me, it was researching online, finding this book, and (most importantly) starting with a clean slate and accepting who I was! I gave myself permission to stop punishing myself and criticizing myself when I was NOT on a restriction diet. I started there.
Over time, I've come to have a more healthy relationship with food. I'm learning to honor my body's hunger cues and eat when I feel hungry without guilt, and stop when I'm full without over-eating. It is an on-going process. One that requires practice!
Another thing that I did to work on my body image and self confidence, and to just get healthier, was to address exercise. How many of us have started an exercise routine, only to not keep it up? I know that I have! \(^ - ^) <------- hand="" m="" my="" nbsp="" p="" raising="">
OK, so I said to myself "what do I have to do, to tailor an exercise routine to ME, so that it will stick!?" What was holding me back and stopping my past exercise routines from becoming lifestyle changes? Pretty simple: it was time. I never felt like I had time in my busy day to exercise. As many of you might have experienced as well, when you're a parent and/or a spouse, most of your time is devoted to running a household and the needs of your family. Not feeling like I had enough time to fit in regular exercise was my downfall.
Now that I had that awareness and understanding, I stopped to consider what kinds of exercise that I truly, truly enjoyed. Walking immediately came to mind. I love walking, I always have. So with that, I started out to find my perfect exercise adventure!
At first I played around with all kinds of variations to see what would work best for me. I walked outside in the neighborhood, I walked inside on the treadmill. I walked at the incline set at level 2 and I walked with the incline set at level 10. And, most importantly to my situation, I experimented with duration, walking for anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.
Over the course of a month I came to find that what worked best for my life was twenty minutes a day or so of fast walking with an incline. And intense burst of cardio. While a measly twenty minutes of cardio a day would be laughable to some, it had been such a great fit for me, that seven and a half months later, I have exercised almost EVERY SINGLE DAY! :)
I've never exercised every single day for any length of time in my life! And I enjoy it, I love it now!
You need to love yourself enough to tailor your solutions to YOUR needs, not society's dictates!
After all of this, I might only be a size smaller, but I'm gleaning more self-confidence with each month that goes by. I'm feeling fit and energized and a sense of accomplishment. When I'm out walking up one particularly large, steep hill along my route, I always say to myself: "I'm doing this to be healthy and fit, not to change myself." I stand up straight rather than leaning into the hill, and I feel with each step, the strength of my muscles pulling me up the hill! I accept who I am. I'm not trying to please the criticisms of my negative inner voice. I'm loving myself enough to be my most healthy, happy and well-balanced me!
Sooooooo........ in conclusion, as you can see, that whole swirly mash-up that is attitude and forgiveness and acceptance and love, it all adds up to better things. Positive things! Problem solving! :)
For example, a sudden 45 degree, sunny day in frozen-solid Michigan!? Live like it's summer! Turn lemons into lemonade. ANYTHING is possible with positivity!
With so much thankfulness and love, until next time when we talk about the lovely art of setting boundaries and dun...dun....duuuuuuuuuuuhhhh......... learning to say "no"!
xoxoxoxoxo,
Lauren :)
Another thing that I did to work on my body image and self confidence, and to just get healthier, was to address exercise. How many of us have started an exercise routine, only to not keep it up? I know that I have! \(^ - ^) <------- hand="" m="" my="" nbsp="" p="" raising="">
OK, so I said to myself "what do I have to do, to tailor an exercise routine to ME, so that it will stick!?" What was holding me back and stopping my past exercise routines from becoming lifestyle changes? Pretty simple: it was time. I never felt like I had time in my busy day to exercise. As many of you might have experienced as well, when you're a parent and/or a spouse, most of your time is devoted to running a household and the needs of your family. Not feeling like I had enough time to fit in regular exercise was my downfall.
Now that I had that awareness and understanding, I stopped to consider what kinds of exercise that I truly, truly enjoyed. Walking immediately came to mind. I love walking, I always have. So with that, I started out to find my perfect exercise adventure!
At first I played around with all kinds of variations to see what would work best for me. I walked outside in the neighborhood, I walked inside on the treadmill. I walked at the incline set at level 2 and I walked with the incline set at level 10. And, most importantly to my situation, I experimented with duration, walking for anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.
Over the course of a month I came to find that what worked best for my life was twenty minutes a day or so of fast walking with an incline. And intense burst of cardio. While a measly twenty minutes of cardio a day would be laughable to some, it had been such a great fit for me, that seven and a half months later, I have exercised almost EVERY SINGLE DAY! :)
I've never exercised every single day for any length of time in my life! And I enjoy it, I love it now!
You need to love yourself enough to tailor your solutions to YOUR needs, not society's dictates!
After all of this, I might only be a size smaller, but I'm gleaning more self-confidence with each month that goes by. I'm feeling fit and energized and a sense of accomplishment. When I'm out walking up one particularly large, steep hill along my route, I always say to myself: "I'm doing this to be healthy and fit, not to change myself." I stand up straight rather than leaning into the hill, and I feel with each step, the strength of my muscles pulling me up the hill! I accept who I am. I'm not trying to please the criticisms of my negative inner voice. I'm loving myself enough to be my most healthy, happy and well-balanced me!
Sooooooo........ in conclusion, as you can see, that whole swirly mash-up that is attitude and forgiveness and acceptance and love, it all adds up to better things. Positive things! Problem solving! :)
For example, a sudden 45 degree, sunny day in frozen-solid Michigan!? Live like it's summer! Turn lemons into lemonade. ANYTHING is possible with positivity!
xoxoxoxoxo,
Lauren :)
That's the article: #YEAR OF YOU! A How Bourgeois Mini- Series. Lesson ONE: Love, Nurture, Champion YOURSELF!
Thank you for visiting my blog, hopefully it can be useful for all of you. Don't forget to share this article with your friends so they also know the interesting info, see you in other article posts.
You are now reading the article #YEAR OF YOU! A How Bourgeois Mini- Series. Lesson ONE: Love, Nurture, Champion YOURSELF! with link address https://zoneskincare.blogspot.com/2014/03/year-of-you-how-bourgeois-mini-series_11.html
Post a Comment