How to Feel Confident & Strong in Your Body
How do you start to feel grounded, good and safe in your body? How do you make your body feel capable and strong? I know that sometimes it’s easier to escape into a bowl of pasta, a bag of chips or a carton of ice cream. We have all been there. However, it actually is more empowering to be in your body. It is safer and healthier to experience your feelings, move through them, release them and get on with your life. The build up of toxic emotions, that are denied, shoved down through numbing agents like food, sugar, alcohol or drugs even pharmaceuticals causes a build up of unresolved conflict in the body. This build up of toxins causes the body to breakdown, contract and can start to cause disease.
I know this because at one point in my life I was 220lbs and wound up with early stage breast cancer. See I always exercised. Always. I love to move. As a child and throughout my life I have been a person of action. My body takes and processes a lot of energy and it needs to go somewhere. Exercise for me has an incredible effect on me on my emotional, mental and physical bodies, and because of this I make sure it is scheduled like any appointment minimum 4-5 per week. I love the weeks that I can do five days because one day is a long walk in nature and that always makes me happy. The other four days I go hard with challenging cardio/strength classes as the gym. Weight baring exercises builds bone and muscle, while we all know cardio is good for the heart. As for my weight, it came on as I took care of all those around me and depression set in. I stopped watching what I ate and even though I exercised regularly the food was just too much for my body to process, and I kept packing on the pounds. Now I do both. I eat clean and mostly organic food when available and go out of my way to invest in it when I can for my home. So eating clean and exercising is my winning formula that has kept me breast cancer free for over 5 years now.
I committed to exercise beyond weight control for these simple reasons:
Exercise makes me feel good. It gets rid of my stress, extra nervous energy and any energy of others that I’m carrying around.
It gets me back in my body, grounded in the physical.
It makes me breath deep.
It reduces anxiety.
It gives me stamina.
It makes me happy with all those endorphins it stimulates.
I feel so powerful and strong. I am stronger than many of the men and women a lot younger than me.
It is keeping me young.
It keeps me healthy.
I need less sleep because it energizes me.
It helps me to reduce my food consumption and sugar intake.
It tells my body and me that I love it, respect it, that I take care of it and make time to care for it.
It is self-love for me.
I know there are many reasons that pop up to not exercise and I know how challenging it can be to schedule. In addition, if you don’t feel good, or you are just plane old tired, scheduling or even thinking of going for a walk can seem like too much. I suggest this, walk. Just walk. Do all your phone calls when walking, or listen to your book on tape or that class you have to catch up on. Another thing to think about is that you feel good after exercising and you will be less tired, less anxious, you will feel stronger and more capable too. You will be grounded and ready to make decisions along with creating action. Give yourself the gift of exercising. You will never regret it. Ever!
I would love to hear from you on how you incorporate movement and exercise into your life.
Love & Light,
Carolyn
