We live in a society that places more value on looking good than on feeling good. Think this is a pretty bold statement? You're right it is, but it doesn't take more than a glance at the magazine stand at your nearest supermarket to realize that it's true.
"Get your bikini body now!"
"65 Pretty looks just for you!"
"Drop 2 sizes in just 2 weeks!"
"Duchess Kate's post-baby weight loss regime!"
See what I mean? It is all about changing your body and the way that you currently look. The media, product industry, fashion industry, beauty care industry, and many others want you to feel unhappy and uncomfortable in your body. This is how they make money. When you are unhappy with your body and how you look, you buy what they have to offer. They profit off of your unhappiness.
That is not okay.
We have to dare to be different. We have to choose to prioritize our physical, emotional, and mental well-being rather than the number of visible abs in our bellies and the size of our jeans. We have to choose to prioritize feeling good.
Currently, we are led to believe that when we look good, we feel good. From a very young age we are affected by the messaging all around us, telling us that women need to alter their looks in order to feel good. We are bombarded with messaging telling us that our bodies are not beautiful as they are, but they could be if we lost weight/gained muscle/cut our hair/wore smokey eye shadow.
This is untrue.
I'm here to tell you that you don't need to prioritize looking good to feel good. The only thing you need to prioritize to feel good is, well, feeling good. The reality is that when you feel good, you look good. Any woman who feels happy, confident, and comfortable in her body is a woman who looks so damn good. She is glowing. She is radiating positive energy. She is the woman all other women want to be around.
There is no gigantic, secret to feeling good. There is also no instant fix to feeling good. Feeling good in your body comes from waking up each and every day and making decisions that you know will make you feel good. It's having greens with your breakfast. It's walking outside and taking three deep breaths of the cool morning air. It's going to yoga with your ladyfriends and following it up with chocolate and americanos. It's lighting that lavender candle, turning on some Michael Buble, and soaking in the bath tub. It's waking up each morning and telling yourself that you are one sexy mama deserving of all the love and respect in the world....because you are. It's all this and more, or less. It's whatever makes you feel happy and at ease.
To begin shifting your focus to feeling good rather than looking good, I'm giving you my most powerful body love mantra. This is a mantra that you use before making any decisions - before making a meal, before going to the gym, before yoga, before taking that new job, before calling your mom, before watching 7 episodes of Friends back to back on a Sunday afternoon. Are you ready for it?
"Will this make me feel good?"
That's it. So simple, yet so powerful. When we check in with ourselves prior to each decision to see what will honestly feel good in our bodies, we begin to move ourselves closer and closer to truly feeling good, confident, and content in our bodies. Sometimes eating cake for breakfast because it's your sister's birthday and she's visiting from Europe actually makes you feel good. However, eating cake for breakfast on a Tuesday before you wiggle into your tights for work, yeah, that usually doesn't feel so great. Sometimes going to yoga feels amazing. Other times you're coughing and snot is running from your nose like a river...and yeah, down dog is definitely going to suck that day. Don't go. Watching 7 episodes of Friends on a Sunday afternoon in February with a blizzard trapping you inside with tea and 6 friends in Manhattan in the 90's, that seems pretty damn great. Watching 7 episodes of Friends on a Sunday afternoon in June when the sun is shining bright and your friends are going hiking, that seems pretty lame.
It's all about checking in. It's about learning to listen to your body and its desires. It's not about what a magazine says you should do. It's not about what your mom made you do growing up. It's about you and your desires.
Can you prioritize feeling good?