I've been dedicated to giving myself at least 10 minutes every day to read a personal development book. I know I know, I say something about personal development frequently. That is because I recently discovered how important it is, what an impact it can make in how you handle every day. For the first time ever, I am purposefully reading my current book slowly. Normally I try to finish a good book as quickly as I can because I am so excited for the end. I want to practice and retain what I am learning now and so reading it slow is working out much better.
I am reading about acceptance and self love (amongst so many other things) and as I read through other blogs, Facebook statuses and articles I get discouraged about something. Too many men and women trying to justify being skinny or trying to justify being fat. What the heck?? This begs the question, where do we draw the line between telling people to love who they are no matter what and you are killing yourself with your lifestyle choices and you need to change?
The truth is that regardless of whether we are big or small, thick or thin we can all work towards a healthier existence. You might look at somebody and say to yourself that that person is unhealthy but know nothing about where they are on their journey. Maybe that person is down 100 pounds already and works daily to continue to improve themselves. I know this has been a huge struggle for me. I have spent wasted time worrying about whether others would choose me as their coach and trust me to help them on their journey because I am not as skinny or muscular as the next coach. But I have realized that anyone whom I seek or seeks me will know about my journey, they will know I am still working towards my goal every day and that I've come such a long way already. And no one person is better than the next, we are on different pages of different chapters and sometimes different books. All I can control is me! What a powerful statement!!!
I believe we all want to feel good about ourselves and it's easier to put down others who don't look like us. Have you ever heard or used one of the following phrases: "strong is the new skinny," " that person needs to eat," "that person is way too fit" or the all too common "real women have curves." We are all created differently. We all have genetics that do play a role. More importantly though, it is up to us to take responsibility and do something about getting to the healthy version of ourselves no matter what we may look like. Some of us will be bigger, some of us will be smaller but only we will know whether we are healthy. We have another personal responsibility to ourselves to be happy. Isn't that why we are here, to be happy?!?! We have to challenge ourselves to be better and take action on improving our own lives. There is no place in there for insulting others because we think they look too skinny, too fat, too healthy or too unhealthy.
We should all be accepting of our bodies but we should also be committed to getting healthier so that we stop spending our lives unhappy, uncomfortable and sick. For the love of everything, we need to learn to stop comparing ourselves to others (remember how I mentioned above I have a lot of experience doing this and it kept me from moving forward). We don't share parents, we don't share habits... we are all unique!!! Being cruel to another person whether we know where they are at in their journey or not will only make things worse, for them and ourselves.
I want you to ask yourself if you are using any of the phrases that put down others so you can feel better. Do you notice if you put others down just because they are different? Do you get checkups regularly? Has your doctor given you a clean bill of health? Do you take being proud of your body as an excuse to live an unhealthy lifestyle?
How do we help the people in our lives get healthy? What about the people in our lives who proudly have no desire to change.
For me it's pretty simple. We can't force others to change and if they have no desire to change we may not know where they are at on their journey. We have to accept that we are all different. I may never have a six pack on my abs or definition in my arms, that doesn't mean I don't workout like I should or that I eat junk every day. The thing is that I share it. I share it with everyone I can, as long as they are willing to listen. That is how I help!! By showing what I do or what I've done and laying out my steps from beginning to end somebody will realize that they want to get on board. Maybe not now and that's ok. I don't force anything on anybody and I don't pretend that I have all the answers. I tell everybody, often that I have come so far and have so much farther to go and I learn and grow every step of the way!!
What are your thoughts on body acceptance? Fat shaming?
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