In the past four stepping stones to you, we have talked about “how we think about our bodies” and how our present thoughts and words of the past can have an incredibly huge effect on how safe, how loved and how beautiful we feel in our own skin.

Hopefully by following the stepping stones, you have seen the effects of how simply by changing our mind about ourselves, our bodies and our lives and releasing old beliefs, we start to feel happier and more empowered.

In these “Stepping stones To You”, I am sharing with you my own process from mass self destruction to self love…

Guiding you through doorways to making “peace” with your body.

So this week, seeing as you are all in full flow with releasing negative interjects and filling your lives with loving words, I would like to move onto the next stepping stone…

Movement.    

You see it is one thing to have lived in this body for 40 years but another to know how to drive it, how it likes to move …what it feels is punishment and what it feels is pleasure.

Before we feel completely safe and at ease driving a car, we have to have driven it around the block, into town and back a few times and maybe a trip or two on the motorway. We become one with the car, know how far to push it… we know its limits, its character, its funny little ways, what it likes and what makes it conk out on us.

Your body is no different.

Feeling safe in your own skin, is to know your body, to move with and in it, to nourish, honour and cherish your body, take pleasure and pride in “owning” it …yes, just like that battered old car outside that you are so very proud of and your heart bursts every time you get behind the wheel and take it for a drive… singing with a contented heart.

Now I discovered that my body loved to move in the same way as my spirit, I was not into fast pace sports, I have never wanted a sports car :) I was not into punishing my body taking it to the extreme and getting all sweaty… movement for me had to be well full of childish freedom and fun!                                                                                                                                                               

So I took up hula hoop classes.

Boy, was this great… my own glittery, sparkly whiryly twirly ever so girly hoop!  Not only did it look pretty and felt sexy but after practice, I “got in touch” with my sacral in soft sensual ways, it healed and opened a most essential part of being a woman. And just as a little bonus toned my tummy and bum :)

I tried out different yoga styles, until I found the one that suited me … not a practice simply for the body but a yoga that embraced my mind and spirit too.  My body shape changed as parts for the first time became free.  I felt whole, balanced and focused.

I tried out different dance classes but being a bit clumsy after 38 years of rejecting my imaginary fat thighs, this proved more tough… until I found Nia, a fusion of dance, yoga and martial arts, with some choreography but oodles of yummy free dance…

A perfect opportunity to listen to my body and move it at it’s will, not another’s or mine :)

My body started to soften, trust me… relax.

Really show me what it could do and wanted to do for me.

It became no longer an alien place to live but a sacred home.                   

Sometimes a certain “move” would have a message, a memory stored, an old pain and then just as the movement flowed so too would healing and my body would breathe in a new way…invite me into deeper places.

I no longer felt on the edge of my body looking in but deeply rooted.

This was surprisingly the safest I had ever felt in my life and yet for so long this was the one place I refused to be.

The thing is the gym may make a body look firm and toned but a hard cold leather chair isn’t for everyone, personally I prefer to relax in a chair that will hold me no matter how much I wiggle, every position feeling safe, comfortable.  I want to know every contour, every crease and story of that chair and for it to let me explore it.

I think the key for me was wanting so much to feel I belonged and I knew belonging in my body was the major step required.

For too long I had punished it. I wanted to explore pleasure with my body, so I looked at ways to move it, that were exciting to me, lit up that “light” in me and made me sparkle … most of these things turned out to be what I loved as a child … dancing barefoot, twirling with a hoop, skating, walking on the cool sands.

All allowing natural, soft movements full of joy.

My question to you this week is…

What movements bring your body, your mind, your soul… oh and very importantly the “child within” pleasure and joy. 

The answers to this question, will be the key to the door you are looking for :)

The words we see and hear in our environment and every day lives can have a huge impact on the way we feel about ourselves.

Yesterday I suggested step one, removing all books and magazines on self improvement and instead filling the spaces with books on self acceptance.

We do not need to improve ourselves, only accept who we are already. 

In acceptance there is no fight or struggle so change naturally happens rather than being forced…

To improve is a force. To accept is to allow.

At the very beginning of my own journey of self acceptance I used a lot of affirmations, affirming to myself positive and loving words rather than words of self judgement and criticism.  But I found thinking the words or saying them were not enough, I was just rambling like a parrot… I had to FEEL for them for them to be real for me.

So I created two things that worked for me. 

Firstly, whenever I used an affirmation I would close my eyes and really feel it, sensing where in my body I was fighting the new idea.

My throat would cease up or a funny feeling in the pit of my belly or even headaches. I would then sit for a while and have a mental conversation with this part of my body to discover why it was struggling to believe these new loving words as truth.

I wrote it all down, all the hurt, anger and ugly ideas of myself; it was like getting rid of toxins held in my body onto paper.

At the same time as working with my body in this new way, I changed my environment. I filled it with loving words.  Most literally :)

I would write in bright pens, make them sparkle with glitter, draw smiley faces & leave these mini love posters in places I would see them.

On my mirrors, above the kettle. In my knickers drawer as a lovely welcome in the morning :)  Inside cupboards, on the fridge door.  In the bathroom, bedroom, lounge, kitchen.

Of course I got odd looks, how many homes do we visit where someone has posted all over the place loving messages to themselves?

But it was working! 

I felt that like clothes, we have to try on new words and wear them in; before we can feel truly comfortable with them. They have to fit into our everyday life as if they have always been there.

It’s a huge step moving from “I hate my self” to “I love myself.”

I could not look into my own eyes and say “I love you.”  It felt too big.

By putting the words up around my home I was gradually becoming used to them being in my life, until I actually began to believe them! That was when the magical journey of seeing, loving and accepting myself in new ways began.

To suddenly see myself without the ugly goggles of illusion I had been wearing for years was a moment in my life I am sure I will never forget.

What I have shared with you may seem like too simple a step but I have come to learn it is always the little steps that make the really big changes.