Ok think about your physical body and answer this question as quickly as possible.

I hate my_____! (fill in the blank) That was, way too, easy right?

Ok now, try this one, I love my ___________! Did you find that a little more challenging to answer? Hopefully, not.

My point is that we all have that body part, we hate! Yes, each and every one of us. I have never met a person that didn’t want something to be different on their body, bigger, smaller, wider, narrower, longer, shorter, rounder, etc. etc. etc…

And, in my experience, the really weird part is the more weight someone has to lose does not necessarily determine the level of unhappiness with their body. People seem to be equally unhappy with their bodies!

So today’s exercise is one of the toughest exercises we have. I would like you to look in the mirror and accept yourself as you are, today. Stay Do Not leave, I know I lost a lot of you right there, but read on. I suggest that, you must! I repeat! Must learn to love and respect your body, now at the point it’s at, today!

Why, because your opinion and attitude towards your body will remain the same whether you lose the weight or not. That’s right if the song you sing says, you’re slow, then you will tell me you are slow whether you run a 20 minute mile or a 7:00 minute mile. You have to learn to change your opinion, now, because it doesn’t work the other way around. This is one of the grooves in your record. If you’re constantly calling yourself fat, you will continue to think you’re fat whether you have 10 lbs to lose or 100 lbs.

Wouldn’t it feel nicer to change your body from a place of love and respect, rather then distain? Think of it this way, If you had a 4 year old and you were trying to get him to learn to pick up after himself, do you think it would be more constructive to tell him you hated him because he left his toys all over the house or Do you think you might have a more positive outcome if you explained the benefits of putting the toys away, and praised him when he accomplished what you were after. Seems ridiculous when you say it about a four year old, right? Then why do you treat your body differently?

In Japan, a man by the name of Masaru Emoto has spent years studying the effects that his thoughts and words had on a glass of water. I’m not going to go into the whole study here if you want to see it in action, rent the movie “What the bleep”, (a totally trippy movie about Quantum physics). In his study he took a glass of water and wrote a word on the glass, like “Love” and let it sit. He then took another glass and wrote the word “Hate” on it. He placed the glass, in the same setting, all things being equal. What he found time and again is that when the water was placed under a microscope, the water that came from the glass marked “Love” would have beautiful shapes, like snowflakes and the water that came from the glass marked “Hate” began to stagnate, more rapidly. We played with this ourselves at home by taking two, fresh, strawberries and placing them in separate containers. On the outside of one container we wrote the word love and on the other hate. The results were quite interesting and even though we were skeptical the strawberry marked with hate, grew moldy much more quickly then the one marked love. Coincidence, maybe, but in the end, which state would you rather walk around in? I’ll choose happiness and love and if I’m wrong at least I enjoyed the ride.

I want you to imagine the effect those same thoughts have on your own body. You are made up of millions of cells. Each of those cells is like a little self contained universe, every time you think a negative thought about that body part, every cell in your body hears you and reacts. If you say I’m fat, I’m ugly, guess what, You are absolutely right! And you have just given yourself a command to make it so. You create your reality and your brain will always find a way to make you right.

You will always have something on your body that you would like to be different, that is human nature and that is actually a positive trait, to always be striving to better yourself. Imagine if everyone in the world didn’t have that need for things to be improved. It is part of our make up, as human beings, to want things to be better and to always be looking for what is wrong. But that does not mean that you have to Hate that which you want changed. You can do it from a place of love and gratitude. You can thank your legs for everywhere they have gotten you, for the fact that you have them at all. You can thank your stomach for helping you bear children. You can love your stretch marks and be grateful to them.

Now does that mean that you should just give up changing your diet and exercising because I’m saying accept yourself as you are? Absolutely not! I cannot stand the people running around saying big is beautiful and promoting obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle! What I’m saying is that change can occur from a place of respect for your body and your health and the more you can learn to love yourself right now. Exactly as you are the better!

This change, in attitude, is actually very difficult to do, because it is so engrained in your habit pattern to talk to yourself from a negative perspective. You will have to train yourself to be nice! Figure out what you say, to yourself, most often throughout the day. We all have a self dialogue, or maybe you think more in pictures, how do you picture yourself? Part of your work now is to stand in front of a full length mirror and truly look at yourself. Look in the mirror and say “I deeply and completely accept myself”. Think of all the good things your body has accomplished for you. Start listing reasons why you are grateful for your body. When you can look in the mirror and feel a genuine sense of gratitude and love for your body, then change can occur from a positive place and your goal is accomplished. You would be shocked at the amount of people that aren’t even capable of looking in the mirror. If you have learned to avoid looking at yourself, then it may take weeks, to change this pattern, it may happen quickly, you’ll know when you catch yourself thinking positively about yourself, rather then beating yourself up. Treat yourself with respect first and then others can do the same.

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