Here’s the strategy you’ve been sold:
First, you must hate your body. You must see it as a flawed, disgusting, and unacceptable thing. You must generate enough shame and self-loathing to finally motivate yourself to change.
Then, from that place of hatred, you are supposed to engage in “healthy” behaviors. You are supposed to lovingly prepare nourishing meals, joyfully move your body, and get restorative sleep… all while holding the core belief that the body you are doing this for is fundamentally wrong and unlovable.
Does this sound insane to you? Because it is.
You cannot hate yourself into a version of yourself that you can love.
It is a neurological and biological impossibility.
Hatred, shame, and self-criticism trigger a threat response in your nervous system. They put you in a state of fight-or-flight. In this state, your body is flooded with stress hormones like cortisol. It’s in a state of contraction, of crisis, of survival.
Health, vitality, and wellbeing require a state of safety. A state of relaxation. A state of trust. The parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” state.
You cannot be in both states at the same time.
You cannot be in a state of self-inflicted war and expect to create a state of internal peace. You cannot shame your body and expect it to respond with vibrant health.
The body you have today is the only one you have to work with. The healing, the nourishment, the vitality you seek must begin here. It must begin with the body you have right now.
The starting point is not criticism. It is compassion. The starting point is not shame. It is acceptance.
You don’t have to love everything about your body to start treating it with love. You just have to be willing to stop hating it.
You have to be willing to lay down your arms and call a truce in the war against yourself. Because only when the war is over can the healing begin.
If you’ve been trying to hate yourself healthy and you’re exhausted from the fight, there is another way. If you’re ready to try the radical experiment of compassion, you can find more info at www.cetfreedom.com. Or send me a message.
