healthmedicinet

{via etsy by Georgianna}

A positive body image goes beyond liking your looks. It encompasses taking good care of yourself and leading a fulfilling life. In this weekly series, I share some of my favorite posts from some of my favorite bloggers on this topic. Sometimes I also share relevant pieces that I’ve written on the Web. Hope you find these links inspiring!

Molly shares 9 great ways to practice gratitude. I especially love this reminder: “Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop or remaining convinced our joy will disappear the moment we acknowledge it, we need to be grateful as hell for all the wonder, victories, small moments and grace in our life.”

A simple way to calm yourself.

Michelle reveals 5 ways we can nourish ourselves. This is my favorite tip:

Create an intimate relationship with yourself. When you create more intimacy with yourself, then you can extend this ability to others.  How can you be truly present and available in your relationships with others if you don’t really know you?  Remember that the way you perceive all your relationships is influenced by how you relate to you.  How do you create an intimate relationship with yourself? It begins by simply spending time with you, in the same way you would spend time with someone you love and value.

A reminder that your thoughts are ot facts. 

Marianne delves into our culture’s preoccupation with doing and being more — and never being enough. “Despite being a card-holding member of the Yoga Alliance, I’m not interested in abundance. I’m interested in sufficiency.” What about you? When are you enough?

Andrea muses on the idea of being busy. This is a powerful lesson:

When people ask you how you’re doing, do you do what I do? Do you say, “Oh fine, crazy, busy as ever!” or “Really good… super busy!”

But what is busy really? but something we tell ourselves.

I practiced it this morning when I dropped off Nico at school. As I signed him out, I heard that familiar refrain, Okay sister, you better get going now and get to your desk… But then I stopped myself and said, I’m actually not that busy!and let myself stay a few extra minutes building a tower of blocks with him.

It was just a few more minutes but it felt spacious, like I got to decide that I have time for everything. I felt myself writing a new story: that there is enough time for what’s most important in my life.

Shannon pens a beautiful and honest post about practicing self-care in the midst of self-loathing. I can absolutely relate.

Brene Brown explains how all of us can find shelter in a shame storm.

Sally posts a powerful selection of body image quotes. My favorite:

“Real beauty isn’t about symmetry or weight or makeup; it’s about looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in your own.”

~Valerie Monroe

Liz shares her thoughts on self-portraiture as meditation. I will keep coming back to these words:

Somewhere in the last few years, taking self-portraits has become my daily meditation. This is the way I know I’m not disappearing in the midst of whatever the day hands me. This is how I remind myself that I can choose in each moment.

…

Capturing myself through my camera lens is helping me to shed the ways I have been talking to myself since I was about eight years old.

The layers of “wishing I looked like” and “believing I would only be happy if” and “maybe I would have more success if I was skinnier” and so many other stories stacked up since third grade when I needed to wear a bra two years before all the other girls in my class.

Now when I look in the mirror and look at self-portraits, I almost always see myself with softness, with compassion…

What inspiring words have you read this week?

<!–

And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

–>

Comments

This post currently has

0 comments.

You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts.

<!–

71
–>

    Last reviewed: 24 Mar 2013