A few weeks ago, I was lying in the ICU, fighting for my life. And something unexpected happened. I started falling in love with my body.

After 45 years of telling it all the things I wanted it to change, I finally started telling it how amazing it was.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how amazing our bodies are and how we are so hard on them when they carry a few extra pounds or imperfections.

When I was recovering from the MRSA infection, I started talking to my body and telling it how amazing, strong, smart and powerful it is. I’d tell it good job when I’d wake up in the morning and as I’d fall asleep at night. I really wanted my body to know that I believed in it and we were going to get through this and back to having a strong and healthy body.

Sometimes we want to lose weight to look conventionally pretty or what mainstream society says is pretty. Of course we all want to feel attractive and beautiful and sexy.

I wonder what would happen if during our fitness and weight loss journeys, we started to love our bodies right now, regardless of how many chubby rolls show up when we sit down and bend over to tie our shoes.

I’ve been really hard on my body too. I’ve often thought I have too many freckles or moles. And I was always trying to get a six pack until I had one and then realized my boobs disappeared and I wanted to have real boobs and a six pack, but alas, that was not for me. Why is life so unfair? lol. I thought we could have it all?!

And then I went from being perfectly healthy to the ICU in septic shock in the blink of an eye. And I had to repair the relationship with my body, lickety split. I had been so harsh to it for 45 years, even though it was showing up for me every single day. I kept telling it that it needed to do more, look firmer, be stronger, sleep longer and on and on. I never took the time to slow down and appreciate all it had done for me and all I had pushed it through and all the unthank yous. Oh man. I’m sorry body.

I’ve been thinking about how our relationship with ourselves can influence the way we care for our bodies. Sometimes we’re so busy taking care of everyone else that our own needs get pushed aside. And sometimes food becomes comfort when what we’re really craving is rest, love, or support.

It’s hard to pick a salad over the fries as a side, that is until you realize that your body needs the salad. Veggies are yummy too. Sure your taste buds might prefer the fries, but you body is dancing for joy when you pick the nutrients. Do you always have to pick the veggies? No. You have your whole life to enjoy fries. You also have your entire life to nourish and love your amazing body.

We can get in these endless cycles or not taking care of ourselves, negative self-talk, feeling exhausted and unmotivated. And it’s hard to get out of. Not impossible. It does take some real effort though until one day it doesn’t.

To make a long story short, I was talking to some ladies about hypnosis and they said they really wanted to lose weight. They know they’d feel so much better if they did. Me being me, decided to make this hypnosis for my YouTube channel because maybe you are feeling that way too. And I wanted to tie in loving your body right now.

My body is still healing and I know that I have to feed it nourishing food. The doc told me to stay away from simple carbs (sugary sweets and breads). I LOVE bread. You know what I love more? Feeling healthy and pain free. So 95% of my choices have been the healthy veggies, fish, nuts, and fruit. I’ve had a couple bites of ice cream. I’m not perfect. I am trying really hard to listen to my body thought and rebuild a beautiful and trusting relationship with it. Every day I get better and better.

Next week I am going to slowly introduce working out back into my day and see how that feels. I encourage you to go slow if you need to as well. Your body is an excellent guide. Learn to communicate with it. Learn to love it and be good to it.

Trust me, your body will fight like hell for you when you need it, so might as well set up a good foundation for it.

Here is the recording if you’d like to listen.

Sending you so much love,

Steph