As you may already be reviewing the past year, think about how you’ve cared for your body?   Do you think you’ve “honored” your body this year? Do you think you’ve “listened” fully to what it has been saying or asking for? If you can say “yes” without a doubt, that is awesome! If you are not sure, I encourage you to actually sit with those questions as you reflect.

Because we are in full swing of the party time, extra everything and not enough time for some things time-of-year. People can get really hung up on either trying to do everything “right” and staying on track, or dismissing everything and doing, drinking and eating all the things and a lot of the things all the time. Followed by beating themselves up later for feeling so “out of control” or that they felt like they “had to” etc.

What do both of these scenarios have in common? They both are ideas that happen in our minds and are completely disconnected to what our bodies are saying at the moment this is all happening.

What I am suggesting, to not only get through the holiday season but to start moving towards for this next year, is to bring more presence, grace and connection into our bodies at the time these events are happening.  That we let go of any rules or expectations we may have set for ourselves to the extent that we allow ourselves so that we can be totally immersed in what is happening. That we allow ourselves to really enjoy the company we find ourselves in. And if we don’t enjoy that company, that we take care of ourselves enough in setting boundaries for what is enough or ok for ourselves so we are not depleted in the future.

That we can enjoy the food being served, if we indeed actually enjoy the food being served, and to be connected to our body enough to know when we’ve had enough. Where, we feel satisfied with flavors. Where we sense our body feeling satiated in general (not really hungry anymore) that we feel comfortably full. Whatever that may mean to each of us.

We can get so hung up with the “doing it right”. Or setting ourselves up for fear of I’m going to mess everything up and bad things are going to happen to my body. What if we allowed ourselves a chance where maybe our worse fears won’t actually happen to the extreme degree you think they might? What if it’s possible to just eat the food being served without judgment on the food or judgement on ourselves. That we just allow ourselves to be curious about the options before us.  

What if we can be true to our bodies and ourselves for what feels “good” to each of us and each of us alone; again, without judgement?

Where we won’t wake up the next day regretting what we did, and beating ourselves up  because everything was “off”. And that we won’t demand that we spend hours in the gym or or restrict nourishing food from our body and mind because we feel so upset about food or drink choices we intentionally made the day before? Or finally, that we won’t give up on ourselves because everything didn’t go exactly as we planned it to be?  

My hope is that we can wake up the next morning and think, “that was just a really nice time” and what we ate or didn’t eat was just an afterthought and not everything? That we can just begin our day in gratitude for the experiences and people around us. For circumstances that whether perceived as positive or negative, all help us see or receive what we really need to see for our highest good.

That we can wake up and feel a sense of connection and peace within ourselves and our lives. That we know that we matter. That our food choices do not determine our worth, nor does the amount we exercise or the degree we can punish ourselves for doing something that we intrinsically may actually want to do and experience. That we can become a little more honest with what it is we really want and how we really want to feel and that we can choose each day to start feeling those feelings and having those things.

When you let go of the old beliefs and yuck, you open to something new and potentially more aligned for you with a whole lot more ease and joy!  

If you want to explore any beliefs or conditioning or mindset that has been keeping you in a loop for a long time around food, exercise, health and self-care, click any of the links below to connect!

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