Thrive Through Yoga by Nicola Jane Hobbs

Author:Nicola Jane Hobbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472943019
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-12-28T05:00:00+00:00

Nobody ever tells us that it’s OK to call ourselves beautiful. Nobody ever says that we can love our waist and our hips and our thighs. Nobody ever says its OK to compliment our assets instead of moaning about our flaws. So I’ll say it now:

You are allowed to love your body exactly the way it is.

There is no wonder that over 60 per cent of us are ashamed of our bodies with the rise of selfies on social media becoming a breeding ground for judgement and comparison, and magazines boasting front covers telling us how to get ‘slim and sexy’, ‘lose inches all over’ and ‘be bulge-free’. The problem with these messages is that not only do we feel we need to lose inches, we also lose self-confidence, self-compassion and self-love.

Media isn’t the only problem when it comes to loving our body. We can be our own worst enemy. We think that degrading our body is a form of modesty when actually it just weakens our spirit. We think that if we criticise our body enough it will lead to change when in reality the criticism just keeps us trapped in a cycle of binging or starving or whatever destructive coping mechanisms we’ve become caught up in. The truth is, we can’t hate our body into loving it. And in reality, our body was never the problem in the first place. There is nothing wrong with its scars, stretch marks, lumps and bumps. Our curves, wrinkles, smooth places and wobbly bits are just fine as they are. Do we really want to spend our one precious life hating our thighs, condemning our bellies, and wishing we were thinner, curvier, taller, shorter, with a smaller nose, bigger boobs and longer legs?

It took me a long time to love my body, to learn that my worth does not depend on how much I weigh or how flat my stomach is, and to realise that the way my belly has softened and thigh gap has shrunk does not make me any less beautiful. Since my journey through anorexia 10 years ago, my body has changed a lot. My thighs are bigger, my belly is softer, my face is rounder. My heart is healthier, my bones are stronger and my skin is brighter. But the thing that has changed more than my body is my mind. I’ve realised the things that I thought were important – weight, calories, the circumference of my waist, wearing a size 4 … are not so important after all. I’ve learnt that our body is precious. It is our vehicle for thriving and we need to take good care of it.

When we stop criticising ourselves in the mirror we can turn our gaze inwards and focus on the things that really matter – our dreams, our relationships, our personal growth. Instead of worrying about how big our bum looks, we can use our energy to be comfortable with ourselves and figure out what we have to share with the world.

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