Your Body: Beloved or the Enemy?

(Originally published 9 June 2012) 

"Seen symbolically, all disorders are cases where the body becomes a stranger, an enemy, a failed ally, or a defeated victim. To prevent those metaphors from turning into reality, you need to offer reassurance to your body that you will care for it, that you will listen when it speaks."

That's from Deepak Chopra's Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul (p. 130 in the large print version). It appears in the section on Breakthrough #4: You Can Improve Your Genes. In this book and others, Chopra demonstrates how the body has amazing abilities to correct and heal itself. But for this to happen, "you need to feel comfortable in your body. There has to be a basic connection that isn't blocked by guilt, shame, and discomfort."

Your thoughts and feelings determine how your cells will function. If your thoughts are constantly unhappy--angry, frustrated, sad, judgemental—losing weight and getting healthy is going to be an uphill battle, and may turn out to be impossible.

Which would you rather do? Hold on to your negative thoughts and limiting beliefs about yourself and what you can achieve, while you keep fighting your fat and battling to budge the numbers on your scale? Or lavish your body and being with attention, awareness, love, and care?

I recommend being as vigilant about your mental diet as you are about what you eat. Eating and exercising mindfully and joyfully will reap greater benefit than any diet or workout regimen that is practiced grudgingly or with a sense of obligation.

You really can't separate your physical health from your emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Embrace the process of transformation, and see where it may lead you. As always, I wish you success and joy on your journey.

Blessed Be, Amanda