Losing weight on my self-love program
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Losing weight on my self-love program
Before my Self-Love Program I didn’t know what self-love meant or how to love myself.
I was a girl with low self-esteem and little confidence around others. I was shy and I reserved my feelings for a limited crowd of family and close friends, but even then I was closed off from allowing anyone to see and fully discover the ‘real me’.
The quiet, ‘nice girl’, me
In keeping myself closed to others I thought I was protecting myself from getting hurt or rejected, but in actual fact I was hurting and rejecting myself most deeply. I had created a picture of what and who I should be and fooled even myself with the quiet, ‘nice girl’ persona.
I prided myself on my ability to listen intently, be responsible, provide care for my family and patients at work, but inside I was feeling more drained and distant from other people. I wasn’t really looking after myself in a way that supported my everyday life and I certainly didn’t think I was worth making time for, or deserving of, loving care for myself or my own body.
This played out by my indulging in food and using things like TV as a distraction in mostly every spare minute I ever had.
I felt withdrawn, anxious and tense within my own body.
As I grew older my shoulders hunched as I worked on perfecting my outward smile in an attempt to cover the sadness I felt from not living the love and joy that I knew I could be. I was numbing myself with food and at times alcohol and I was suffering from anxiety; the food and alcohol became my coping tools when I just wanted to fit in with others, or simply didn’t want the real me to be seen or noticed in fear that I might be hurt or rejected.
I had a picture of what would bring happiness and love to my life, a list of things from the outside; the home, the husband and children. But as I ticked these things off my list I was realising this wasn’t it.
I was missing out on a deeper love, a love that could never be given to me by someone else, it could only come from my own heart by choosing true love for myself; by learning how to love myself and choosing to live the real me.
After my Self Love Program . . . accepting myself – the natural and joyful me
In November 2010, I began a program with a Universal Medicine practitioner. We called this a program of ‘Self-Love’ and from my first esoteric healing session I knew that there was more to life than the picture I had limited myself by.
I began to learn to love myself and to feel and trust my body for the first time since I was a small child.
In the past three years I have shed accumulated layers of hurt and sadness and narrow ways of thinking of how I thought I should be.
Although I have dropped around 30kg it has not been about weight loss for me – the weight literally came off as I began to accept myself and as I began to learn to love myself and treat my body with the love it always deserved. It has been about discovering who I am once again – discovering the real me – and sharing this me unreservedly with others.
I am forever grateful for the inspiration that the practitioners of Universal Medicine have gifted me. I have made countless new and loving choices to support me to live what feels natural; not to better myself, but from the knowing that I am already so amazing, so beautiful. My diet and exercise routines are always changing to be more supportive and I make choices by listening to my body, going to bed early when I am tired, eating to nourish my body, not holding back from sharing what I feel with others – and I absolutely love going to work and being with other people.
I now live with a deep sense of worth as a woman and because of this I find that the simple daily choices I make are honouring of who I am; I choose to not drink alcohol, eat sugary foods or fast food that makes me feel unwell. I don’t watch TV to escape living my life and I care about the details of how I spend my day.
As I have been learning how to love myself more and more deeply, I am now accepting myself and who I am, and this feels like just the beginning. I have a willingness to grow, to understand and discover more about life and I have made a commitment to living in full, the real ME.
It’s a miracle to me that I have let go of such a shield of protection and hardness and given myself the permission to expand and unfold the natural and joyful Cherise . . . the natural and joyful me!
How I was living before my Self Love Program is far from the self-nurturing and self-honouring way I now live, and with the unexpected weight loss and loving care I give to my body, this love is reflected in every part of my body too.
And most of all, I relate to other people with confidence and with a sense of what is loving for me, not just from a need to fit in.
Filed under
Self-love, Self-esteem, Losing weight
