When it comes to understanding your behaviours around food, health and fitness it is worth spending a considerable amount of time deeply investigating your identity.
Who are you?
Pay close attention to the language you use to describe yourself both internally and externally.
Do you refer to yourself in a positive way or are a lot of your thoughts and words negative and self deprecating?
This is a deep subject and it can take a bit to get your head around it.
But the narrative you use about yourself solidifies who you consider yourself to be.
eg. I fully consider myself to be confident, intelligent, self sufficient, practical, kind and capable of anything I turn my interest to.
I NEVER talk about myself as being lazy, unproductive, useless, dumb or ugly.
This reflects both my thoughts and my spoken words.
This has nothing to do with how you feel other people see you - this is entirely about how you see you.
How you talk about you.
How you project you out into the world.
Scary stuff?
I think it can certainly be challenging if you are reflecting on your thoughts and realise that you constantly refer to yourself in a negative way.
That you somehow feel that this is modest or humble.
But there really is a very good reason that we see american 5 years olds standing in front of a mirror telling themselves they are beautiful, intelligent, fun and kind.
They are right.
Our culture makes us think we are being 'big headed' if we describe ourselves in any way that is positive and has a resultant consequence of breeding a nation of people who don't want to be seen or heard, who do not believe their presence is of value, who are frightened to be in the company of strangers and who are terrified of starting new things.
The negative beliefs run so deep that many do not believe - and cannot believe - that they can change.
That life can look very very different.
Okay, I'll bite, so what do I do to change?
Practice.
Literally change the words that you use to talk about yourself.
At first you will likely have to force this.
And it might feel uncomfortable.
I promise it is worth the effort.
Let's start with the one that most people really struggle with.
"I am beautiful."
Consider this before you feel defeated at the first hurdle.
- how does it serve you to not think of yourself as beautiful?
Think about it carefully and keep your emotions and old habits in check.
When you look at yourself in the mirror and perceive yourself as ugly - how does that feel?
Because only you can hear your thoughts, only you can feel the emotion it triggers when you hate on yourself.
Why not think of yourself as awesome instead?
Really.
Why not?
I'm going to leave this here for now - but we will build on this.
If you have questions please ask, I truly believe that your self concept - your identity - is the ultimate key to your long term happiness and health.
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