I'm almost a decade late on The Hunger Game series but this past week I caught up and fell in love! One of the things that stood out to me was this conversation:
Katniss: So you're here to make me look pretty. Cinna: I'm here to help you make an impression. Ladies, we spend way too much time trying to keep up with and look like everybody else. Pretty is too short sighted of a goal. Thin is to short sighted of a goal. You aren't here to be desirable to the most people, you are here to make an impression! You are here to add a you sized dent on this planet we call home. Stop fretting over the scale, or the size of your nose, thighs, or waistline. Every time society has decided what is beautiful someone comes along who is confident and changes the game! Don't try to fit your square self into a round hole. Make such an impression that you change the game! Instead of using your time to stare in the mirror criticizing your body, put your mind and skill set to use. Create something! Invent something! Write a book! Start a revolution! Instead of seeking to be LESS than who you are, Be MORE and don't apologize for it! Instead of wasting time lamenting what you don't have, amaze us all with what you WERE given! Play the hand you were dealt so well that others stop and take notice, not for what you look like, but for who you are! As Haymitch tells Peeta and Katniss, " Make sure they remember you!" Pretty faces fade, fit bodies still age, what you create with your years on this planet and the people you effect with your individuality become your legacy. Make sure they remember you!
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I've had this song on repeat in my car lately. I do that. 😂 🎶
If you've been following me for any length of time you know I love to help people with their health but our lives are so much more than being thin or beautiful or fit or whatever elusive standard of success makes you feel inferior. Our lives are about time and relationships. Time is our most important resource and we don't know how much if it we have. Human connectedness is what makes life amazing! And yet as women we waste approximately one whole year of our life worried about body image! Most women waste another year of their life applying make-up. We waste more time pursuing careers and jobs we don't really love out of fear and too much stock in other people's opinions. Or keeping people we love at a distance as we attempt to hide our flaws. We struggle to love ourselves. We struggle to enjoy our lives.We are more concerned with being thought well of then we are about what we ourselves think. The farther we get from our calling and truth, the more we seek distraction and comfort. Self discovery is uncomfortable. It is. We have to look over the messes we've made, the hurt we've caused, but it also sets us free to embrace growth and become the person we've always wanted to be. It doesn't just happen. We have to know ourselves. We need to know what we believe about spiritual things so that we can align our actions with our beliefs. We need to understand our talents and skills and desires. We need to know what we want and why we work for it. In the end, we lose the physical beauty, the money we've gathered, even a good reputation fades away as we are forgotten by the generations to come but a life spent investing in people and relationships and service to others with the gifts that we have can change the world! While we might not be remembered for it, an encouraging word to a friend may have given them the courage to write a book that affects millions, or helping an abused person heal may change the entire course of life for her entire family line. I dont know what it will be for you. I don't even know what it will be for me but I know I want it! I want to spend my life investing in people. I don't want to spend my life fretting about my appearance and watching it deteriorate in the mirror. So while I encourage you to eat well and exercise, just remember life is more than fitting in your jeans. Stop beating yourself up for food choices and lack of progress and start digging deeper into why you seek comfort and distraction. Ask yourself the tough questions. Give yourself time to discover the answers. Fight for yourself and encourage others with your story. Be vulnerable and transparent. Find your people and invest in them. In the end, we won't wish we had watched more Netflix or eaten more junk. So what do you want to build with the time you have? Stumble, fall, fail, dust yourself off and get back up, but get to it! The truth and adventure await! The beginning that we can't change often trips us up. We can't help how we were raised, what others have said to us, or even escape the consequences of our own poor decisions, but we can write the ending any way we choose!
I grew up in poverty and because of that I started my adult life in debt. Student loans, credit cards, living pay check to pay check. I was 29, married, with a $50,000 equity loan debt on a house I owned with my mom. We took out the loan so both us could get through school with 4 of my siblings still at home. Every moment I was doing the best I could to serve me family and the best I could do to get by. I was trying to make progress and it always felt like I was spinning my wheels. My hubby and I signed up for a financial class and I was full of dread. I didn't want to show anyone my mess. I didn't even want to look at it myself but that class changed everything. In 2 years we had that debt paid off and 3 years later we were completely debt free. I rewrote the ending to that chapter and it's given me the courage to keep tackling issues in my life. Forgive the past, whether it's others or yourself you have to forgive band then show up for yourself. Show up weak, show up scared, but show up and change the ending to one that redeems the pain. The mess doesn't define who you are, you do. #hotmessexpress #changetheending #youcandoit My health journey has been mostly internal and this is the very truth that changed my behavior. Our culture communicates that our worth as women is found in our desirability. When we choose to believe that we lose sight of our individual calling, our skills and abilities cease to matter, we are consumed with chasing something we can never achieve.
Even the most beautiful women in the world are criticized! They are chasing youth and having surgery to look prettier and younger and still they are forgotten when someone younger and prettier comes along. We envy them but they aren't try known or respected, just lusted after. You are beautiful, those who know you probably tell you all the time, but it falls on deaf ears as you compare yourself to whatever beauty trend is popular this minute. It's not your responsibility to be beautiful, it's your responsibility to take your unique gifts and abilities and focus your time and attention in a way that makes you excited to live, excited to be you! Your beauty is to be desired by one person, the person you choose to spend your life with and, even then, that person is going to care so much more about who you are than what you look like. You are more than enough. So, don't be caught up with unattainable beauty standards, be caught up with living your life, discovering who you are, and doing something amazing with the time you have. You have infinitely more to add to this world than physical beauty that fades. 💗 I finished reading Misty Copeland's book, " Life In Motion" this week and it was so inspiring! I am always blown away seeing others so obviously standing in their strength!
It got me thinking about how some people seem to stumble upon their passion and purpose and how others spend their whole lives trying to figure it out. Or how some people find what they are passionate about but never really gain traction with it while others seem to shine. So this week I have been studying strengths, how to find them, recognize them, and put them to use! One of the major things Ive noticed is that we all tend to focus on damage control and working on our weaknesses instead of creatively using our strengths to problem solve and build. In our Heart of a Warrior group we are taking a free strength finding test and chatting about what we find! I was surprised by my results and yet they were really accurate and really helpful! Come join us! <3 https://www.facebook.com/groups/316784275426292/ It's easy to do. There will always be someone who thinks they know what's best for us, or who wants to save us the pain of error and mistakes, but when we hand over the pen we sell ourselves short.
Self discovery is messy! It is made up trial and error and failing and glorious success! It requires us to follow where our intuition and skill set leads. It's scary...and amazing! I spent 4 years holding the pen in my hand, not handing it over, but not writing with it either, out of fear. There is nothing as exciting as committing and putting the ink on paper! Living boldly and growing! I've become much less afraid of public opinion and more afraid of living anything less than my highest potential. Half of figuring out what you want is figuring out what you don't want, and both of these require life experience to find out! Live well, my friends, and take back the pen. ✒️📝✍️ #writeyourstory #livewell "The greatest and most powerful revolutions often start very quietly, hidden in the shadows. Remember that."
Richelle Mead I was scrolling Facebook last night and I came across young images of Marilyn Monroe and this one really stood out to me. It stood out because this photo wasnt accompanied by #effyourbeautystandards or with a lengthy explanation about how woman need to accept their curves, rolls, and cellulite. It was just an image of a model from a photo shoot. No photoshopping or repositioning her to elongate her torso or extend her limbs to reduce the appearance of bulk. It called out to me because the beauty standards we hold ourselves to are suffocating. We don't need to explain for posting a picture of ourselves with stretch marks or cellulite or extra pounds or no make-up.We don't need to be afraid of sitting like a normal person or wearing a swimsuit in public. We are the ones in power really. We are the ones marketers are trying to sell too. We are the ones that can control who gets our dollars, attention, and respect. We don't have to hide behind filters and make-up and Spanx. Revolutions start in the shadows, in the minds of you and me. When we decide we reject those standards and aren't going to play by their rules or buy into the lie that we need some THING to make us more acceptable to look at, that's when change begins. When we feel free to post pictures without explanations and without fearing judgement, when we can walk into a room and be so comfortable in our own skin that we aren't comparing ourselves to each other, we take back the power. That's the change I want to see, because when we see our own worth we support each other instead of competing with each other. We are confident enough to start our own damn businesses if we aren't being paid what we are worth. We are free to care for our bodies without getting discouraged that we don't look like another woman. We are already free, we just have to start walking in that freedom. The revolution starts in our thoughts. "I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed. " Anne Lamott Today was the official start of our December challenge group and I've spent the last 18 hours cleaning up after children and their stomach bug. Life doesn't slow down while you work out your routine, you have to forge it in the midst of life. Understanding your vision helps in these kinds of moments. This is what I shared with my group today:
Happy Monday!! I know this will be a challenging month! It's the end of the year with holidays and parties and Christmas shopping. It's hard to get everything done each day WITHOUT a workout! So I just wanted to start our group on the right note! I want to share my vision for you as you create your own. One of the questions I often ask women is, " When was the moment you became aware of your body and were introduced to the idea that were lacking in some way?" For most of us it was in our early teenage years. Maybe the person we had a crush on compared us to someone else, or the attention one of our girlfriends got made us very aware that we had NONE of the qualities that made others notice her. Maybe you had a parent that made comments about your weight or tried to control your food intake. It's helpful to remember. It's helpful to go back and recognize what started the train of thought that makes us feel that we aren't enough. I want to take you back to the moment before that happened when your body was just yours and you weren't even aware of whether you were tall or short or thick or thin. You didn't think about the color of your skin or hair or eyes! You were just YOU and you were excited to be alive! I'm excited for you to set goals and achieve the milestones that will make you feel accomplished but my ultimate goal for you isn't to lose a certain number of pounds or fit into a certain pair of pants. It's to get back to the point where you love your body because its yours and you can revel in your own beauty while you admire other people's. I want you to be aware that just because a dress doesn't fit you well that doesn't make YOU unattractive, it just means its not the dress for you! I want you to be more concerned that the food you are eating is fueling your body and making you healthy MORE than you are concerned what the scale will say the next day. I want a full factory reset on your brain! I don't want to fill your head with MY ideas of success and worth and beauty, I want you to get in touch with what those mean to YOU. Our posts this month are designed to help spark that in you. At the end of this group I want you to be more excited about being you! I want you to have a vision for 2018 that will set you free from others perceptions and help you set boundaries for the negative thoughts that sneak in whether that is coming from you or from others. So let's acknowledge that this will be a challenging month and that at the end our goal is to have grown stronger inside and out. Let's commit to NOT being discouraged if we don't see massive progress in a month that is full of desserts and carbs! Let's do our best to treat ourselves well and eat nutritious food and exercise as we can while still being present for our families. Let's enjoy balance and grace this month! So your assignment today is to think back and answer that question for me. When was the moment you became aware of your body and were introduced to the idea that were lacking in some way? Can you see how it still affecting you today? How can you redirect your thoughts as you become more aware of them? Would it help to have an accountability partner? Or to practice true affirmations when you notice those thoughts sneaking in? I have committed to NOT criticizing my appearance. Not aloud. not in my head. I have daughters who are listening and learning from me and I don't want them to think this way so I have committed to changing. My hubby holds me accountable for how I talk about myself and reminds me when I slip up. It has been hugely helpful! Share your thoughts below! One day. One day I'll get my finances in order.One day I'll be in better shape. One day I'll have an organized house.One day I'll fix my relationship with my spouse, parent or child. One day doesn't happen without vision, intention, and strategy!
The steps to those goals don't have to be large, they can be little steps in the right direction but we do have to set a goal and align our actions with that goal. What do you want " one day" to look like for you? Are you taking action to grow in those areas today? #oneday #today #womenofaction |
Author"And Aubrey was her name. A not so very ordinary girl or name."(Or so says David Gates ;) I'm a wife to Phillip, a mother to Scarlett and Juliet. We live in the beautiful city of Thornton, Co. I'm a recovering red bull addict. I love to read. I hate to cook. I seek to be inspired and also to inspire others. I am a Beachbody Coach on a quest to be truly healthy mind, soul, and body and challenge others to do the same. Archives
February 2018
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