Too naïve to grasp the real root of my worries, I concentrated on the more quantifiable issue: My ex's new girlfriend was far skinnier than I was. My short, frumpy body paled in comparison to her long legs and magazine-worthy abs. I became determined to reshape my body.
In all my years as a parent educator, I have never met parents who earnestly wanted to hurt their children. Most parents sincerely want to encourage and empower their children to lead strong, successful lives. However, it is their lack of mindfulness that defaults into old patterns and belief systems that teach their children harmful messages rather accidently.
My client, like so many gay men, is convinced that without a gym-buff body, he is unlovable and doomed to be alone for the rest of his life.
“I’m so fat!” “My butt looks huge in these jeans!” “I can’t leave the house looking like THIS!” If you’ve uttered words like these, you might be putting your relationship at risk. Even if you’ve never put yourself down or been hateful about your body out loud, you still might be negatively affecting your love relationship or marriage.
3 REAL Ways to Love Your Body This Summer With summer upon us, our body image (what we see ourselves as) can easily turn REAL negative, especially for women. Summer is the season of sun, fun, friends and outdoor activities…. All which typically require a bathing suit or clothing that tends to expose areas that are easily hidden by our winter wardrobes!
* So, You Don’t Like What You’re Seeing? What glasses or frames are you looking through? Body Image really is a function of our “frames” or glasses, our eyes, those filters or windows on our world that we create from all the cultural, social, psychological, spiritual parts of our lives coloring our perceptions.
The other day, I was talking with a client who has lost about thirty pounds towards her goal of fifty. She even found this remarkable when she realized that the thirty-pound bags of soil she was dragging around her yard were the equivalent of what she had lost and had been carrying around every moment of every day. Yet, rather than being ecstatic about how well she’s doing, she was more bothered by the wrinkles that were showing up on her thinner face and the new bat wings on her slender arms.
I attended the International Society for the study of Women’s Sexual Health this past week. This is one of the greatest meetings I go to during the year, and this one in particular was phenomenal. One of the lectures was about sexual desire and women. The lecture touched on many different components to female sexual desire, the awareness that sexual desire alone does not lead to sex for women. When men have sexual desire they seek out sex because it is a positive experience.
