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The Body Love Series: How to Help the Positivity Resonate Mind, Body & Soul

How to get from here to there. Sometimes it seems easy. Sometimes it doesn’t.  I often speak of something “resonating” with me. If it resonates, I support it, I buy it, I tell others about it, I BELIEVE in it.  It’s an easy sell because it feels right to me.

When it comes to developing body love, sometimes it is not as easy as it seems to get from here to there. Sometimes doubt creeps in, lack of belief in something being true creeps in. Believing in the beauty of your body or a body part doesn’t ring true.  The body love is not resonating so it’s hard to make changes. And I don’t mean physical changes – I mean changing those doubts in your cranium that keep you from celebrating your body exactly like it is like rocking a bikini, wearing shorts or confidently showing off your gorgeous arms without feeling the need to wear long sleeves. It’s all about creating a mind-body-soul connection that feels unified and true to bring about real change and happiness.

I recently discussed easy out-of-the-box ways to meditate and bring about body love every day with an incredible crowd at Curvy Expo. I’ve had several conversations with women about it since so I know the topic has struck a chord.  I gave the audience easy 1-2 sentence mantras to build up body love.  These are positive affirmations that can be said to quiet your mind throughout your day and send yourself some loving vibes. But here is the thing – we are all on different journeys with different starting points, different experiences that brought us to today. So what might be really basic for one woman to believe in her heart could be very difficult for another.  What really resonates as true for one, could feel totally awkward and wrong for another.

On my healing journey, I would often send certain body parts some TLC especially when they weren’t working properly. I’m human – some days it was really hard to believe my legs were strong when they could barely move to allow me to walk, were cramped and aching. I could say “my legs are strong” several times in my head while the rest of my body would be bellowing,’Not this month they aren’t!” I found ways to get over this disconnect….and you can too.

What if your body image issue is with your arms?  Or what if you arms aren’t moving or working how they used to and you are frustrated? What if they have changed in appearance in some way through an accident, dis-ease, aging, scarring, acne or something that bothers you? How do you tell your arms you love them and how do you truly grow to love them when you are at the stage where all you want to do is cover them up?  In order to have a belief resonate throughout your being, you need to feel it mind, body and soul.

Here is a simple way to grow that belief in the core of your being. I am using arms in the example – feel free to replace with whichever body part of yours needs some TLC. Check out these stages to see what types of mantras resonates with you.

Total Arm Love

You find it easy to compliment your arms, deeply feel that words like “strong” and “beautiful” are true and they resonate with you. If you were to think of the praise as compliments from someone, you would accept them with a big grin on your face – it would make your day and you would walk around all sassy after.  These types of statements not only make you feel comfortable, they make you happy and energetically peaceful.

My arms are strong and beautiful.

My arms are curvy and beautiful.

My muscular arms are amazing. I appreciate what they do for me.

My arms are sexy and strong.

My stunning arms give me gifts every day.

If these have resonated with you, fantastic!  Use them throughout the day or create new ones you love. If the above mantras aren’t resonating with you, if you can’t “take the compliments” you’ll feel it – in your gut, in your heart, in the doubt in your head. And that’s ok.  We just need to tweak the body love TLC a little bit for you!

Working Up To Total Arm Love

It’s sometimes easier to see what gifts your body & its parts provide outside of you.  Thinking of your everyday life, how much joy, love and resourcefulness do they bring to you daily? What functions – even bare bones basic – do they provide for you every day?  How do they help you do your job and thus make a living?  Interact with your family and friends?  Pursue hobbies you  love?  Start celebrating everyday “little” actions to see how many amazing gifts you receive on a daily basis.

My arms are strong. They allow me to hold my beautiful baby.

My arms are amazing. They let me hug my beautiful children.

My arms are powerful. They allow me to work at a job I love.

My arms hold love. They let me hug my partner.

My arms create healing. They allow me to make healthy meals for my family.

My arms bring me gifts of movement every day. I am blessed.

My arms allow me to do my job and provide for my family.

My arms hold knowledge. They help me cook/paint/sew/knit/play the piano.

My arms create fun and laughter. They allow me to push my child on a swing.

I promise you, if you can tweak your way of thinking, you can tweak your way of believing allowing yourself to appreciate the powerful, beautiful gifts your body brings you daily.  If you start thinking of all the gifts you receive daily, all the tasks you are able to do, your perception will change. And this doesn’t have to take long. This could literally change your life in less than30 seconds a day!

Please let me know if you create a body love mantra for yourself. Would love to hear about it!

 

The Body Love Series: Moments of Gratefulness

“Little” moments of gratefulness or gratefuls as I like to call them, pop up in my day often.  It’s amazing how many tasks and everyday occurrences bring a smile to my face now. I often go about my day walking around with a mischievous, goofy grin on my face.  It tends to illicit intrigued looks from strangers. Their amusement further amuses me.

These “gratefuls” fill my cup when moments of frustration occur because my brain and body still aren’t properly connecting due to Gluten Ataxia and Hashimoto’s.  For instance, I just took a gentle stretch class for the first time today and it is low stress and very simple, yet I couldn’t do several of the most basic moves. There are many instances in which my brain tries to tell a body part to do something…and the messaging doesn’t make it to that part.  Today I stared at my hands and willed them to move a certain way and they wouldn’t. It is shocking to me when this occurs because as many times as it happens, it is surprising especially because the movement seems so simple. I used to get really frustrated but I take a step back now and think differently.  Today, I was thrilled to be able bodied enough to even be in this class and was grateful for all the messaging that was getting through. The “can do” basket is more full now than the “can’t do” one. That really works for me.

Here are some of my gratefuls this week for what my body allows me to do…

  1. Clearing snow off my car – I used to moan about this…then it became next to impossible to do…and I found myself longing for the days when I had the opportunity to do it. It would be the most exhausting chore and I couldn’t even lift my arms to get a brush onto the roof. Actually just walking to my car in the snow was exhausting! I would sleep all day, or several days to recover from this simple task. Last year when I had more energy, I cleared off my car…and then almost every car in the parking lot!  Although we haven’t had much snow this year, I have been clearing my car with a huge grin on my face yet again. Something everyone dreads and I can’t get enough of it!
  2. Being able to carry my groceries – It’s such a simple task most of us do every week but it’s taken a long time to get feeling and dexterity back into my hands and then the strength to carry items with them. I can pile more items in each bag because I can get them from my grocery cart to my car without almost passing out. Hell, I even carry groceries down the street again! BOOM!
  3. Geting lids off jars – I stopped buying certain foods because I didn’t have the strength to open them. (Nope,not even with that knife trick) Nothing like getting exhausted trying to make dinner. Gimme your jars – these hands are made of steel! (Insert happy jazz hands here)
  4. Walking down the street to do an errand – For a very long time I would have to stop to rest – sometimes 1-2 hours – on people’s lawns –  before being able to walk a few minutes home. I became the rotating neighbourhood lawn ornament! I thank every part of my body daily for allowing me to move, go to the store, mail a letter.  These tasks are all luxuries.
  5. Scooping up my nieces in huge hugs – They are growing like crazy but are still at the age where I can scoop them up into big bear hugs.  Or have them dance on my feet.  And I have the strength to do that again and it means everything.

So, if you are not happy with a particular body part, speak ill of it, curse it….think of all the actions it allows you to do.  List off 5 regular, everyday tasks it allows you to do.  And then I bet you can easily add many more. Doesn’t matter if it’s a little or a lot gushy, flabby, scarred, marked by time, bony, insert any other word here…. Thank your body and appreciate it.  See it. Love it. It’s really quite amazing and gives you gratefuls every day.

The Body Love Series: Here’s to Having a Bikini & a Body…Not a Bikini Body

As years pass, new language is created and new words and expressions become the norm.  If you would have told me 20 years ago I would be using emojis every day I would have said,”Umm…excuse me?  What are those?” Some words and expressions reflect what we are doing in society and get picked up by newspaper headlines, the covers of magazines and used in advertisements. But here is the thing…just because some words and expressions become “the norm” doesn’t mean we should accept them as normal.

One of those expressions? Bikini Body. As in Get a Bikini Body, Lose Weight Fast to Have A Bikini Body, Quick Exercises to Get a Bikini Body.  I never heard this expression growing up as a kid of the 70’s. I don’t really remember hearing it much in high school either – and I bought a lot of magazines! But in the last 10-15 years use of the term has amped up so much that it’s guaranteed to see it plastered on the covers of most magazines and across TV segments just before summer hits.  And it definitely is a “norm” that should not be accepted as normal.

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Women’s Health magazine decided to do away with this expression on its covers in December, 2015 because its readers asked for it. Loving it! Readers also asked for the mag to do away with the expression “Drop 2 Sizes” on its cover because it implied quick and unhealthy weight loss. Readers from all walks of life resonated with powerful, empowering words like toned, strong and sexy instead. The words “shrink” and “diet” weren’t relating well to its readers and those got the boot as well.  News of this change really resonated with me because I believe words are very powerful forms of energy.  It is one of the reasons I am really happy to be a part of GoodLife Fitness’ #sexysmartstrong campaign which fits in with this energy and shares what many people of all sizes, shapes and abilities feel makes them sexy, smart and strong. I like that sexy doesn’t have to be about what you wear but a state of mind – and that could mean feeling your sexiest in a big old sweatshirt sweating it out at the gym feeling amazingly proud about yourself or taking a walk around the block with your honey – or by yourself. Or a million other ways that make you feel happy and alive.

I speak with girls about the messaging they are bombarded with every day and we talk about how to reinterpret words and phrases – or lose some of them entirely.  I want them to think of the term bikini body as ridiculous now so they grow up to think of it as ridiculous as women. I hope the conversation spurs them to know they have amazing bodies, and that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and thus so do the bikinis. And may those bikinis be cute, athletic, frilly or whatever style allows a person to express who she really is. Any day of the year and every day of the year.

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Join me in retiring this expression. If you see it on a magazine cover you subscribe to, let the editor know it is not resonating with you. Use it as a means of conversation with a girl or teenager in your life and let her know our bodies have no seasons. And if we ever catch ourselves using this expression, let’s make a mental note to try not to in the future. Little ears hear everything we say. Let’s change the Body Love Conversation for the next generation so they laugh at the ridiculousness of this expression people used to use.

Welcome to The Body Love Series: Time to Start a Body Love Conversation!

Something happened when my body completely fell apart.

I ended up loving it even more than I thought possible.

And the more grateful I became, the more I started to stare at my newly working body parts in awe and wonder and thanked them regularly for the gifts they gave me. My eyes and ears became even more in tune to all the negative body image hype sent our way, all the messages blaring through headlines and TV and articles and ads telling me what wasn’t good enough, what needed fixing, what needed replacing.  What needed to be traded in or cast aside.

The energy felt so…wrong.

After several years of not being able to move much and when I could not very well, I really appreciate when my not-so-toned body helps me walk down the street to the grocery store, when my imperfect belly helps me get up out of a chair, when my kinda squishy arms allow me to hug someone. Having not been able to communicate properly with various combinations of slurring and stuttering and forgetting what I was going to say, I feel as though I have several years of speaking to catch up upon!  I say this literally – not figuratively – I want to climb to the top of a mountain and shout to everyone…

YOUR BODY ROCKS!

RIGHT HERE!

RIGHT NOW!

Body image issues have always been important to me. I have had the honour and privilege of being a plus-size/curvy model for over 20 years while working to make changes in fashion that count everyBODY in, and I have been speaking with girls’ groups for years helping them rethink how they think about the messages that bombard them daily.  And the longer my health time-out lasted with Hashimoto’s & Gluten Ataxia, the more it increased my want to speak up more about our need to stop being so hard on ourselves.

You know what really got me?  All those Before & After photos out there in which  people put themselves down. When I could barely move or walk I would stare at them and think how we have been taught to shame the person, the body, that brought us to today.  I wanted to hug all the “Befores” and tell them,” You are amazing. You carried this person all this way. You loved her. You protected her. You did the best you could. Ok, you may have made some mistakes but we all do.  Even the “Afters” do! You are a superstar and I admire you….throughout time, throughout phases and stages. You are you always and you are amazing. ”

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Can we all use some tune-ups?  Absolutely. Is tweaking aspects of your life a good thing? Yes, it totally is!  Are major changes sometimes necessary? For sure. Is eating well a good idea? Hells yes. Should we get active? Yes!  But the key is making changes from a place of body love – not disgust, not shame – not by putting ourselves down. My motto is this:  We need to speak to ourselves, to our bodies like we would a small child. Build it up with love and kindness. Smiles. Laughter. Joy. Isn’t life way more fun that way?

So technically I still can’t climb a mountain…or even many stairs (you can bet I am working on it) in order to shout YOUR BODY ROCKS! But I can create a Body Love Conversation with you here…on my website…on social media…in the press…and would love for you to join in on the #BLC (that’s the cool hashtag you can use to join the convo!)

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Join me for regular Mantra Mondays posts – the link will always be on my homepage – or sign up for my newsletter at the top of this page to get regular Body Love Blasts sent your way. Check out my Instagram & Facebook for a regular dose of Body Love. And I am excited to start speaking with you regularly on Periscope too! I am particularly excited about #BLC Wednesdays Twitter Convos which will feature incredible Body Love guest hosts which will take place on my @liisonlife Twitter page Wednesday February 17th, March 2, 16 and 30th. My inspiring guests will include beauty expert Janine Falcon (@JanineFalcon) of beautygeeks (catch her on the first chat),  athlete and founder of Born to Reign Athletics (@btrathletics) Krista Henderson, Editor-in-chief of DARE magazine (@daremagcanada), Diana Di Poce, and Meghan Bradley, Director of Curvy Expo (@curvyexpo). Will be sure to keep you up to date on all the details as the series unfolds! (No RSVP required!)

I am really looking forward to chatting with you through The Body Love Series. Together we can change the #BLC.

Liis xo!