Sweat & Smiles: The Problem of Working Overtime to Manage our Bodies and Ignore it at the Same Time
By Melissa Romano on July 04, 2020 from Sweat & Smiles
A couple weeks ago I was getting dressed, it was one of the first 90 degree days so I put on a pair of shorts. When I saw my legs and their cellulite in the mirror my first thought was ‘my legs aren’t ready for shorts’ followed quickly with ‘90 degrees means my legs are ready for shorts.
.
We weren’t born with the desire to have a flat stomach and cellulite free legs. The idea of a perfect body is not an original one. People, 
places, and things taught them to us… and by taught I mean hammered them so down deep that we began to confuse them with innate beliefs.
places, and things taught them to us… and by taught I mean hammered them so down deep that we began to confuse them with innate beliefs.
I’ve always known there was a serious problem here so I rode the fence. I’ve never been in the business of selling a “bikini body”, I’ve never sold products, fad diets, or quick fixes so I had let myself off the hook. On this path of self-love and healing I’ve realized that I can’t let myself off the hook so I need to apologize to you: I am so sorry for anything I did to perpetuate this never-good-enough culture. Fitness is a billion dollar industry and an industry who’s ultimate goal is to profit off your failure.
We’ve reached a point in our culture where we are obsessed with our bodies and ignore them at the same time. We’ve made hunger/eating, a biological imperative, something to be guilty over; we’ve made movement, another biological imperative the atonement for our sins of eating. We will follow the guidelines of a diet and exercise plans even if our mind, body, or spirit (or all three) are screaming that it doesn’t feel good. Read that again. We follow these guidelines with the goal of feeling good and ignore that the guidelines themselves are making us FEEL BAD all in the name of a number on the scale. How you feel is the earliest indicator of your health on a cellular level.
Pair the many misconceptions of working out with the marketing of "six pack abs in six weeks" or "14 day booty challenge" we've got a population of people working overtime to manage their bodies while ignoring them at the same time. We constantly look outside of ourselves for someone to “teach” us what our body needs while ‘they’ are teaching us that our mind and body are the enemy.
It’s time to start challenging our beliefs about our mind and body and stop making them the enemy. Deeply ingrained beliefs cannot be dislodged simply by introducing an opposing idea. Being able to distinguish between beliefs and facts is an essential step in learning to change our beliefs and, therefore, our experience. It’s time to begin calling out these beliefs - these beliefs that were never yours to begin with. Our innate desires - to feel good, to be strong, to be healthy, to move well, to be energized, to experience vitality… these need to become our measurement systems. And these measurement systems need to run through the entire system: mind, body, and spirit.
With love,
Melissa
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