9 Steps to Ultimate Self-Acceptance

For many women, climbing Mount Everest feels more likely than climbing the ladder of self-acceptance.

Can you relate?

As women, self-acceptance can be an ongoing battle.

We can be sooooo good at accepting others. Meanwhile, we struggle with food, eating, weight, and body image. Feeling good and accepting ourselves can feel impossible.

Our go-to language and feelings include:

• Being “at war” with our bodies
• Comparing to others and to our younger selves
• Judging – even hating – what we see in the mirror
• Avoidance of people, places, and activities because we don’t want to be seen

And guess what makes it even harder to address our food, eating, weight, and body image challenges? We need to feel good about it.

How Do We Start?

Are you ready to take the first steps to ultimate self-acceptance?

As a fitness professional and now an Intuitive Eating Coach, many of the women I’ve met have felt JUST like this. For more than 35 years, I’ve met talented, engaging, smart, compassionate, funny, artistic, and passionate women who hate themselves, and their bodies. And they practice this daily.

It’s time for a change, don’t you agree?

That’s why I’m here to help. In this quick read you will learn the exact 9 steps to ultimate self-acceptance my clients learn in my paid programs.

Having an awareness of your self-talk and “stinkin’ thinkin’” is step one.

Women who become aware and then acknowledge what their thoughts are and where they go are preparing to make a shift!

Old Ways Don’t Work

When women get stuck in the cycle of self-loathing, our thoughts focus on:

• “Good” vs. “bad” foods
• What we’ve eaten or not eaten
• Body parts we hate
• Excuses to stay home
• Counting calories
• Burning off calories
• Exploring new diets
• Thinking about when, what, and how we’ll eat next
• Beating ourselves up for any or all of the following:
  • All of the above!
  • Lack of willpower
  • Or even the size of our thighs!

These same thoughts ride around and around on well-worn mental train tracks. And as negative as they are…they’re familiar and comfortable.

Make the Space to Shift Thinking

After awareness and acknowledgment without judgment, I help women create space in their minds for more productive thoughts and meaningful activities.

Together, we’ll explore that place inside where creativity and playfulness live and bring them to the surface with:

• Singing
• Writing
• Creating art
• Speaking
• Dancing
• Communicating
• Connecting with others

I help YOU start the journey to feel more comfortable in your own skin … the journey to self-acceptance. I guide you to realize you’re so much more than a number on a scale or a pant size.

With the right training, support, and encouragement, you’ll begin to appreciate and accept your body …. exactly as it is TODAY!

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It IS! You can have it, too.

Here’s how.

9 Steps to Ultimate Self-Acceptance

These 9 steps create the pathway for you to take better care of yourself and to recognize you’re worth it!

1. SELF-COMPASSION: Discover, develop, and strengthen a compassionate and kind, inner voice that validates pain, soothes suffering, wards off the mean inner voice so you can begin to befriend your whole self: body, mind, and spirit.
2. CHALLENGE: I gently challenge you to examine your current thoughts and beliefs with non-judgmental inquiry.
3. CURIOSITY: Get curious and answer these questions about your current mindset:

o   Why do I think that way?

o   What made me feel that?

o   Why do I say that to myself?

4. CHOICES: Give yourself permission to make choices about food, not based on any diet or on any set of rules.

o  What to eat

o  When to eat

o  How much to eat

5. COURAGE: Be brave about examining your current thoughts and behaviors and know you will be supported to do what’s required next.
6. CHANGE: With the proper support, guidance, and training you create the possibility for change.

Remember: our behaviors are linked to our current thoughts.

When you step on a scale and a number pops up, what thoughts come up for you? With those thoughts, what behaviors follow those thoughts? Connecting the dots from the thought to the behavior creates a pause. Within this pause exists the opportunity to change the thought.

7. CONFIDENCE: As you notice your thoughts, you gain confidence in this process, you are now on a new path of change.
8. COMPETENCE: With practice and confidence comes competence (not perfection!) When you pause, you have the chance to explore and question the old thought without judgment.

Instead of, “Wow, I’m such a failure. I might as well go to McDonald’s because it doesn’t matter anyway,” comes the opportunity to shift to “Wow, that’s interesting. Why am I feeling like this? Why does a number on a scale provoke these feelings? I know I’m doing the best I can right now. Things have been hard. I wonder what I need? Maybe I’ll take a walk.” (Or take a bath, journal, or call a friend to vent, cry, connect, etc.)

Choosing a different option builds confidence, competence, and so on. This is how you begin to truly shift.

9. CONNECTIONS: By creating and strengthening connections with others who’ve had the same experiences, (like we do in private Diet-Free Sisterhood Facebook group), we validate our experiences and a realize we are not alone.

When you have someone to share thoughts and feelings with on your same journey, it creates a safe space to share.

We know human connection has many benefits including decreased stress, less anxiety, less comparison and judgment, and increased safety, OK-ness, and a sense of well-being.

Put It Into Practice

As you get curious about your own challenges with food, eating, weight, and body image, let the 9 steps guide you through the process to a better, more sustainable, more joyful way of living.

Begin the journey to joy and allow each step to propel you further along.

1. Start with Self-Compassion
2. Challenge old thoughts and behaviors
3. Be Curious
4. Make Choices
5. Have Courage
6. Create Change
7. Gain Confidence
8. Improve Competence
9. And make lasting, supportive Connections

Your body is your home. It is here within your own skin where you can find comfort and contentment.

If you want to join a private, empowering community of women who feel comfortable and confident in their bodies, regardless of weight, size and shape…and are practicing the act of self-acceptance every day,  ask to join the Body Joyful Revolution.