I’ve been in the wellness field for close to a decade and my team and I specialize in healthy lifestyle transformations. We get to watch as people improve in the areas of weight wellness, performance, and vitality & well-being. As we gear up to finish 2018 strong, many are looking to release those pounds we promised we would lose back at the beginning of the year. Yet we wonder why we haven’t been able to do it yet or why we lost and then gained again. What I’ve learned is that so often, weight loss is more than just a physical experience. Transformations run so much deeper to the emotional, psychological, and spiritual.
As we lose weight, layers upon layers of hiding come off. It’s a physical process. But it’s also emotional.
October is National Domestic Violence Month. It’s also a time in history where everywhere we look, we see and hear stories about harassment, abuse, and violence.
Statistics say that one out of five people has been abused. I dare say it’s higher. Several years ago, I was in a car headed toward NYC with three girlfriends. Jennifer had recently discovered or remembered abuse from her past. Maia chimed in with compassion, having had her own post-abuse fallout. Jenna looked at me and said, Well, Lori. Are you going to make it 4 for 4?
Every single one of us had been abused.
So, maybe not you. But we’ve all been hurt. A mother, a father, a sister, a brother, an uncle or cousin, an aunt or teacher, a friend or lover or co-worker or pastor… somewhere along the line, we’ve all been hurt.
And what do we do when we hurt?
We hide.
We hide in our bodies, our clothes, our love, our relationships, our churches, and our jobs. We stop making eye contact. Our smile fades. Our eyes lose their sparkle.
We hide behind computers. We cover up our light. We play small. We stop dreaming. We forget our purpose. We become lukewarm without passion.
We hide. We hide in our bodies. We feel shame. And we hide. We gain weight because maybe somehow we’ll be safer there. People won’t be attracted to us or abuse us. People won’t hurt us.
If you’ve been hurt, if you are hiding, I’m asking you to come out and play. To shine your light. To stop playing small. To live your best life in your best body.
When I transformed my body and released the weight, I was also able to shed some baggage and some past hurts.
There will be other work to do, however, changing the physical can become a catalyst and if you let it, it can become the match that sets the flames of fire and passion that is your life a GLOW!
And you will see shifts in relationships, confidence, career, finances, and more.
If you let it.
But you have to do the work.
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Additional inspiration for healing from abuse:
