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Your body is yours to enjoy. It's never too late to heal, and it's always worth it!
List of all blog posts with clickable links
Take a look at the list of topics and click on what appeals to you! If you'd like me to address another topic, please let me know.
You don't have to wait for the world to ditch today's so-called 'beauty' standards in order to heal: you can be the change you want to see instead.
We have more power than we often realise. When you change, you change the world.
I wore a dress! (How I had fun breaking my clothes 'rules'.)
Do you spend ages getting ready to go out? Do you worry a lot about what other people think of the way you look? I did for most of my life. But I'm happy to say I've put all that stress and angst behind me now. Getting dressed is easier when you remember that your body isn't an ornament!
Makeup: celebration or prison?
Many people all over the world take pleasure in adorning their bodies with colour. It can be a wonderful celebration of the beauty of life. But for many, makeup can turn into a mask to hide their perceived inadequacy.
What's the role of anger in healing?
Anger has an important role to play in our lives, but it must be handled with care. How we relate to our anger can have a significant impact on our health.
We look for evidence of our value in the wrong place.
We tend to look for evidence of our value outside ourselves - to other people’s opinions, treatment of us, or to the events of our lives. But that is the way of suffering. Fortunately, there is another place we can experience our value firsthand.
Low moods without body worries
All my negative, limited, conditioned thinking about my body piled on an additional layer of suffering to my life. Since being free of it, life feels lighter. Even when I feel down, I’m grateful that I don’t worry about what I look like anymore.
The price of shame
Shame is the sense that we are essentially flawed. It's very painful and stops us achieving our full potential. Letting go of it tends to be an ongoing process which brings the gift of greater freedom and joy over time.
My stomach was never meant to be flat.
For so much of my life I felt ashamed of the roundness of my stomach. I thought it made me inferior to other women with flat stomachs. I wasted years of my life trying to flatten it only to realise there's nothing wrong with a round belly. Better late than ever!
The places Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) might not reach: how exploring your spiritual nature can help you heal your body image woes.
Although CBT helpfully points to the fact that our feelings and behaviours are a reflection of our beliefs (thoughts we take seriously), the solution – trying to change your thoughts – can often just feel impossible. But what if there is more to who you are than your thoughts and feelings and behaviours?
Do you feel insecure about your attractiveness because you don’t think you look feminine or masculine enough?
Feminine and masculine ‘ideals’ often focus on the natural, biological differences between men’s and women’s bodies and then exaggerate them. But can feminine or masculine traits really be reduced to the size and shape of a person's body parts?
