The Goddess in Every Woman

It’s time we woman decide to start treating ourselves as we were born to be as a goddess. Oh I hear you all groaning or complaining already. “A Goddess” no way I cannot put myself up on such a pedestal! What will others think?

Stop worrying about what others think, and start worrying about your own body and spirit. How many times have you not gotten much sleep because you were worried about something or someone in your family? How many times have you neglected yourself over the months or years because you just didn’t have the time? I know I can raise my hand on this issue.

For years I didn’t take the time to take care of myself, now I don’t mean I didn’t shower or make sure I look at least half way decent when I left the house. I am referring to taking time for me, taking the time to replenish my soul and to replenish my energy stock.

How many times have you thought in one day “If only I had some time for me, even just 5 minutes to do whatever I want to do”. I know I have had that thought many times over the years. Oh yes, even I who “preach” about taking time for me, I still tend to neglect myself. When I do guess what my body and my spirit feel the neglected, depleted, worn out…I could go on and on but I bet you know exactly what I am talking about.Our emotions are tied into our body’s well being.

If you don’t believe that try looking at yourself one day when you wake up in a bad mood. What do you feel or see in yourself? Take a step outside of your body for one moment right now…what do you see as you are looking down at yourself? Is your hair fixed? Are you dressed, or are you doing what I did so many times and just worked in my pj’s till 10 minutes before the brood comes home? Are you wearing makeup? Ok don’t shoot the messenger here, I don’t always wear makeup but I do make sure I have on some moisturizer and some lip gloss or a light colored lipstick.

Did you wake up and have to run out into the kitchen and start making lunches for your family, or did you not get enough sleep last night because you stayed up all night working on the project that was due in the morning?

I know I have done that plenty of times and what happens? I feel drained, I can’t function properly and I feel worn out. I can’t work efficiently, I can’t get motivated and on those days I push exercise out of my mind totally. Why, because I get into a funk and just don’t want to get out of it.

NO LONGER!

It’s time to stand up for yourself and for the way you are treating your body! How can you raise your daughters and your nieces and teach them to love themselves, or be a good friend or mom or lover if you are not taking care of yourself and feeling good about yourself? I don’t mean you have to look like a run way model everyday, heck if I had to do that everyday it would drive me mad!

I want you to take one good look at your body, your entire body and love it! Push aside all thoughts of what society tells you what you are suppose to look like. Ok go walk over to the closest mirror and take a long look at yourself. Don’t focus on what pops into your mind of what you look like, or what you need to fix or how much weight you need to lose. I want you to find 3 things on your body that you love about yourself. Yes, three things…now I want you to say “I love my eyes, I love my butt, I love my calves…” or whatever it is you do love about your body, it can be anything that springs out at you that you do love.

As you are standing there giving yourself one good long look are you having a hard time finding something you love? STOP right there! Think…what have you heard others say about you? It doesn’t matter who said it, my husband likes my butt and my eyes, it took me a long time to accept that fact I always thought he was just saying that to be nice. WHOA stop right there, take a compliment and love it! Hold it to you! People will not just come up to you and say “I love the color of your eyes” if they do not mean it.

So now that you have found the three things that you like most about yourself I want you to picture yourself as a goddess, ok for a lot of you this is going to be very hard to do. You may be thinking its selfish or stuck up if you think of yourself in anyway but negative.

STOP that thinking right now!

Take a look at some of the most outstanding celebrities in our midst….Bette Midler for instance. The only reason I am using her as an example is because while watching TV the other night I took a good long look at her. According to society rules she should be thin, have a smaller nose, and not be so out spoken. But guess what how she perceives herself is how she outputs to others. Bette loves her life, Bette loves her body and you cannot help thinking what a beautiful woman she is. She is happy with who she is. It emanates from every inch of her body coming out in everything she does.

Now take that size negative zero runway model, sure she looks like she has everything in this world. But she is constantly being told she is too fat….my word too fat a size negative zero…and she is always being told what is wrong with her. This model all she can see is everything that is not true, we who “envy” her, for lack of a better term, see a gorgeous body someone we want to look like. All she can see and feel is all the negatives she is hearing day in and day out.

So what if you live around someone who talks down to you? How do you overcome the negative feelings that are being thrown your way? How do you come to except yourself for the way you are, the way God created you? You need to learn to love yourself for who you are, love every inch of your body, love all the flaws, love all the “mistakes” you feel that God made….whoa did I just say that?

How many of you wonder why you were made the way you were? It wasn’t by some accident that you have a cute button nose, or your feet are huge, or you have naturally curly hair that is frizzy all the time. God made you the way you are because he wanted you to be who you are. Now it is our time to learn to love ourselves for who we are.

Now with that being said, part of loving yourself also involves taking care of you. What if you get on a scale and know that you need to lose a few pounds or need to get into better shape, which is good. But what I want you to do is this, ask yourself are you feeling like you need to lose weight because others around you are think you should? Or do you need to lose weight in order to live a better, healthier life? Are you losing weight for the right reasons? Are you prepared to do simple things to help improve your life?

I have struggled with my weight for years upon years. Remember in high school all the pressure we felt from our peers, pressure to fit in, pressure to look sexy at a young age, pressure to be thinner then everyone else. Well for me that led to disaster!

A few weeks ago, while going through pictures I came across a photo of myself when I was 17 years old. It brought back some pretty heavy memories and not all of them good. By not good I mean all the stress I put on myself about how I looked, who I didn’t look like etc.

I remember sitting in class, daydreaming, wondering how I could lose just 10 more pounds. Boy was I in a world of self denial. Looking at that photo now all I see is a skeleton, I weigh too little, my mom used to tell me I look pretty and that I was the perfect weight before I stopped eating. For most of my 11^th and 12^th grade year I didn’t eat during the day, I would drink tons of water to keep my stomach full and maybe eat a few crackers. The only time I actually ate any food was at home because my parents were watching me. But, I will admit here that I did take laxatives or force myself to throw up that food. WHY? Because I always thought I was fat, I hated every inch of my body.

Oh my mom always told me how beautiful I was, how nice and tone my body was but I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t believe her because all I heard at school was how I was 10 pounds or more overweight compared to such and such star or so and so at school. I was miserable.

I have five nieces now and it pains me to see my oldest nieces exercising their butts off or not eating because they feel they are too fat. My nieces barely fit into size 3 jeans, the oldest I think is a size zero. They look unhealthy but all they see is magazines and TV shows them. So how are the young girls going to learn to love their own bodies, certainly not from reading magazines or watching TV.

What about the other role models? What do they hear coming from their own mother’s mouths? “I hate my butt, I hate my stomach if only I could lose weight” while we sit here contemplating and blaming the media on giving our young women the impression that they need to be skinny we walk around our own homes complaining about our own bodies.I know this sounds harsh, I don’t mean it to.

See I am finding out that my boys feel the same way, I find myself complaining to them about my stomach or my hips. By doing this I am teaching them that because I don’t fit the “norm” I should not like myself… that is not what I want them to learn from me.

We can’t put all the blame on society. Ok, hold on…don’t shut the book now.

This is not a lecture; but how can we help our children love who they are if they hear us complaining about our own bodies. So let’s start loving ourselves for who we are, and love our kids for who they are by letting them know each day the things we love about them too. Sure they will look at you like you have lost it, but one day they will look back and see that you were trying to help them and you will have a strong young women or man who loves their body for who they are and not who society thinks they should be.

Be the “Goddess” you were meant to be! Be the teacher for the next generation, start today! Taken from Rebecca White’s upcoming eBook “My Time Cannot Always Be Your Time-The Woman, The Mother, The Self” to be released fall 2007.Rebecca White is a mother to 3 boys and has been married to her high school sweetheart for 16 years. Rebecca has been dealing with depression most of her life, but a life changing experience that almost cost her the love of her life sent her into a deep depression. Rebecca started an Internet Talk Radio show Heal Yourself Talk Radio that has weekly speakers helping you learn how to heal your mind, body and spirit.  Rebecca is also the owner of The Health Podcasting Directory.