Ask for what you need

I was clearing out my email folders when I came across this. It was the answer to a question asked in one of Julie Jordan Scott's online coaching classes in 2004.

"What I love about myself is my growing ability to ask for what I need. This was not always the case. I was always the helper and could never find the words to ask for help myself. I still hesitate sometimes and the words get stuck in my heart, but more and more often now, I just blurt them out, sometimes not very gracefully but increasingly clearly.
When you really love yourself, then you know how to ask and you know how to receive. That is something I needed and I love how that has changed my life. "

Learning to love and care for myself as much as I love and care for others was a long and sometimes challenging lesson for me. Now as a therapist, coach and Personal Growth Facilitator, it is a large part of my daily work to be a catalyst for this transformation in others.

One of the areas I love working in is the courses we run for carers under the auspices of the Princess Royal's Trust for Carers. We offer EFT, Be Your Own Life Coach and a Life Enhancement Course which is about raising self-awareness and self-esteem.

I see the same struggle in those carers as I found in myself. As we work together I can't begin to describe how good it feels when there is the momentary glimmer of liberation from duty and a glimpse of what it is to love and be your own carer. It is at moments like this that I count myself blessed to do this work.

The Law of Attraction -
You are not your obesity. You are a beautiful human being.

This was written as a response to an on-line friend who had poured her heart out about her inability to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. I have changed her name to give her privacy. As for me, I have hidden away too long like so many other people who internalise the world's standards of beauty and acceptability. Maybe, just maybe, these thoughts may help someone else through their journey.

Beautiful Jenny,

"YET, if you knew what I say to myself on a daily basis...if you knew the cruel words I use when getting dressed every morning...if you knew..."

Ah, but, I do know, Jenny. They are words I have used so often myself and use no more. It took me many years and much exploration of self and my connection to the Universe, to realise that I am just as deserving of the love and compassion I pour out to others, that to love oneself is the final realisation of the god within. Oh the peace of that realisation, the sheer joy of letting go of struggle, of simply loving who I am instead of waging a war with myself.

Our weight, the shape of our nose, the size of our breasts, does not define who we are unless we allow it to. I suppose in Abe terms if we are always thinking of ourselves as fat and ugly then that is what we get because that is our dominant thought. Thinking of ourselves as weak willed failures will also produce exactly that. Thoughts truly do become things and materialise with powerful accuracy. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have to do some rapid pivoting at times, away from self-pity and frustration, but pivot I do and very gracefully if I say so myself.

When I look back on my seven year old self and then my seventeen year old self, I see a very intense, very loving and very beautiful human being. When I remember my actual thoughts and feelings, seeing myself as a heavy frumpish creature unworthy of love, I understand very clearly how my body was a manifestation of those false perceptions. I created and perpetuated my obesity through that profoundly negative self-image. Then many, many years of practicing being a statue, staying very, very still, contributed too!

Today I weigh 269 lbs on a 5'2" frame, but that is not who I am. I am a free spirit who enjoys walking, dancing, skiing whenever I can and I am an extraordinarily joyful human being. Last year I was 20lbs heavier and the year before that 40lbs heavier than I am today. Next year I will be lighter still. In my mind I already am. In my mind I am light and lithe and filled with passion for movement and life. My soul dances and my body follows.

So beloved, Jenny, I am cheering long and loud at your transformation, for once you say "I am beautiful" aloud to yourself, you proclaim it as truth to the universe and so it must be. I hold the light for you and the fanning of the flame of self-love which will fuel that transformation.

With so much love,

Namaste
Maria