Why you want to love your body
I have asked this question at many presentations, I have asked this to many people when they come in enquiring about gym membership. The answer varies between "I love this bit but I hate this one" to "I hate everything about my body". I have in my 17 year long career only encountered one single person who openly said that she loves her body! Now have a think about this: How do you think this affects how you feel about yourself? And how does this affect your relationships? Then your career? What about your parenting? There is a ripple effect of your critical feelings towards yourself across to the remaining areas of your life.
So let's leave that for a moment and get a bit scientific. Do you know what a mitochondria is? The mitochondria is the powerhouse of your cells. Each cell of your body is packed with mitochondria where the chemical exchange of enzymes, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, water and oxygen create energy for your muscles and brain. With each breath, oxygen is being converted to carbon dioxide via a long chain of chemical reactions in which energy is released called ATP. I won't go into the details of this, as there are plenty of other people specialising in this area. The point I want to make is this:
WITH EACH BREATH YOUR BODY VIBRATES TO CREATE ENERGY FOR YOU
It is doing this without you even knowing! How can you not love it?
So what if there are bits and pieces of your body that don't work the way you think they should? So what if your body doesn't look like the one of a model???
When you feed your body the nutrition it needs, when you give it enough sleep, when you fill your mind and soul up with love to replace your worry and stress, when you give your body balanced movement, then your body will look after you. It will become toned, fit, and flexible and make you beautiful, strong and healthy. That's what is so cool about Yoga, because when practising regularly you notice how you start loving it more and more- breath by breath.
Then watch it transform almost by itself. Promise!
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