Love your Body- wrinkles and all

Thanksgiving is all about being grateful and thankful for what we have.  We remember to appreciate our family members, friends, things we have accumulated and experiences we have been through. 

Most of us, however, don't specifically address our gratitude notes to our bodies. Most of the time we find faults and imperfections and often we feel that if only we could change some things about our bodies, we would be happier.
How often do you look in the mirror and feel sadness, frustration and maybe even disgust?  How often do you feel disappointed that your body doesn't look or feel the way you wish it did?

As a Health Coach, I help people to get on a healthier path through  nutrition and lifestyle modifications.  A lot of my clients and students have already gotten healthier, lighter, more energetic and most of them feel empowered.

However, on this Thanksgiving, I would like to add another approach to true well being and health.  Let's start with being overwhelmingly grateful for where we are and for what our bodies are capable of.  Just think about this: your body is an amazing compilation of trillions of cells, each performing an extremely complicated work to keep you alive and functioning.  In spite of not always treating your body right and often intentionally abusing it, it is still here - serving your soul.   Your body has been much kinder to you than you have been to your body.

Each time we eat things we know we shouldn’t, our bodies just deal with it and clean out the toxins as best as they can to protect the vital cells.  Each time we expose our body to toxic environment, or put it through enormous amounts of stress, the body does its best to handle that in order to keep us alive and functional.
Each time you look at your body in the mirror and say "my body is too old, my body is to fat, my skin is too wrinkly, my joints ache, etc.", your body still loves you and still does everything it can to keep you alive.

So on this great Thanksgiving, let's all be very grateful to our bodies for being so amazingly forgiving for our shortcomings.  Instead of finding faults with little things, let's be thankful for all of it. 

I am grateful for my wrinkles, as they encompass lots of wisdom and life experiences.
I am grateful for sun spots on my skin, as that remind me of the many days playing outside in the sun.
I am grateful for my stretched tummy skin, as each time I see it, I remember my two beautiful kids.                                                                                    
I am grateful for few extra stubborn pounds, as they remind me that I never go hungry.                                                                                                       
I am grateful for gray hair (and for the ability to color it) as each gray hair reminds me of my ancestors.

As I appreciate my body for all it has done for me and all it will still do for me, I invite you to do the same.  Give your body a break and stop wishing it would perform or look better.  It's already doing a much better job taking care of you than you take care of it.  

 So take a breath, close your eyes and give your body a big Thanksgiving hug.

Iwona Leger, RN, MSN, Certified Health Coach,  owns Love and Peas Health Coaching and runs individual and group coaching sessions. She is very passionate about disease prevention, lifestyle and diet modifications, as well as stress reduction techniques.

For more info visit www.loveandpeashealth.com