Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) Aug/Sept 2016 Aspire Mag Full Issue | Page 70
husband and I finalized our divorce, I was
grateful for that too.
No longer worried about not being able to
bear him a child, I allowed myself to let go
of the dream of having children. I stopped
punishing my body. I stopped exercising
obsessively and started eating foods I hadn’t
allowed myself to eat in over a decade. I
allowed myself and my body time to grieve,
time to heal.
One day I took a long, hard look in the
mirror and I realized that while my nightly
gratitude practice was an excellent place to
start, I needed something more. To heal my
relationship with food, my body, and myself,
I had to learn to not just be grateful for my
menstrual cycles, but I needed to be grateful
for my wrinkles, scars, cellulite, adult-onset
cystic acne, and muffin top. I needed to be
grateful for my body – not just the parts I
liked, but all of it. I needed to be grateful for
myself.
So I took a vow and I wrote a love letter to
my body, letting it know all the things I was
grateful for – cellulite, muffin top, wrinkles,
scars, adult-onset acne and all. I made
myself read that vow and that love letter
to myself every day for a month. You know
what happened? It started to sink in. I began
to actually be grateful for things I once
loathed. I began to see myself as beautiful,
my body as a work of art, a sacred temple of
Divine crafting.
If you don’t have a good relationship with
your body, I encourage you to start a daily
gratitude practice. Then write your own vow,
your own love letter. Read them daily to
yourself – preferably out loud, while looking
70
at yourself naked in a mirror, but if that’s too
much, just read them to yourself silently,
fully clothed, in a place of your choosing.
Consistency is more important than the
specifics of how it’s done.
I can’t promise you that you will heal your
relationship with yourself overnight, but
I can promise you that if you do this daily
gratitude practice for your body, you will
begin to see yourself in a different light. You
will heal your relationship with your body
and with yourself. You too will learn to love
your body and the woman you see in the
mirror.
I leave you today with my vow in the hopes
that it inspires you to write your own.
Blessings and
Body Love.
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Online!
Dr. Mary E. Pritchard, PhD – Mary is
a Psychologist and Body Love Expert,
international bestselling author, an
esteemed blogger at Psychology Today
and Huffington Post and the Expert Body
Love Columnist for Aspire Magazine. Dr.
Mary is passionately dedicated to empowering today’s women in
healing their relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves,
reconnecting with their Inner Goddess,
stepping through their perceived fears, and
embracing the truth of who they are.
Stop by www.DrMaryPritchard.com today and claim your free
7-piece Goddess Path to Self-Love and Body Love gift bundle
and to schedule a complimentary call with Dr. Mary. It’s time to
Reclaim Your Body Love and Reignite Your Goddess Self.
www.AspireMAG.net | August / September 2016