How long have you been obsessed with your body? If you’re like me, pretty much since puberty.
I grew up listening to my mom criticize her own, “imperfect” figure. And torture herself with fad diets to lose weight.
Maybe right now you’re wondering to yourself, “Wait a minute, Jenni! I thought you were the Life Strategy Coach… not the body confidence coach!” Well, ladies, today I’m here to talk about how REALLY – there’s no difference.I know that we’ve already heard about the whole “mind body” relationship. The two are intrinsically and permanently connected. You cannot make a change in one without impacting the other. Your mind and your body are a unit. Period.I don’t think we fully comprehend yet how much they are linked together. However, I have just recently experienced their integration at all time, personal level. And I’ve just got to share.As I said above, I’ve been obsessed with my body pretty much since puberty. I have done every diet and every exercise program that you can think of. I had several years in my 20s where I suffered from a full, blown eating disorder.Of course, I was also drinking heavily in those days and it’s no wonder I experienced a breakdown when I was 26 years old that culminated in panic attack that last around two weeks. Of course, the truth is that it also saved my life.But let’s flash forward to my early 40s. I’ve been through two divorces and FINALLY married to the man of my dreams. I’ve given birth to three INCREDIBLE little boys – the most recent one just a little over three years ago. I have done so much personal work and grown so much as a woman and as a human. I found my soulmate. I found yoga. I found sobriety (again).BUT I had yet to find peace with my body. I still cringed every time I looked at myself naked in the mirror – even after I had liposuction on most of my lower body.So, do you want to take a guess as to what I finally had to find in order to stop this ridiculous, two decade long battle with my body? (HINT: you’ve already heard me mention many times something else that took almost twenty years for me to quit).Yep, I had to find my True Calling and Quit My Corporate Job.As I’ve shared often, it was just over a year ago now that I began my own incredible and miraculous journey to pursue my life’s purpose and create the life that I knew I was meant to be living. I was rocking and rolling along for several months on this exciting, new and yanking me out of my comfort zone path. Then one day, I was looking at my body in the mirror and I noticed that I didn’t hate it anymore. In fact, I actually LIKED this new, on fire and on purpose version of myself. She was hot!Then I began to run my mind back over the last few weeks and I realized that I couldn’t actually remember the last time that I had looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. It was a weirdly subtle transformation that had taken place. Kind of like the moment when you realize that the headache that had been killing you was gone.I couldn’t tell you when the exact moment was that I stopped hating my body. All I could tell you was that I had. Of course, as the analytical wonder of the world that I am, I had to know WHY! Why had this incredible change happened? After rolling this miracle around in my head for a few days, I could come up with only this conclusion: it was because I had found my True Calling.I can FEEL your eyes rolling from here but hear me out on this. I came to understand that because I had finally started focusing all my attention on figuring out what the heck I was supposed to be doing with my life and then (once I figured it out) going after it like my hair was on fire… everything else that was unimportant… all the other, quite frankly, bullshit had fallen away.Once I finally learned to love myself enough to allow myself to pursue my passions and create the life of my dreams, all the other mental distractions disappeared like a bad headache. Not only did I stop being mean to myself about my body, I also stopped obsessing over every little thing that I ate. I still made sure that my diet was filled with mainly unprocessed, super healthy foods but I also ate bread AND butter on date nights! After two years of struggling to lose the baby (and booze) weight, it started to come off.THEN – I quit my job and it seemed like I lost almost 10 lbs. overnight. It was like a Christmas miracle but this time I knew why and it was because I HAD finally quit my job. See, as I said in the beginning, the body and the mind are intrinsically connected and when one perceives that the other is in danger it does everything it can to protect itself.For women, that means holding onto unnecessary body weight. Once I QUIT my job, however, and eliminated that perceived danger (aka stress) it was like my body said, “WHEW! Thank God that’s over!” And it released the weight.It didn’t just stop there, however, because the weight kept coming off. Just recently, while I was in Paris for a training with my mentor, I took a selfie of me wearing a dress that I had not been able to wear in over four years. Four years. When I looked at the photo, it was like I was seeing myself for the first time! Where had this woman come from? Where had she been?The answer? She’d been in my heart all along… waiting for me to call upon her – my strongest self – the one who was finally ready to Find her True Calling, Quit her Corporate Job and Create the Life of Her Dreams.Doubt me if you will… but I’m telling you that if you really want to transform body – you’ve got to transform your life. Learn to pursue what really matters the most…your purpose, your passion, your reason to be alive.Here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with your dress size… and everything to do with your heart size. Let your heart grow with love and fear and hope EVERYDAY. Be who you were born to be! Everything else will fall into place.