This has been the most difficult month for me yet in scholars. My new belief is that I love and respect my body. Holy shit is it so hard to believe. I have had a lot of negative emotion surface because I’m in disbelief of my proposed new belief. I’m not trying to change the negative thoughts though. I’m sitting with them and observing what surfaces on the other side. Is it the process of saying goodbye to our old beliefs what feels painful? That’s what I’m thinking. I’m struggling with what loving my body looks like without a disordered body image lens. I’ve come up with a few new thoughts along the way in the midst of my negative emotion and I’m thinking that the negative feelings served a purpose.

loving my body is fueling it with what I know it loves. fats, veggies, protein.
loving my body is exercising for strength and because it feels good physically to challenge myself
loving my body is accepting that some days the scale will be a little higher and that’s ok
loving my body is allowing myself to feel urges for sugar, and knowing that it is part of the process of wanting it less
loving my body is staying the course to lose the last 5 pounds
loving my body is knowing that 6 pack abs may never be in my future, but I’m up for trying

What I’m challenged with is that the old belief; “you will never be happy with your body no matter what” keeps coming up. It feels scary. It feels like even with 5 more pounds, I will have that thought. It feels like I’m doing this wrong. The loving my body belief has me scared that loving my body means I’m ok with gaining weight, and I’m not. I’ve had an alternative thought that loving my body is maintaining my ideal weight and doing the things that keep me at that ideal weight are part of loving my body.

this is just really hard because nothing feels real except the old nasty beliefs. I watched your video on the homework. I know it is not supposed to feel true yet, but I keep thinking it will never feel true for me even with the homework which I’m doing everyday and then more. Then of course I’m doubling down on all the negative stuff by having the negative thoughts come up and getting upset with myself that I’m not just happy