Dear MamaCon Mamas,
It was so wonderful to speak with you on Saturday! Thank you for being a fabulous audience and a special thanks to all who came over to chat throughout the day. You are amazing women and I hope that you will be able to develop a relationship with your body that brings you love, abundance, vibrance, beauty, and joy.
I know that some of the ideas and concepts I presented are quite new and different from cultural norms and assumptions. Thankfully, you had the chance to hear these same concepts and ideas from the other speakers! The context may have been different, but the messages we shared are essentially the same.
Take Emily Cherkin, for example. Everything she said about kids and media literacy… ditto for you too! Please remember that all of the thousands of weight-loss advertisements you will see in a day are constructed. They are crafted – by an entire team of marketing experts – for the singular purpose of getting you to purchase some weight-loss program/pill/plan/gimmick/what-have-you. Their models represent the one per cent. And even they are “digitally retouched” (aka Photoshopped)! Furthermore, in many cases the models don’t even use the product/program in question. They were simply cast because they already looked a certain way – a way that the advertisers thought would get under your skin, push some pain buttons, and inspire you to buy. It’s not real! And when you can escape the media and marketing “Matrix” you will find a little more peace.
In the afternoon session, Jill Hope said some pretty profound things. She said that there is exactly one person who knows what’s best for your child – your child! You might know a little more about how to love and nurture your children, but only they really know what’s best for them. And every time you override that perspective, it creates the opportunity for self-doubt in your children. They learn that they can’t really trust themselves…
Well guess what?!?! It’s the exact same thing with your body!! There is exactly one “person” who knows what’s best for your body – your body!! Your body absolutely knows how to create an optimized state of health, vitality and beauty – better than any diet, better than any expert opinion, even better than you. And every time you override your body’s authentic impulse to eat something or move somehow or whatever – especially because you’re following some external source of information – you create a bit of doubt and mistrust in the relationship. So now that you are reminded of how phony all the media messages are, hopefully it will be a bit easier to quiet the noise and develop a relationship with your body – to trust your body and to follow its guidance.
And Casey O’Roarty’s talk? You can pretty much just take that and apply it across the board to your relationship with your body. Casey talked about how we think it’s so sweet and cute when kids are just learning to walk – how they stumble and fall – but then when they are a bit older, we suddenly expect them to be able to master life skills on the first try. They still need practice. And it’s the same with you. Let yourself stumble and fall as you develop your relationship with your body. It’s ok. It’s new. Your body will understand – and your body will appreciate that you’re even trying. And it takes practice.
Many of the speakers spoke of empowering your children – of giving them a voice. And that’s all your body wants. When you give your body a voice and empower it to make decisions with you, your pain and drama surrounding food, exercise, your weight, etc. is healed. Any action steps regarding food or exercise you might choose to take will come from a place of inspired, congruent authenticity – which is a sublime experience – and your results will finally be sustainable.
Thank you for letting me share my MamaCon musings and please remember that I’m always here if you need me.
Love, Carmela 🙂