In the past 6 months, she's lost 25 pounds, has healed chronic stomach pain and no longer has the daily blood sugar crashes that plagued her for 10 years. Her relationships have improved and she's on the path to accomplishing her deepest dreams and desires. She's done all of this without counting a single calorie, without engaging in a single harsh bootcamp-style workout (she salsa dances instead) and without giving up chocolate. How did she do it? Pleasure, chocolate and the inner Goddess.
Bet you didn't know getting healthier, redefining your relationship with food and loving your body to its natural weight could be this fun, huh?
So there we are in last week's session, working on tapping into her inner Goddess and we start talking about clothes. For years she's held on to clothes in her closet that don't really fit or aren't really "her". She stopped herself from buying certain styles of clothes, simply because she felt they just weren't meant for her or her body (even though they totally were).
So I said to her--"well what does your Goddess really want to wear?"
Several years ago I realized I didn't even know if I actually liked most of the clothes in my closet! For years I would just grab whatever would look "appropriate for work" or would only wear certain styles of clothes because I believed my body would never actually look good in the styles I REALLY wanted to wear. I also wore a lot of clothes that had been given to me as presents but that I didn't really like, out of a sense of guilt and obligation to the person who gave them to me. And lastly, about 3/4 of my closet consisted of clothes that were too small for me. I thought that by keeping virtually no clothes in my actual size, that I could somehow punish my way into fitting into a smaller size pair of jeans.
But what about pleasure? What about what your heart desires? When I began to do the work on myself that I do with my clients today, I realized that about 3/4 of my closet HAD TO GO. Anything that was in my actual size was drab, boring or not representative of who I really was. In my head, I wasn't "allowed" to wear the clothes I really wanted to wear because I was not "worthy" enough to wear them unless I was a size 4. When I began exploring pleasure in my life, I realized that my Goddess wanted to wear beautiful clothes in the size I actually was (not the one I felt I should be). And interestingly enough, when I started wearing clothes that made me feel beautiful, regardless of what size they were at the time, my negative body image and my weight began to change almost immediately.
So there I am last week, in session with my client and as I give her the same assignment that I gave myself many years ago, she exclaims excitedly "oh my gosh, you want me to build a Goddess Closet!". YES! That's exactly what I wanted her to do. I loved it so much that I told her, that from now on, that's what the name of this exercise was going to be. :-) So you can all thank her for this week's assignment :-)
BUILDING YOUR "GODDESS CLOSET"
1. In your journal, write down the styles, colors and clothes that you have never allowed yourself to wear because of self-limiting beliefs you had about yourself.
2. Now write another list. In this list I want you to write down the colors, styles and shapes you secretly have wanted to wear but have never allowed yourself to wear.
3. Open up your closet. Pull out every single item of clothing and put it in a stack.
4. Go through every single piece and ask yourself?
a. Are there rips, tears, missing buttons, or is the fabric faded? If so, chuck it! Your Goddess is too fabulous to be wearing ripped and faded clothes.
b. When you hold this piece of clothing in your hand--ask your Goddess "do you really want to wear this?". Do you feel AMAZING when you think of yourself wearing it? Try it on. If you feel "blah" about it--get rid of it. Your Goddess is NOT "blah".
5. Take all the "throw away" clothes and put them in a bag to donate them.
6. Take all of the remaining pieces, make an inventory of them and put them back in your new Goddess Closet. Ask yourself what other clothes you'd like to buy to go with them. Write your ideas down in your journal.
7. Take your Goddess shopping!
You can use these same principles when you're at the mall. If your Goddess doesn't speak a resounding YES, do yourself a favor and don't buy it. From now on, you are only buying clothes that make you feel fabulous ;-)
xo,
Lisa
www.notaskinnyminnie.com
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