Last week on LinkedIn, I wrote a post (see below) and didn’t expect the reaction I got! ALMOST 10,000 people to read it!!! Most of my posts get 1,000-3,000 views max, so this was quite shocking to see...
Seeing the view count rise induced quite a lot of anxiety to be completely honest - I mean can you imagine telling an auditorium of 10,000 people something you are super insecure about? Me neither.
Anyways, the reaction I received from this post was so empowering and liberating which helped reduce a lot of the anxiety. So many women reached out to me and shared their experiences and struggles of learning to accept their bodies and unlearn diet culture.
The most upsetting thing was the number of stories I heard of newly engaged women who have been asked about what their "plans" are to lose weight for their upcoming wedding. Getting married is supposed to be a happy and celebratory event and so many people stress about how their body is going to look on that 1 day - I don't understand what's wrong with looking how I look today, on my special day? I would hate to spend the amount of money I am spending on a photographer for a ton of pictures that don't even look like me. It seems silly!
As a people pleaser, I find myself constantly trying to make everyone comfortable and happy around me. This includes trying to change my body to make others around me “more comfortable". Do you know how much energy that wastes? It’s a lot & I am exhausted.
After burning out, I learned the value of my energy and have been willing to do anything in my power to reclaim it. I have spent so much energy in my life trying to change myself to meet everyone's standards and realized that life's way too short to continue living like this. This also doesn't stop at body standards - I have worked on defining what friendships, success, a good job, and happiness mean to me and limit my energy to focus on those.
If I am making this sound easy - it isn't. Trust me. I am currently working with a team that is supporting me through this journey of mine! I have a therapist, a fat-positive body therapist/body coach - Kayla Stansberry, and an imposture syndrome coach - Alli Rizacos all helping me through this and I cannot recommend the importance of support team when working through issues such as burnout and body acceptance. At the end of this month, I will be taking on some clients to coach myself, so if you would like me to be a part of your support team - reach out for more info!
I said this in my LinkedIn post and I am going to continue saying it because it rings true for how I plan to live my life moving forward, "this is me - if I am too much, find less" 😎
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