90-Day A Better Me Series

Part III: Living the Journey

Making the Now Count: Rebuilding our Lives

Day 69: Taking Care of Our Bodies as an Act of Self-Love

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

-Jim Rohn

We were created to live in the exact body that we have. Our body is our vessel for this life. How we live within the skin we are given is how we honor the life we are given. Our lack of love or our abundance of love shows in how we treat the skin we are in. How do you talk about your body when you look in the mirror? How do your nourish your body? How do you treat your body physically? When we don’t love ourselves, we abuse it in ways way worse than any outside person can. When we really hate ourselves it’s like we are committing a slow suicide by the lack of care.

When we love, honor, and respect our bodies for the important role they play in our lives, we do our best to take care of them. It isn’t about beating ourselves up with what we don’t do; it’s about what we are actually doing. When our minds are right, we treat our bodies right.

When we love ourselves, our bodies tell us what they need. They tell us when they are tired. We feel signs our body is giving us. We are not numbing, overindulging, dehydrating, and mistreating our vessels that are carrying us through this life. When we take care of mind, body, and spirit. We are given clear signals what to do. It can even be that if our body needs to walk, we won’t be able to find a parking space right up front.

When we have genuine love for our bodies, the Universe hears us. We project the love out, and it comes back to us. If you aren’t taking care of your vessel, you need to look at any areas you are not taking care of your relationship with yourself. What way are you neglecting to love yourself? If you haven’t read the rest of the series, check out Part I and II. If you are not taking care of yourself, but feel like you love yourself—PRAY! Pray for guidance in finding your blocks so that you can treat your body like it deserves to be treated. If you are calling your body names and negatively judging it—STOP!

Be Grateful

• Be Grateful for what your vessel does for you. Don’t focus on what you don’t have or what your body doesn’t do. What does your vessel for this life do for you?
• Be grateful for any senses you are blessed enough to have. Senses are a gateway to presence.
• Be grateful for your body’s ability to breathe, however much it is able to.
• Be grateful for the lessons your body teaches you about what happens when you do and don’t take care of it.
• Be grateful for the signs your body gives you when it’s not happy.
• Be grateful for legs that carry you or ones that let you experience lessons because they don’t.
• Be grateful for every scare, because they were lessons you survived.
• Be grateful for your eyes allowing you to see or for them strengthening your other senses by not seeing.
• Be grateful to your arms for all the things they allow you to touch and hold or for the ability to survive without them and the blessings that come with the lack of them being there.
• Be grateful for the illness that has shown you where your vessel needs your love and attention. Be grateful for each day as a blessing because even with your illness, today you are here. Your vessel is working for you the exact way it needs to be in this moment.
• Be grateful for the nose that connects you to the present moment by being able take in the moment.

No matter what your vessel is experiencing in this moment, be grateful because it is experiencing life. How we take care of our vessels shows how grateful we really are. We are energetic beings, and if we are constantly feeding negative energy into them, we will pay the price by the toxic build up it creates within us. The more love and gratitude you can send to this lifelong partner, the better it will work to serve you.

The list below is a check-in. If you are not doing the things below dig deeper to help you understand why you are neglecting your vessel’s care. If you say you are too busy for taking the time to care for your body, your priorities are not in order. You don’t have time to do all the other things you are doing if you aren’t taking care of the vessel that was created just for you.  I’m not listing anything here that costs money, this is just what we do for ourselves consciously, unconsciously, or not at all.

7 Ways to Check-In with Your Body

1. Are you getting enough rest? Sleep is important. People need different amounts of sleep, but it’s important you are getting enough for you. If you don’t, your defensive walls will rise as a form of protection and you end up not just mistreating yourself but those around you, because tiredness can keep us from being conscious of our feelings, thoughts, actions, and reactions.
2. Are you stretching? Throughout the day, are you taking breaks to help oxygen and blood circulation by stretching? Stretching before, during, and after times when your body is under physical or emotional duress helps to ensure the toxins don’t build up and start causing problems. Yoga, Thai Chi, and Qigong are great ways to implement stretching into your daily routine. Good blood and oxygen flow can help your body deal with stress.
3. Are you taking conscious breaths? Are you holding your breath when you’re stressed, exercising, and doing work? When we are taking care of ourselves and present, we focus on breathing. When experiencing a moment of AWE, pay attention to the way you exhale. It’s like the body is pushing out anything that doesn’t belong there to take in the magical moment of AWE.
4. Are you getting enough physical activity? Are you getting in 10,000 steps a day? Did you know that most phones come with a step counter and there are apps that do the counting for you? Working our bodies helps keep up our strength and energy to keep the toxic energy from building up in our bodies. It helps oxygen flow so that our minds are more able to focus on what is in front of us.
5. Are you eating consciously? When we aren’t present and we don’t love ourselves, to be blunt, we treat our bodies like garbage. One of the ways we do it is by eating unconsciously. We don’t pay attention to how much we eat and the garbage we are putting into our mouths. When we are present, our bodies give us signs when it has had enough. There are tells when food isn’t sitting right in our bodies, but if we have been feeding negative energy into our bodies, we attract the food that will have a negative affect. It’s not judgment, just the Law of attraction working in away that we don’t want it to.
6. Are you taking the time to quiet your mind? Your brain needs rest too. Go back to the list on Day 66 if you are struggling with this one. When we take the time to quiet our minds we hear what our bodies need from us. We pay attention as an act of love.
7. Are you laughing? Laughter plays a huge role in your body. It’s been said to even help the healing process. Regular laughter is important to the function of your mind, body, and spirit. If we are taking life too seriously we stop laughing and the stress builds up in our bodies. Laughter gets things moving and creates a positive energy flow running through our entire system.

Take the time to take care of the vessel you are travelling in. Without it, you wouldn’t be here. Mistreating it only makes the journey here more challenging and shows your lack of self-love. Show yourself the love you deserve and life becomes an amazing adventure.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Don’t forget to read today’s companion piece: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 69 – Taking Care of My Body