Body Clutter. A book about learning to love your body and love yourself. I just got this on the Kindle and I am loving it. It is the story of 2 women and thier own body clutter stories. The point of the book is to discover what has caused your body clutter (both physical and mental), why its there and how to change it.
It starts out with a glossary and I just want to begin by sharing a few of the words and thier definitions.
1) Bless your heart- This is what we lovingly call exercise. When we move, we are blessing our hearts.
2) FLY- finally loving yourself
3) HALT- dont allow yourself to get to Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
4) Stinking thinking - the negative thoughts going round and round in our heads
That is just a few of the many definitions, but I was sucked in just after reading the glossary!
I know I am very guilty of "stinking thinking." When I saw this book, I did a happy dance because I need so desperately to change my attitude about my body. It is hard to love yourself when you don't love your body. Each chapter of this book ends with questions that are meant to be answered in a "body clutter journal," so I have decided that journal will be the blog. Perhaps if you are also struggling with this issue, you may answer the questions yourself. You do not have to share them (unless you want to!) So for each chapter completed, I will be posting my favorite quotes from the chapter and the answers to chapters questions. So here we go...
Intro/Chapter 1
"One of the most comforting things I learned was that who I am does not equal my dress size. I am a unique woman, a child of God, with talents, gifts, and abilities that reach beyond the superficiality of size. I hope that when I'm gone, the things said about me will never be about my weight, the size of my jeans, or what color lipstick I wore. Instead, I hope they will say things about my character and that I was a good mom and a good friend."
I absolutely adore this quote. It really helps change my perspective. When I am gone, do I want people at my funeral saying "oh she was always so skinny." Or do I want them to say "oh, she was so compassionate about life. She was an amazing nurse. She was a great mom. She really loved the Lord and it showed in her actions" Well, I know what I want people to say and it sure ain't about my physical being. I wan't them to remember me FOR me. What a perspective changer!
Chapter 1 Q & A
1) What is your favorite food when you need comforting?
This chapter was mostly about emotional eating and using food to fill a void. I don't really do that. In fact, I do the opposite. When I am really upset or stressed, I avoid food. I don't really have a comfort food that I go to. I pretty much don't eat. That is just as bad as emotional eating.
2) Now, look back into your past to figure out why you love it so much?
Well, this question doesn't really apply to me because I tend to starve myself when I am that unhappy or stressed. I think I tend to not eat because eating only makes me feel worse. I guess when I am that unhappy I forget to take care of myself. That's awful huh? This event rarely happens, but it has happened in the past. It usually happens in a time of great stress, such as a very sick loved one.
3) Write down a memory of using food to comfort yourself and what was happening to you and how you felt at the time.
I can tell you the most recent memory of when I starved myself due to stress. I actually lost weight. 2 years ago, I was in the hardest semester of nursing school, Critical care (ICU). I spent 3 days at school/clinicals at the hospital and spend the rest of my waking hours (usually 40+ hours) doing my paperwork on my patients. I literally took naps through out the semester. I never actually slept a good nights sleep. The paperwork involved in that class was INSANE and usually resulted in about 60 pages of single spaced typed report on my patients. OHHH, it was awful, but I really, really learned alot that semester and it is was brought everything that I learned in previous semesters, together. On top of this massive workload (I had other classes too!), my husky that was nearly a year and half started having health issues. We could not figure out what was wrong with her. We did blood work, blood transfusions, diet changes, medicines...our vet jumped from food allergy to leukemia to lupus...she was MY BABY and I adored this dog. To make a long story short, after a month of tests and drugs and $2000 later, we finally discovered she had an incurable disease called Lymphangetasia where the body basically leaks fluids from the vessels into the lungs and the heart. We had no choice but to put her to sleep and it was the most painful thing I had ever had to do. I felt like I was slowly watching her die (while we were trying to save her) and eventually, her quality of life was poor and it was the kindest thing to do was to put her to rest. I dealt with this pain while spending endless hours on schoolwork. I rarely ate and rarely slept and I lost weight because of it. That is just an example of the complete opposite of emotional eating...I emotionally starve myself! I pray that if and when that amt of stress comes back into my life, that I will continue to take care of myself and not allow this to happen.
So there's chapter 1. I encourage you, if you are struggling with loving your body and loving yourself, that you give this book a try. I am only one chapter into it and its already great and its an easy read. :) See you at chapter 2!
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