Gratitude for our bodies

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rosalunde
rosalunde Posts: 7
in Motivation and Support
How Gratitude Works

Your body is a living, breathing organism and every cell responds to your thoughts. Various chemicals are released in your body based on how you think and feel. Some of these chemicals enhance a sense of calm and peacefulness while others heighten states of tension and anger.

Your cells understand the message of gratitude. Think of each cell as a tiny representation of your entire body. A lack of gratitude blocks weight loss progress because your body does not respond well when criticized. When you feel thankful, your cells share that joy and transmit chemicals to reinforce that feeling. Being grateful for your body inspires you to eat food more consciously, to value the importance of exercise and to be more self-loving.

Don't Wait

You may think that before you can appreciate your body you need to be fit and healthy first. You may think that thin people love their bodies because they are thin. But it’s the other way around. They love and appreciate their bodies first and that appreciation helps them to stay fit and healthy.

Think of it this way. What if you did something positive for someone and at the same time angrily told them “I hate you and I hate doing this for you?” Most likely they’d feel pretty confused and awful. Whatever kindness you did for them would have no meaning. Well, it’s the same with your body. The more you try to eat well, exercise and “do the right things” while telling your body how much you hate it, loathe it and can’t stand to look at it, the more confused your body becomes. What’s a body to do with that message?! Most likely it responds like a confused, angry child and resists giving you what you want. You remain stuck and frustrated that your body isn’t releasing the weight you want to release. But, honestly, can you blame it?

Nourish Gratitude

To stop that cycle, be grateful for all your body does for you. Then go a step further and say “Thank you” to your body. Thank your legs for taking you where you want to go, your arms for helping you hold things, your heart for beating, your lungs for breathing, your stomach for digesting your food. Consciously thanking and appreciating your body helps you feel calm and peaceful. Releasing weight from a calm and peaceful body produces better and faster results than trying to release weight from a body that feels criticized.

The November Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States reminds us to give thanks for our blessings. One special blessing is the very body we have been given that carries us through our life journey. Take time this month to give thanks to your body for all it does for you. Your body will appreciate you and you will appreciate the results.

What do you appreciate about your body?


Article written by Diane Petrella, MSW

Replies

  • Edestiny7
    Edestiny7 Posts: 730 Member
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    Could not have been posted at a better time. Thank you! :flowerforyou:
  • jalovec
    jalovec Posts: 62
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    Thanks for passing this on!
  • becomingsara
    becomingsara Posts: 205
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    W-O-W...
    I agree with Edestiny 7...QUITE timely.
    I am printing this out and hoping to SOAK IT all in to my mind...because sometimes my mind IS quite rude to my body.
    Anyway, thank you mightliy,
    ~ Sara
  • emersoam
    emersoam Posts: 179
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    So TRUE! Great post.:wink:
  • Mindful_Trent
    Mindful_Trent Posts: 3,954 Member
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    Thanks for sharing!! I've done a meditation where you lay/sit down and mentally go from head to toe, thinking about/appreciating what all the parts of your body do for you.
  • Finallyhappy03
    Finallyhappy03 Posts: 11 Member
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    You are right on the money with this. This morning I was dreading getting on the scale for my weekly weigh in. In fact when I went to bed last night I told myself that knew I had gained weight back. Guess what happened when I got on the scale this morning - up 1 lb even though my workouts were on track and I had done my best to eat well. The mind body connection cannot ever be denied!

    I am so appreciative of your words because I really needed them today. I've been on this site for months and never responded to anyone's post until today. That's how much your post moved me. Thank you for the reminder that we have to love ourselves regardless of where we are on the scale.

    As an MSW student I also loved that this came from a fellow MSW :)

    Thank you again!
  • rosalunde
    rosalunde Posts: 7
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    I just recently ran across some of Ms. Petrella's articles and liked them. I would have posted the link instead of the article but she writes for another weight loss site and I didn't want to promote another site here on this forum.

    I also believe in the mind/body connection. Just has taken me a long time to understand it.
  • rosalunde
    rosalunde Posts: 7
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    I've done a meditation where you lay/sit down and mentally go from head to toe, thinking about/appreciating what all the parts of your body do for you.

    What a great idea. I have always done the gratitude as a whole body "My body can work to support my family", etc. Your idea reminds me of a group of poems (I believe they are by Helen Steiner Rice) They start out "My eyes, what a gift....." Another one "My hands, what a gift......." and so on. I have clippings in my shoebox of poems - will have to dig them out.

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