Women are bombarded with messages from media, culture, peers, family and even religious teachings of how they should look and feel about their bodies and themselves.

TV, magazines and social media are full of messages and images of what others say your body shape and size should be. They program you to believe your self-worth and acceptance in society and of yourself is tied to how your body looks on the outside.

These messages trigger feelings of shame towards your body because you feel you don’t measure up to what those messages are telling you you’re supposed to be or how you’re supposed to look.

You end up forming these false beliefs that you can solve your unhappiness with your body and yourself from the outside in. You believe if you were just the perfect weight or size, that that’s the key to not feeling shame and finally loving and accepting yourself.

To accomplish this, you try to control your body by dieting or other weight loss programs, strenuous exercise, or physically altering yourself through plastic surgery or other methods.

I struggled with the same thoughts and feelings for many years. I also tried solving it with diets and exercise but I continuously failed because the problem wasn’t my weight –  it wasn’t how I looked on the outside – it was how I felt about myself on the inside.

After decades of attempting to change my body and how I felt about it from the outside in, I discovered a book by Carol Emery Normandi and Lauralee Roark called, “It’s Not About Food: End Your Obsession with Food and Weight” in 2009. I was inspired by their philosophy that lasting change comes when we first learn to love and accept ourselves just the way we are.

This holistic approach led to a spiritual journey of exploring the deeper meaning of the emotional pain I’d been carrying and projecting onto my body all these years. It was through specific spiritual practices that I was able to experience a deeper level of healing.

These are the steps I used to transform my relationship with my body.

• Step 1 – Discover the messages you’ve personally ingested about your body. (Think about the messages you’ve bought into related to your body and how you may be escaping the feelings they trigger in you).
• Step 2 – Let go of self-judgment and develop self-compassion. (Recognize when you’re being judgmental of yourself and where you store these judgmental feelings in your body).
• Step 3 – Become conscious of your emotions, beliefs and defenses. (Explore how you formed defenses at a young age in order to be loved and accepted, or to protect yourself, or to feel safe).
• Step 4 – Listen to the wisdom of your physical body. (Determine which body parts you don’t like and trust them to tell you what they need).
• Step 5 – Discern your authentic truth. (Discover the power of the words you speak and how your body’s intelligence knows when truth is not honored and spoken).
• Step 6 – Find your inner voice and live your truth. (Learn how to tell the difference between your inner voice and the voices bombarding you from society).
• Step 7 – Awaken to your spiritual self. (Form a strong connection with the Source of All That Is and expressing your creativity in a way that provides meaning and purpose).
• Step 8 – Trust your process and receive the gift of a transformative relationship with your body. (Trust and embrace this process of transformation from the inside out and use it to empower you to create the life you desire).

Start implementing these practices every day and watch how they transform your relationship with your body and create lasting-change in your life. To help you get started I created a FREE workbook “The Spiritual Practices for Honoring the Sacredness of Your Body.” Download your copy at here.

If you’d like to learn more about these practices, I also have a workshop called “Honor the Sacredness of Your Body” where we will dive deeper into these practices and the healing process. You can sign up for the workshop at here.