Guess what? Guess what?! Today I have my first ever guest blogger and I am so very excited! Gina Rafkind at
VedaSun has been an inspiration on my journey. As someone who has suffered from anxiety I have found a lot of wisdom in her blog and in her products.I hope you enjoy!
Welcome to the Anxiety Busting Blog
Tour!
This is a guest post by Gina Rafkind
and the fifth stop on her Anxiety Busting Blog Tour. Gina's mission
is to share awareness tips and tools in order to help other creative
women who suffer with anxiety to wake up to their life so they can
confidently unleash and share their gifts with the world. Gina says
it's time to stop holding back and hiding out and time to create more
freedom, love and connection! Enjoy!
Count Every Blessing
~ and that includes your body
Have you ever felt like your body is
your enemy?
You wake up in the morning and the
first thing you think is
"Ugh, my stomach is so bloated
and big."
Or other thoughts may flow through your
mind such as:
I'm so fat!
Why did I get this sickness?
I'm so weak.
Why can't I look like her?
My hair's so flat.
Why is my body doing this to me?
Have you ever thought that if you
didn't have a body, you wouldn't be here right now.....living on this
earth and breathing in the air? Our body gives us a chance to
experience life. And that includes ALL of life...the ups and the
downs.
It also houses our inner self and that
is the reason we get to experience this life. It also has an outer
covering, called skin, that protects us from harmful substances
entering our body. It has hair to keep our head warm (and if you
don't have hair, there's a head to put a hat onto). It contains feet
so we can travel upon the earth. It has hands that allow us to feel
and experience different textures and arms to allow us to hug another
person and even our self. We have eyes to see those we love and the
magnificent colors of the earth. We have ears to hear birds chirp and
ocean waves crashing. We have a nose to smell flowers, apple pies and
fresh cut grass. We have a mouth to taste succulent fruit, that apple
pie and of course, dark chocolate :).
So why is it that we sometimes look
at our body with disgust and loathing?
One reason is that we have expectations
of our body to look a certain way, and if it doesn't look that way,
then that causes us to suffer. Our suffering may show itself as
anxiety, sadness, anger or resentfulness. If our body does not
perceive to be, in our eyes, beautiful, slender, strong and healthy,
then we end up treating it as the enemy and end up not taking care of
it.
And I want you to know that this is
not all your fault. A lot of these expectations come from the
conditioned mind. As we were growing up, we were influenced by our
parents, teachers, siblings and other community members. We were told
that our body is something that we need to control and that giving
our body what we need is selfish. We were told to eat three meals a
day, go to college, get a 9-5 job, get married, have children, go to
sleep at a certain time etc.
How many of you have ever been told
that if you don't eat all the food on your plate, you'll spend the
rest of the night in your room and you will not be allowed to eat
anything else for the rest of the night? What if your body was
telling you that you're full, and that the food you're being forced
to eat really isn't the best for your body type? We didn't listen
because we couldn't.....we were told to ignore the body.....and that
someone else knows what's best for us.
Once again, the wisdom of the body
is shut down.
This whole process causes a lot of
conflict within our mind.
Although we get a message from our body
which comes through as a feeling, we end up not acting on that inner
wisdom because we were taught it's not the norm to do it that way.
This causes us to distrust our body at a very early age.
So what do we do now? How do we start
to form a better relationship with our body? How do we begin to trust
the wisdom of our body?
The key to beginning to trust your
body again is to Love Your Self….all of you…and that includes
your body.
Here are a few tips on how to start the
journey back to Loving Your Self and Your Body:
~ Write down everything that you were
told you 'should' do when you were growing up...what you were told to
eat, how to exercise, how to feel, etc.
~ Write down what you were told you
should 'look like'.
~ Write down all the expectations you
have of how you should look and 'be'.
~ Sit quiet with yourself for 5 minutes
each day. Close your eyes and bring your attention fully into your
body and notice what feelings and emotions surface. Allow them to be
there without judging them.
The writing process allows you to bring
into your awareness all the 'shoulds' that you were told. It allows
you to look at them and consider whether or not you still want to
believe them. It allows you not to be as identified with them because
you have brought them into your awareness.
The sitting quiet process allows you to
begin to tap back into the wisdom of your body and your intuition. By
being with your Self each day, you will begin, in time, to discover
what it is that you truly want. You will notice, in time, that you
will intuitively begin to choose those things that are good for
you…you will know what to eat, you will know what form of movement
works for you, and much more.
You will know these things because you
are finally paying attention to your body - the house of your Spirit.
And you will Love your Body just as it is, realizing it has been a
friend that has truly been there for you all along...doing whatever
it needs to do until you once again remember its presence.
As you continue this process, healing
takes place.....your anxiety will lessen as your suffering decreases.
Healing happens by working through
anxiety, not by fighting against of trying to cure it.
So count all your blessings and love
your Self…all of YOU…every little teeny tiny part…and know how
special you truly are.
If you'd like to learn more on how
to heal anxiety, I am holding a free hour-long, content rich
teleclass in which you will learn:
~ One of the MAIN, KEY factors that
causes anxiety and how to break free from it. This key factor I will
be talking about is a main player that most people with anxiety
experience and bringing awareness to it will release the grip of
anxiety and bring more freedom and spaciousness to your life.
~ During this call I will also give
you a preview of my new anxiety busting program that starts on
January 23, 2012 (the day of the first new moon of 2012….a
wonderful time for new beginnings :).
~ Toward the end of the call, I will
also share a special code that will give you a very special price for
a limited time for this program.
I hope you'll join me!
Go here to learn more about this new
program and to register for this free call:
inhale ~ enjoy ~ exhale,
Gina
Gina
Rafkind, CPC
Holistic
Anxiety Coach
Gina
is a Certified Professional Coach, Certified Reflexologist, Reiki
Level 3 Practitioner & Licensed Cosmetologist.
She
founded VedaSun to help women bust through anxiety so they can wake
up to their life and achieve their dreams. Gina does this by sharing
the knowledge and wisdom she has discovered throughout her evolving
journey of healing anxiety. Her passion is to share these discoveries
with you so you, too, can open the channel of awareness and by
'waking up', live a happier and healthier life.
