Your body loves to feel good – it is constantly striving to feel its best. Through its eloquent language of sensation, it is communicating with you in every moment, letting you know about pain, tension, pleasure, need. By paying attention, you can begin to respond and support the body to feel the best that it can today. To tune in and respond to your body, try this:

• Sitting in a comfortable, supported position, close your eyes. Allow your body to relax completely. Release any tension in your face and throat. Let your belly soften and your limbs be heavy. Take a moment to let this unfold.
• Become aware of any sensations you are having in your body. Can you feel the backs of your legs on the chair? Can you feel the points of pressure where your back is against the chair? Become aware of the feel of your clothes on your skin.
• Keep tuning into the subtleties of the sensations you are having in this moment. Begin to scan more specifically. Are you feeling pain, tension, pleasure, relaxation, freedom, constrictions? Are there certain areas of your body you are more aware of than others?
• Now that you are tuned in, can you feel what you might wish for your body? “My wish for my body is that it: breathes easy; has relaxed shoulders; is free of tension, feels healthy . . .” You get the idea — whatever it is that might help the body to feel good, create a wish. How many wishes can you fulfill in any given moment?

Write some of these wishes down, play with them throughout the day and the week. See what kind of difference it makes to create and fulfill your body’s wishes.

Did you know that one of the primary functions of a fat cell is to remove toxins from your blood stream, store that toxin someplace that is non-essential to survival and keep you up and running? Instead of toxins slogging through your bloodstream and clogging up vital organs, it is safely tucked away in a hip or a butt or a belly. Amazing. Yay fat cells! Woo Hoo – thanks for protecting my organs and keeping my blood a little cleaner!

If you are carrying extra weight that has shown up as fat, your emotions may be all clogged up around those certain “unacceptable” areas of your body.  I, too, have heard that internal scream of, “Argh where did that come from? And why won’t it go away?!” The only way to truly quiet that scream is to shift from fat phobic to fat receptive.

Acknowledge your fat for what it is – a life saver; a temporary fix to a larger issue that is waiting, ever so patiently, for your attention. Fat is, after all, a symptom that something is not working the way it should be. So, take a quiet moment in praise of fat cells. From this vantage point of grateful acceptance, your judgment subsides, clarity prevails and you can begin to listen with a compassionate ear for what your body needs from you to be healthy, vital, strong and confident.