So, he has a toned, muscular body and the scales groan under your weight. So what? It’s nothing a few changes in lifestyle can’t alter. Switch off the melancholic mode and gear up to love yourself, as you shed every inessential you carry around, says Shalan Savur
If he’s fit and you’re fat, be cool. Not cool pretend, not cool indifferent, but cool sensible, cool balanced. Don’t allow yourself to sink into the low-esteem pit. What? Are you already there? Climb out of it now. You can because there’s a strong core in you that can never be broken, not even cracked. The scriptures spell it out like this: “You are imperishable. You are eternal, changeless, always You. You live on though your body may die. You cannot be cut by a knife, burned by fire, dampened by water, dried by the wind. You are everlasting, ever calm, always there.” Make this your mantra. Repeat it on waking up every morning. It steadies you. When you’re emotionally stable, you can do anything. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g!
Get buff for your own sake
You don’t have to suffer from muscle envy looking at your guy. You’ve got muscles too. You can strengthen them not to compete with him, not to complement him, but to empower yourself, to take free and fierce delight in your individual being, in your glory, in your unbeatableness. Why limit yourself to Mrs-hood? Why wait for him to compliment you to feel happy or shrink like a turtle into your shell because he addresses you as ‘Moti’ or ‘Fatty’? Be unfazed. Work on finding your place in the world so that you feel a sense of cohesion, a groundedness, a wholeness.
Make a personal manuscript of your past, present and potential to find your true self by elaborating on three points:
Point # 1. What was my past like? Forget the failures, fragilities, fights. Everybody has negatives in their past, but it’s the ducks who don’t dwell in them that become swans. Make this a positive fact-finding mission. Highlight the times you stood out, were strong, inspired and inspirational, intelligent, resilient, courageous, outrageous, rebellious, sexy, saucy. Strut your stuff in a journal to be browsed and re-browsed. Have a girl’s day out with your school or college pals. It’s wonderfully energising to remember those crazy, daredevil, boy-ogling, lying-through-your-teeth times. It charges you. When you see yourself as coming from a past full of chutzpah, adventure, the bold hero bordering on rashness, you forge a positive portrait of yourself and feel terrific about it. Today, you can bank on it, build on it. That person is still there—that anything-can-do gal of a thousand pranks.
Take it forward: It’s important to follow up on this high-spiritedness immediately. This upbeat time is a great time to:
- Join a gym or exercise class.
- Continue writing in that browsing journal with bolder, brighter, bordering-on-brash adjectives.
- Think and talk positively about yourself. Make a policy decision: Negative trespassers shall be prosecuted.
Point # 2. What is my present self-image? Give yourself 5 -10 on complimentary descriptions (CDs): quick on the uptake, light on the feet, strong, dynamic, gentle, a calming presence, cool, reflective, fun, playful, good-humoured, stoic, patient, lively, determined, hard-working, entertaining, reliable, loving, lovable, cheerful. Please feel free to add more positive traits. The reason I’ve said 5 -10 and not 1-10 is to avoid modesty or humility which have no relevance in this self-evaluation. Treat 1-5 as taken—the gal who starts from the top can only rise higher and fly.
This exercise is to feel good and build on it. You see, your opinion about yourself is rarely static. It seesaws with the circumstances. If somebody says, “OMG, you’ve put on weight!” plop! down it falls. But, with this exercise, you know intimately the better part of you. And it’s when you see your entire basket of positives that you can take consistent action. Meaning, if you join a gym merely as a knee-jerk action to the ‘you’ve put on weight’ remark, once it stops pricking, you’ll drift away from exercising. But, if you feel good about yourself, if you know you have so many positive things going for you, well, then, it’s your sense of positivity and self-respect that makes you exercise and keeps you exercising. You continue because you’ve scored an 8 on being reliable, or 9 on being entertaining and being missed by your co-exercisers. Good habits are not formed only through discipline and routine but because they are literally branded in the brain by the fire of emotion and grooved in the neural network by appreciation, admiration, the wanting-to-be-with-you flattering expression of others.
Take it forward: Follow up on this positive self-evaluation exercise with three key actions:
- Use your skills, talents, resources that you know you had but not done anything about
after marriage.
- Experiment on an eating lifestyle that’s healthy, balanced, nourishing, low on fat and which resonates with you. Give your kids their goodies, but remember: you’ve had them in your kiddy days.
- Decide that you can control yourself. Then self-control can be added to your evaluation list as well.
Point # 3. Where am I heading? I’m a great believer in being in the now. But that doesn’t mean we shut down our imagination. We throw it wide open. We use that imagination to give us a sense of purpose, our worth. When you don’t have self-control, when you don’t know where you’re heading, you feel worthless. That’s a wrong conclusion because each and every one of us is worthy, unique, wonderful. What’s keeping a huge distance between you and your priceless worth is your ignorance, your unawareness. Well, you’re heading for divinity. So, start thinking, behaving like you know it.
Take it forward: Follow these three amazing guidelines:
- Don’t blame yourself: When something flops, don’t blame yourself and put yourself in a sad little hole. If you’ve been exercising and not lost weight, don’t blame even your metabolism. There are always healthy pay-offs inside your body. Your blood circulation is better, your stamina is higher, your organs are purring, your hormones are more balanced and you are heading towards weight-loss. Remember: the inches go first, then the kilos. Be cool. And persist.
- Accept compliments gracefully: When your guy or anybody pays you a compliment, don’t modestly brush it off. Say thank you, enjoy it, repeat it to the friends you meet the next day, and most important, know it to be true! Knowing you deserve the compliment is being true to yourself. We all have good and bad stuff in us. Why ignore the good? Why be modest? Enjoy. Laugh. Lap it up. Let your spiritedness flow out. When you feel good about yourself, you go places. You even do a few extra reps at the gym and eat one less chocolate. Yes, lap up those compliments! They are high in mental nutrients and low in calories! When you show you have a good opinion about yourself, everybody starts having an even better impression of you. Remember, even our yogis who were steeped in humility didn’t put themselves down.
- Send out good vibes: If you believe in good vibes and bad vibes, start loving yourself. When you love yourself, you give yourself good vibes. Do you understand the import of this? When you give yourself good vibes, you add good vibes to your surroundings, home, your family, your office, your neighbourhood, your country, the world. You contribute good vibes, loving vibes and there is nothing more valuable to this earth than that. Look in your mirror every day and say, “You’re the greatest!” And watch the mirror mouth it right back to you.
Bask in your individuality
Because he’s fit and you’re not so fit, there is no reason not to have a darned good relationship. In fact, if you’re jealous of him, the love-space gets a little foggy. Likewise, if he’s derogatory towards you, he must be aware that this negativity encroaches on his love-space for you. Remember this: nobody’s perfect, neither he nor you. He has his strong points, he also has his weak points. You have your strong points, you also have your weak points. Both of you should dwell on each other’s strengths and accept the weaknesses good-humouredly as cute idiosyncrasies, attractive eccentricities. If he pokes fun at your girth, tell him his attitude hurts. Or learn to laugh it off. At the same time, living together under one roof, sharing one bed day after day can grate on the nerves. So each of you needs to key in this reality check: “Each of us is a soul on our own journey. Each of us is on the perfect, chosen journey we are meant for .There is no comparison.” From this stance, individuality can be respected. And mutual respect gives an enormous fillip to the relationship.
Be grateful, be active
The secret is not to look at marriage, children, home responsibilities in addition to a career as life’s impediments that pull you down. Rather, look on them as factors that expand your boundaries. Think, “I’m so grateful that I have such a full life.” Another wise attitude is: not to compartmentalise roles. Instead, see them as one large flow-experience rather than as multi-tasking. And you’ll be able to do this much easier if you exercise every day. How so? As you may already know, a brisk walk, jog, swim, biking or stationary cycling raises the feel-good hormones—the endorphins. It’s like taking ‘uppers’ with a positive side effect—better stamina. Better stamina means better sex and better anything. If you exercise moderately (not like a maniac) every day, you’ll banish blues, aches, allergies, pains, improve your flexibility a hundred-fold, lose weight, get a toned body, feel many things are effortless, sleep well, feel energetic, active, fall in love with yourself (no kidding), make love more confidently and expertly, respond with more ardour, conduct your work like a champion, be more even-tempered, have nicely balanced hormones, a higher level of HDL, the good cholesterol, a strong heart.
So, go ahead. Be cool. Get fit at your pace. Get fit to feel good. Get fit to take charge of your body, your mind. Be the CEO of your life. Who is better qualified than you?
Shalan Savur is the co-author of the book Fitness for Life and teacher of the Fitness for Life programme.
