Episode 40 - Supermodels and Self Acceptance

Transcript

Announcer:  This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Renée Stephens:  Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss.  I’m your host Renée Stephens.  Together we’re accessing the control panel of your mind body system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life.  On today’s show, an important lesson from a Russian supermodel and a fun, fast and friendly guided journey for unconditional self-acceptance.

But on one of the early episodes, we talked about the power of knowing what you want, of stating what you want and stating it in the positive.  And you can take that power of stating what you want, of knowing what you want, from the big picture.  I want to weigh a certain weight or whatever it is, to something very small like today’s issue of self-correcting.  Well, I felt like there was a heavy, gray cloud over me, and I decided that what I wanted instead was to have lightness, sun, light around me.  And the very act of identifying that was transformative for me.

And as you may know from my story, that’s certainly what happened to me.  I lost my weight, over 20 years ago, I lost it, and I thought, “Okay, here I am.  This is it.  I have got it going on now.  I am thin.  Whoo-hoo!!”  Yes, it was exciting, but after the comments went away, after people stopped noticing because this, in fact, was my new norm, then I was left with me.  After the newness of it all, I was left with me, and sadly, that was a me who didn’t know how to be happy.  Any possible objection?  Or are you feeling like you would really like to accept yourself, as you are, unconditionally, secure in the knowledge that by accepting yourself as you are, you will thrive and grow to the person you dream of being.

Let’s take a moment to arrive and be present with ourselves, to be present with this show, with this time that we’ve taken and dedicated to us.  If you’ve been listening to this show for a while, perhaps you’re aware of the concept of enlightened selfishness, of taking care of ourselves first so we that have more to give others.  So now is your opportunity.  Tune in and notice your current experience.  Notice what you’re feeling in this moment. Notice what you’re seeing and where you are.  Become present to your surroundings, your physical surroundings, the time of day it is, the environment you find yourself in, noticing what the air quality is like.  Are you inside or outside?  Is the air warm or cool?  Is there any movement to the air?  Is there movement to your body?  Are you exercising?  Just notice where you are.  Notice your external environment.  And as you’ve notice your external environment, take a moment and notice now your body.  Notice what it feels like in your body right now.  Are you moving in any way or are you still and quiet?  Are you relaxing or engaging or engaging and relaxing?  Just take a few moments to become present with your current experience, to become present with you as you arrive in this episode of Inside Out Weight Loss. 

And now, take a moment to think of your intention for this episode.  Take a moment for your intention to arise and present itself to you.  What might your intention be? Your intention might be to have some significant learning today or a breakthrough.  Perhaps you have an intention of letting go of something that has been holding you back and replace it with something wonderful instead. 

On my morning run today, I noticed that I was upset about something and it felt to me as if there were this heavy, gray cloud over me.  And as soon as I noticed that it seemed as if it was a heavy, gray cloud over me, and I was doing my self-correcting activity, by the way, of going for a run outside, I thought, well, what would I like to have instead of that heavy, gray cloud over me, because, boy, that darn thing was really bugging me.  And I thought, well, gosh, I’d really like to have light over me instead.  I’d like that gray cloud to disappear and be as if it were sunshine instead.  So, in the moment of imagining that, I instantly felt some release, some relief, from where I had been.  The very act of becoming aware of what I wanted instead was transformative for me this morning. 

And if you think back, if you’ve listened to the other episodes, and by the way, if you haven’t, I recommend that you do that, that you start way back at the beginning, at the prologue, and go through the episodes in order.  There’s so much to gain that way.  But on one of the early episodes, we talked about the power of knowing what you want, of stating what you want and stating it in the positive.  And you can take that power of stating what you want, of knowing what you want, from the big picture.  I want to weigh a certain weight or whatever it is, to something very small like today’s issue of self-correcting.  Well, I felt like there was a heavy, gray cloud over me, and I decided that what I wanted instead was to have lightness, sun, light around me.  And the very act of identifying that was transformative for me. 

So is there anything like that in your experience right now?  Where you could identify what you want, exactly what you want.  It’s amazing how attractive, attractive in a magnetic sort of way, that can be.  So go ahead and set your intention for today’s episode, and I’ll set mine.  Mine, as always, is to help you enable you to achieve your intention, and to reach 10s of 1000s more listeners in this episode and every episode that follows, because you know my mission.  My mission is to end the weight struggle and enable others to share and reveal their soul’s gift.  More on that in a moment.

I wanted to share with you something from the news today, some thoughts I have inspired by a news story I caught today.  It’s so easy for us to have the fantasy that if we are just thin, if we are just thin, if we are just the weight that we would like to be, all would be well.  All of our problems would melt away.  I know I have this fantasy, this desire.  When I was younger, I thought, my goodness, if I could just be my goal weight, oh, my God, everything would go away.  All would be well.  Now what would it be like?  We think, oh, gosh, what would be the most wonderful thing?  How about being thin and rich?  How about thin, rich, and stunningly beautiful? 

Okay, not enough for you?  How about thin, rich, stunningly beautiful, successful, and young?  How does that sound to you?  Sounds pretty fantastic, huh?  Well, the story that saddened me today, that saddened my heart today, was the story of a Russian supermodel who was young, rich, stunningly beautiful, successful.  This is a girl who at 20 years of age had already graced the covers of Elle and Vogue magazine, traveled the world, at the age of 20.  Luciana Porshanova – I’m sorry about my pronunciation.  I don’t know how it’s supposed to be pronounced, but it looks like Luciana Porshanova – leapt from a ninth floor balcony to her death just the other day in an apparent suicide.  And I thought, my goodness, how tragically sad that is, and doesn’t it show that the thing that we think we want – if we could just be thin, if we could just be rich, if we could just be thin and rich and beautiful and successful and young and all of these things, that then, then we would be happy. 

That story really demonstrates to me the false promise that that is, that those things do not guarantee that we will be happy.  They do not guarantee that all will be well magically.  And as you may know from my story, that’s certainly what happened to me.  I lost my weight over 20 years ago, I lost it, and I thought, “Okay, here I am.  This is it.  I have got it going on now.  I am thin.  Whoo-hoo!!”  Yes, it was exciting, but after the comments went away, after people stopped noticing because this, in fact, was my new norm, then I was left with me.  After the newness of it all, I was left with me, and sadly, that was a me who didn’t know how to be happy. 

I didn’t know how to be happy, because what I discovered was that it wasn’t in the promise of being thin.  Being happy is an inner journey.  In fact, it’s an inner skill.  And so, not right away, it took me a long time to figure this out, but eventually I taught myself how to be happy.  I taught myself how to feel good.  And one of the key things that I learned, as you will know, is all about self-correcting, how to bring myself back in balance, how to renew when I became out of balance. 

So, I wanted to share that with you.  So, while it is a very sad and tragic story, there’s a lesson in there.  There’s a small silver lining, a lesson for all of us, that really being happy, being the way that we want to be is an inner journey.  The outer trappings are great.  Don’t get me wrong, they are fun, fun, fun.  It is fun to be thin.  I’m sorry.  It’s true.  It’s fun to be thin, but it’s not the whole story, because you can be depressed.  You can be tragically depressed being thin.  So, yes, let’s be thin, let’s be fit, let’s be healthy, healthy.  Healthy is, perhaps, one of the magic enablers to being happy.  And let’s also practice happiness.

It’s time now for us to take a break to support our sponsors.  When we come back, I’ll be taking you on a guided journey to self acceptance.  Yes, another guided journey.  This one is very exciting because it’s new, and I can’t wait to take you to the next level.  This is Renée Stephens, and you’re listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.

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Renée Stephens:  We’re back now.  Before the break, we were talking about why it’s so important to take the inner journey, the journey to being happy and fulfilled and content.  That if we rely on the outer trappings to do that for us, we may be sadly and tragically disappointed, but if we do the inner work, if we do our self-correcting, if we put ourselves first and take care of ourselves, if we nurture our health, then, then we discover the treasures.  Then we get the gifts.

How are you progressing on your journey to unconditional self acceptance?  We’ve been talking about it for the last several episodes, and I’ve taken you on a few guided journeys to increase your unconditional self acceptance, for you to experience it in more and more ways, and for it to seep into all different areas of your life.

We’ve been talking also about the importance of overcoming any objections that you might have to accepting yourself as you are.  And I know we spent a decent amount of time talking about possible objections.  I’d just like you to check in there.  How are you doing?  Do you have any objections left?  Any reason why you wouldn’t want to accept yourself unconditionally?  Any possible objection?  Or, are you feeling like you really would like to accept yourself as you are, unconditionally, secure in the knowledge that by accepting yourself as you are, you will thrive and grow to the person you dream of being.

By accepting yourself as you are, you’ll take exquisite care of yourself, putting yourself first so you have so much more to give.  Imagine the joy of it.  So, if you’re ready, if you feel like, yes, you’ve released any objections that you might have had to self acceptance, then let’s take a little journey.  Now, if you don’t feel that you’ve released those objections, go back and listen to some of the previous episodes, especially the last episode.

And I do have a plan, which I hope will be completed by the time this episode goes live, of recording another guided journey, to be available for sale on my site, to unconditionally self acceptance.  So, cross your fingers.  Hopefully, that’ll be ready by the time this episode goes live.  You can always check at MindForBody.com under the products tab.

So, you ready?  Let’s have some fun.

I’d like you to know this process is a wee bit experimental.  It’s a bit of an innovation on my part, so I’d love to hear your results.  I’ll post an entry onto the blog at PersonalLifeMedia.com/renee, and you can post your comments on what you’re noticing, how you’re first noticing the positive effects of this throughout your life.

The first step is, as we did last week, I want you to think of someone, or some being, like a child or a puppy dog or a kitty cat, a pet that you have, someone or some being that you accept unconditionally.  Typically, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, is not a great choice, because romantic love tends to be conditional rather than unconditional.  So, it’s much safer to choose someone or something that you love unconditionally, such as a pet or a child that you know or have known in the past.  The important thing is that when you think of that being, you feel that wonderful flow of love.

So, think of that person or that being.  Use the same one from last episode if you like.  Feel your heart open as you think of this person or this pet.  Notice how the love pours out in such a beautiful, expansive way, renewing you with its very flow.  See the image.  See the child or the pet, and notice, as you did last week, notice if you’re seeing the full body or just part of the body, the head or the face, notice it and see it there in front of you.  Take the time to allow those feelings of love and acceptance to expand and flow.  Allow them to increase within you.  Imagine that with every moment that passes, they become more and more and more.  And it feels as if you couldn’t possible love any more, and yet that feeling is so open, so expansive and so renewing, that it’s infinite.  Good.

Now, although you’re enjoying that, just take a moment and put that image aside for now.  And now, what I’d like you to do, as last time, I’d like you to see yourself.  See yourself.  See an image of yourself.  Whatever image comes to mind first is the right image.  I’m not talking about an idealized you, because that is not what we’re going for here.  What I’m talking about is a realistic, now image of yourself, the you that you would like to accept but you aren’t fully accepting right now.  So this is an image of you in the present, the you that you would like to accept unconditionally.

And whatever image comes to your mind, if you’re standing or sitting or lying, or if it’s a front view or side view or back view or whatever, and if it’s fuzzy or clear, it doesn’t matter.  I had someone ask me that recently.  Does it matter that my images are fuzzy?  Doesn’t matter at all.  So just allow that image to come to you.  Some people have a little bit of resistance, or it’s a little slow for that image to come, and it that’s the case for you, just allow it to come quickly now in front of you, whatever it is.  Allow that image to be present there in front of you, of yourself. 

Now, with that image there in front of you of you, I want you to imagine that that image is like a slide, and behind it is another slide.  It’s like you’ve got two images, one in front of the other.  The one behind, the back image, is the image of the being that you accept and love unconditionally.  And the image in front is the image of you.  Right there, one is in front of the other, such that all you can see is you, but you know that behind that image of you, there’s an image of that being that you love unconditionally.  You just can’t see it at the moment. 

However, you could see it if there were a hole.  If there were a pinpoint hole in this image of you, then you would see a little light from that image behind it seeping through.  If there were a pinpoint hole, you would see the light coming through from the image behind, sort of that beautiful, sparkling light would come right through.

And now, if that pinpoint hole in that image of you were to become bigger, maybe the size of a quarter, then you would see more of the image behind, and you’d maybe begin to get some of that feeling of unconditional love flowing out of you.  And now, if that image were to become even bigger, maybe a couple inches in diameter, a few inches in diameter, then you would see even more of the image behind. 

And if that were to become even bigger, so big that it almost was the entirety of the first image but you could still see the borders or the boundaries of the first image, but really what you’d see is that that would be kind of like a frame, the image of you in front would be almost like a frame, and then within the frame, you’d see the image of the person or the being that you love and accept unconditionally.  And so, you’d really be getting the full feeling of flow of love and acceptance of the image behind, of the being that you love unconditionally.  So, you’d see almost all of that image, but around the edges, you’d see the edges of the other image, and it’d be feeling really good.  You’d really feel your heart open.

Now, if that first image, if that hole would close up again, very, very, very, very slowly, just infinitesimally slowly, but, yes, it would be closing, you could imagine what it would be like to still have that wonderful flow, love, unconditional acceptance feeling, as that first image, as that opening closed to the pinprick size.  You could imagine that wonderful feeling maintaining through all of that. 

So, that’s what I would like you to do now is just imagine that that pinprick size hole expands and you get that wonderful feeling so you’re just seeing the edges of the image of you, and behind it, really what you’re seeing and feeling is the glorious feeling of love and flow and acceptance of that image of the unconditionally loved being, the puppy or the kitten or the child or the friend, whatever it is.

And then you see that image, the front image, that hole opens all the way so you just see the boundaries, the borders, and then it closes again.  And it closes, but it closes only as fast as you can feel that same wonderful feeling while that image, the hole, closes.  Did that make sense?  It’s kind of like you’re adjusting the aperture on a camera, so that the hole opens, you feel those wonderful feelings, and then it closes and you allow yourself to keep those wonderful feelings of flow and acceptance, only now you just see the pinprick size hole, and the light comes through there, and then it opens again, very quickly, and then it closes again, very quickly. 

In fact, the whole thing could happen very, very quickly.  You just go [swooshing noises].  What do you think of my sound effects there?  So, they would open, close, open, close, open, close, open, close, open, close, very, very quickly so that it would almost be as if you were constantly feeling that love and flow and unconditional acceptance feeling, because you know that as quickly as that little pinprick size hole opens, it closes and will open again, so you feel that wonderful feeling. 

And pretty soon, it’s happened hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, over and over and over again and again and again, so many, many times, open, close, open, close, open, close, open, close.  Now, you can take your time with this.  You could pause this show, and you could take your time opening and closing it only as fast as you could maintain those wonderful feelings, allowing them to maintain as that first image closes and all you see is a pinprick size hole.  You could certainly do it that way. 

Or you could just imagine it going very, very quickly, or you could imagine it having already happened now.  And the other thing that I’d like you to imagine before we close here today, because we will open again in the very near future with the next episode, is what it would be like if you felt this very same way, that open, flowing feeling about yourself, no matter where or when, today, tonight, tomorrow, weeks and months and years and decades from now. 

What would that be like for you? Imagine that – those positive ripple effects.  Even if you can’t imagine them specifically in certain situations where they would be most valuable, you perhaps could have that same feeling, that feeling not just of the flow and the openness and the acceptance, but all of the possibilities that spring forth as a result of it, and the ripple effects throughout your life and the lives of those around you, everyone that you touch.  It really is extraordinary how many people we touch when we stop to think about it, which I’d like you to do.

That brings us to the end of our show today.  I can’t wait to hear your feedback.  Thank you for being present. 

Remember that you will get double, triple, hundreds of times more out of this show than what you put in, but you must put in to get out.  Join the Yahoo group.  Take the listener’s survey at PersonalLifeMedia.com/renee, and let us know who you are.  While you’re there, post a comment on the blog, and click through to the Café Press page, where you can get your very own Inside Out Weight Loss journal with the butterfly logo on the front to remind you of what matters most.  And if you’re feeling like you want to spread the word, you can buy a t-shirt or tote bag and use it as a conversation starter.

For other shows on the Personal Life Media network, please visit our website at PersonalLifeMedia.com.  There is loads of great content to feed your mind, body, and spirit.  This is your host Renée Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, replacing it with your ability to share your soul’s gift.  Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves.  Take good care.

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