Author: @selfawarenessletstalk

Consider standing nude if it feels safe and comfortable or fully clothed in front of a full length mirror. What are you feelings? What do you notice? What are the pictures and stories in your mind saying? Rate the intensity of your strongest emotion about your body on a scale of (lowest) 1-10 (highest).

Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale through you mouth. 

Begin tapping the Karate Chop point which is the area below your pinky at the edge of your hand. You can tap with either hand and on either side of your body, whichever feels most comfortable and natural for you. You don’t need to tap fast or hard.

Karate Chop : Even though I need my body to change before I can feel beautiful … 

I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I’m so sad and angry that I’ve absorbed all these ideas … 

I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I’m not allowed to feel beautiful until I lose weight … 

I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Eyebrow : This is the wrong shape.

Side of Eye : It’s gross.

Under Eye : These shapeless thighs.

Under Nose : Ugly.

Chin : I hate this bulge.

Collarbone : Who wants this?

Under Arm (think bra line): I am unworthy.

Top of Head : This is the worst view.

Eyebrow : Look at me!

Side of Eye : Look at that fat!

Under Eye : There, I’ve said it, I’m fat.

Under Nose : I don’t like what I see.

Chin : I am ugly.

Collarbone : I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

Under Arm : I have got so used to being this out of shape person.

Top of Head : It breaks my heart to see myself looking like this.

Karate Chop : Even though I feel defeated every time I look in the mirror, I fully accept myself for feeling this way and love myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I feel ashamed because of my weight, I fully accept myself for feeling this way and love myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though it breaks my heart to see so much fat everywhere on my body, and it just won’t budge, still, I deeply love, accept, and appreciate myself completely.

Eyebrow : I try so hard to be confident.

Side of Eye : One look in the mirror shatters my confidence.

Under Eye : Looking at my body fills me with shame.

Under Nose : All I see is cellulite, a lumpy, bumpy skin, and stretch marks.

Chin : This loose skin.

Collarbone : This cellulite.

Under Arm : This bulging fat.

Top of Head : This fat spills out of my clothes.

Eyebrow: This is hopeless.

Side of Eye : It is in my genes.

Under Eye : I look fat.

Under Nose : I am fat.

Chin : I am disgusted by all this fat.

Collarbone : I keep trying to hold it all in.

Under Arm : This is so much to carry.

Top of Head : All this fat I have to lug around day in day out weighs heavy on me.

Karate Chop : Even though I need my body to change before I can feel beautiful … 

I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I’m so sad and angry that I’ve absorbed all these ideas … 

I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I’m not allowed to feel beautiful until I lose weight … I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Eyebrow : My chubby cheeks.

Side of Eye : My double chin.

Under Eye : My thick arms.

Under Nose : My puffy hands.

Chin : My jiggly belly.

Collarbone : These rolls of fat around my torso.

Under Arm : This fat bulges out of my sides.

Top of Head : Love handles? Who am I kidding?

Eyebrow : These are rolls of fat.

Side of Eye : These stretch marks.

Under Eye : My ever widening waist.

Under Nose : My huge flabby butt.

Chin : My thunder thighs.

Collarbone : My poor knees.

Under Arm : My chunky calves.

Top of Head : My wide, puffy feet.

Karate Chop : Even though I feel defeated every time I look in the mirror, I fully accept myself for feeling this way and love myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though I feel ashamed because of my weight, I fully accept myself for feeling this way and love myself completely.

Karate Chop : Even though it breaks my heart to see so much fat everywhere on my body, and it just won’t budge, still, I deeply love, accept, and appreciate myself completely.

Eyebrow : I feel fat everywhere.

Side of Eye : I feel trapped in layers of fat.

Under Eye : My body feels like a fat suit sewn on me.

Under Nose : I hate how I look with all this weight.

Under Mouth : I’m always looking at myself through the eyes of a hater.

Collarbone : I wonder how long I should keep beating myself up.

Under Arm : I’m tired of insulting my body every time I look in the mirror.

Top of Head : I am sorry, body, for all this harshness.

Eyebrow : I love and accept my body completely just as it is.

Side of Eye : I love and respect my body.

Under Eye : I love and cherish all parts of my body.

Under Nose : I take great care of my body.

Under Mouth : My body is amazing, not perfect but always amazing.

Collarbone : My body deserves love and respect.

Under Arm : I give my body love and respect.

Top of Head : My body deserves to be fed with love and respect.

Eyebrow : I’m ready to start living my life more deeply.

Side of Eye : I want more joy.

Under Eye : I am ready to learn how to get past my own judgments, care for my body, and fully love and accept myself completely.

Under Nose : What if my body is doing its best right now?

Under Mouth : What if it’s at a weight that it thinks is safe?

Collarbone : What if my body is doing what it thinks is best to help me be safe?

Under Arm : Maybe I could start thanking it.

Top of Head : I am so grateful for my amazing body.

Karate Chop : I am beautiful, and I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : I am experiencing mixed feelings, and I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Karate Chop : I embody self-care, and I deeply love and accept myself completely.

Take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale through the mouth. 

Stop tapping and rate how you feel about the person in the mirror. Compare your number to the beginning of the session. Repeat or keep tapping.  Be gentle with yourself. Repeat this practice as often as you’d like. Tapping is always available to you.

As you think ahead to all that awaits in the New Year, I suggest reflecting back on the past year. You can do this for yourself and/or with another person. I will be encouraging my clients think about this list below next week (and, naturally, will be encouraging them to tie the answers back to their needs). 

What was the best part of 2021? What needs were met?

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What was the most challenging part of 2021? What needs were not met?

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Who was the most important person in your life this year? What needs were met?

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Who did you learn the most from this year? What needs were met/unmet?

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Who did you struggle to connect the most with this year? What needs were not met?

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What is something that you wish you could have changed this year? What needs were unmet?

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What is your most proud moment this year? What needs were met? 

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What do you most value ending the year? What need is this?

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What are you feeling (currently)?

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What are you needing (in the new year)?

Hand on heart. Thank you 2021 – for all the blessons (blessings in the lessons)! Happy New Year!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CX8DWqdBYo_WV4r676fUtd8vX-NbONourPYvvw0/?utm_medium=copy_link

Have you ever worked / considered working with horses to help with healing?

Sometimes we don’t want to talk … Sometimes we don’t believe we are worthy of connection … Sometimes we are too scared to trust … Sometimes we want to practice establishing boundaries. Enter equine-assisted therapy.

We can learn so much by BEing with horses – authenticity, closeness, regulation, trust, touch, and connection. Horses are herd animals and we are relational beings – we mutually can benefit from shared connection when we feel safe. I highly recommend trying it!

I was fortunate enough to grow up with horses at home thanks to my dad. Then I was introduced to Natural Lifemanship later in life through my professional efforts to help start a hospice bereavement program with horses.

Here I am attempting to build a secure connection, offering proof that it’s possible! The horse is joining up with me. Quite powerful work.

Watching Yellowstone has sparked my interest in getting back in the ring! It’s going on the list of my 39 goals for my 39th year!

Do you set intentional yearly goals?!? What’s a goal for 2022?

I am now offering support through BetterHelp. Please click here to learn more and/or to schedule a session.

Please visit Courtney’s FB page & comment on this post to enter. And, feel free to nominate yourself – you are worthy!

#DIVEDEEPLIVEWELL is now available for purchase! This self-guided study offered by SALT is a collection of my favorite resources that when done with repetition offer great supports to well-being over the course of a lifetime. As a licensed social worker, a fellow consumer of self-help goods, and as someone who spent 6 years in weekly therapy focusing on nonviolent communication, this 9-week offering saves you time, energy, and money! Simply put, it provides methods that work.

To access the guide, please click here.

Pricing is discounted until January 31, 2021 ($197 vs $247), and the first 10 people to purchase the guide have access to weekly check-ins with me and a SALT favorite resource to help answer the question, “What’s alive in me?”

Let’s get SALTy!

Rhode Island friends, please check out the attached flyer to find out how to support a great cause this holiday season! I volunteered for Elves for Elders last year and was so touched! I decided to offer this raffle after learning that they could really use our help this year! Please consider donating if you are able! THANK YOU! #GivingTuesday

The painting behind me is of my grandmother as a child. It’s a curious thing to imagine all of the good times and the hardship that she lived through, particularly as a woman, through the Great Depression, and how hard she fought to change state and government systems so that her child who was differently-abled (my aunt) could live a better life, in a more kind and inclusive world. I have voted for those same things during what is to date the hardest time of our generation.

Voting is one strategy in an attempt to meet a need(s) – That’s one basic way to look at elections. We are all alike in that we all are trying to meet a need(s), and we sometimes attempt to meet needs with different strategies, like voting differently. Perhaps we can all do something kind for another today, and may we all be reminded to be gentle with ourselves and each another, no matter the outcome.

I must be an emotional archeologist because I keep looking for the roots of things, particularly the roots of behavior and why I feel certain ways about certain things. – Fred Rogers

Well, this sounds familiar! An emotional archeologist, who knew?!?! Me too, Mr. Rogers, me too!

So much of FIN Awareness and Nonviolent Communication is about this – a process of gaining curiosity around feelings and needs, which help us to better understand root causes with more compassion and empathy.

When you’re in the closing moments of #theclass with @purposefulpixie and you remember your own therapist told you earlier in the day she’s retiring soon … You’ve been working with her every week for almost 6 years … And the tears start to flow because you know you’ve done the work, and you’ll be okay, and you have a gift to offer others … Move and be moved with The Class! I can’t recommend this “emotional exercise,” as I like to call it, enough!