I was sitting cross-legged on the beach, where the ocean meets the sand and then recedes.
I was topless, covered in black sand, with my belly completely relaxed.
Even at my absolute thinnest, when I was eating disordered, I would still hold my stomach in because that’s the message I got from magazines and TV growing up.
Make your stomach as small as you possibly can.
I had to totally reprogram myself to let my stomach sit naturally – no sucking in.
Do you hold your stomach in?
Most women are so heavily programmed to do this that they don’t even know they’re doing it.
Sucking it in has a huge impact on bloating, digestive health, weight, and skin.
Here’s the thing: When you hold your stomach in you create bloating and digestive issues because you’re literally compressing your organs and hindering them from doing their job.
Tight clothes have the same effect.
Sucking in and avoiding deep belly breaths (aka letting your stomach get as big as possible) engages your sympathetic nervous system and puts you into the fight or flight state. This is the same state your body’s in when there’s turbulence on an airplane and you’re scared you might crash, for example.
When this happens, your brain signals your body that it’s stressed, and in response your body focuses all its resources on keeping you alive.
Processes like digestion are deprioritized, making you stopped up, bloated, and gassy.
If you’re in the sympathetic state too often – aka holding your breath most of the time – extra fat will gather around your belly.
For example, if you sit at a desk all day holding your stomach in, trying to make sure your belly always looks slim and small, that means you’re low-key in the stressed state for 40+ hours a week.
WHOA
When I was sitting on the beach topless, meditating with my belly completely relaxed, this message came to me…
THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE, AND EVERYTHING TO FEEL
Now, you know I support aesthetic goals (read: weight loss, better skin) if that’s what you really want for yourself, but shifting into the above mindset actually makes it happen faster and with way more ease.
WHY?
Because when you shift your attention to how you feel rather than constantly thinking about how you look (like checking to make sure your clothes are perfectly adjusted and you look perfectly thin) you’re more tuned in to your body’s natural hunger signals and needs for water, rest, and exercise.
When you’re always thinking about how you look and how everyone around you looks, it’s easy to forget about your core needs and get swept up in the current of whatever’s going on around you.
You lose touch with your intuition around food and start letting outside messages influence what you eat and how you behave.
In any moment you can shift away from seeing and into feeling.
Put your phone down, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and just remember…
THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE, AND EVERYTHING TO FEEL
In our hyper-aesthetic world, this mantra is rebellious, and life-changing. Our society wants us to focus on how things look because then we’re more likely to feel we’re not good enough as we are and buy products and services to make us feel better.
Once you truly embody feeling over seeing, rather than just intellectualizing it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that you reach your weight loss and health goals quickly – but it won’t even matter that much anymore.
What will matter is how you feel, and how that translates to every part of your life. The way you show up in relationships and at work when you feel 100% at ease in your body and with food is magnetic.
Shifting your focus away from seeing and into feeling to see tangible results in your body and life is a key piece of my Ultimate Guide To Ditch Bloating Without Dieting.
We’ll reprogram the subconscious belief that we need to suck it in, keep it together, and look perfect in every moment.
Together we’ll shift into feeling so that we can be lighter, physically, mentally, and emotional. From there you’ll easily reach your aesthetic goals.
I love beauty, I love great aesthetics, and I love looking in the mirror and feeling sexy.
I have no shame.
But the aesthetic comes second.
Because if I don’t FEEL good in my body and if I’m disconnected from my core, I can’t function in the world in a positive way.
I can’t show up as my best self.
I can’t produce the work I’m here to do because I’m distracted by my belly and bloating and brain fog and heart palpitations and digestive stress and blah blah blah.
So I said f*ck that a while ago, and started shifting inward. It’s a daily practice, and we all need support with this.
I invite you to join me on my mission to feel more and see less – it’s pretty fun to feel AND look amazing, for yourself.
Are you on board? Comment YES below if you are. 🙂
Much love,
Lula