Yesterday I went to the Free to Be conference held by HTB down in London.  It was fantastic. There were over 800 women who came together to celebrate through praise and worship and to learn and grow together.  This was a first for me - going to the beautiful Holy Trinity Brompton Church. Inside it was gorgeous with beautiful high ceilings, stain glass windows and fantastic architecture.  More amazing than all of that though, was the beautiful singing of 800 woman. Now that was truly amazing!


 Just before I get onto those bullets, the icing on the cake for the day was finding a delicious Lebanese restaurant in which we enjoyed a delicious lunch.



Now onto the all important highlights of the discussions:

♥ The pain of staying the same hurts more than the pain of change.

♥ We cover the things that we are most ashamed about, but God calls us to come out from behind it and into the light.

♥ Revelation is not transformation.

♥ A stronghold is faulty thinking which blocks me from God's best for my life.Truth and trust dispels the faulty thoughts. 

♥ Which ever coping mechanism you use in your life is the coping mechanism that you have CHOSEN to use!

♥ It is time to let go and be released from bondage. 

♥ Worry does not need to cripple you or your day.

♥ What we suppress has power over us so we need to bring them into the light.

♥ Balance is important to our health, body, spirit and well-being.

♥ You have a biological disposition to believe your worries are real.

♥ We need to face the fear and do life anyway!

♥ Fear is false evidence appearing real.

♥ We need to learn to tolerate some uncertainty in our lives.

♥ False beliefs need to be replaced by God's beliefs.

♥ If you change something, you change!

♥ God has given me the ability to respond well to bad things in my life.

♥ We can choose to produce a pearl or die. Things start on the inside.

♥ When you choose to Rise Up you change your perspective.

♥ Rising up changes your options.

♥ What you tolerate you will never change!

♥ Forgiveness is always about me.

♥ Who sits are your table is by invitation only.

♥ God changes me and I change my life.

I am on a journey. A journey in which I am learning to love myself. A journey in which I find a way to be kinder to myself, in which my own opinions and desires matter more to me than those of the people around me and where comparison is banished from my thoughts and my life. I don't get this right most days and I probably don't even get it right most hours.....but I'm trying. I'm paying closer attention to the language that I am using when I talk to myself and I am gently reminding myself that I need to love me.

I have found that for me, one of the easiest ways to stop loving myself, is to let those negative and destructive thoughts run wild in my head.  Or even worse, to actually agree with them and make them a part of who I am.  I have realised that I am less loving towards myself when I haven't had enough sleep and when I find myself overwhelmed by situations or emotions.  I find it difficult to always put my emotions into words and if I do find a way to do that, I don't really know what to do with them once I have "identified" them. 

Making the conscious and repetitive decision to love myself, to be kinder to myself takes effort and patience...it's so easy to let auto pilot take over.

When I have been finding myself in these situations I have been asking myself the following questions;
"Am I being honest and real with myself?"
"Are my expectations in check?"
"Am I paying too much attention to what others want me to do?"

And from answering these questions properly I have learnt that loving myself involves;

• Honesty and Action. One without the other is a waste!
• Saying yes to new opportunities and no to the things that don't feel right to you or that don't fit into your own plan
• Not wasting time on things that are not important and that don’t help to open the door to loving yourself more
• Its about having and living your own dreams and not dreams of others or dreams that you feel you SHOULD have
• Being aware of how your body is reacting to things....that butterfly in your stomach, the tension in your shoulders - it's all trying to tell you something
• Standing up for yourself - especially when it's to close friends and family....or your boss.
• Turning off the TV and spending time doing something

This is only the start of my self love journey and I hope that you follow along with me...or perhaps even start your own.  Do you have things that you do to help you love yourself more?  Please do share!

I have a lot of things on my plate this year. One of my main goals this year is to lose weight, and a substantial amount at that. In order to just do that, I need more time in the gym, exercising in the outdoors, time at home creating food menus, cooking healthy dinners and of course shopping for all that healthy food.  Just this and working a full time job would be more than enough to take up my time.....however.....I am also currently studying for a Bsc Honours Psychology Degree, working 50 hour weeks in a highly stressful job that if i am honest i don't really enjoy. I have also signed up to two year long projects, which i love and enjoy doing, and I am working on growing in my daily faith. 

With all this commitment, I find that in order to save my sanity and often my energy, I am having to say no to people and things. No I will not continue to work 50 hour weeks, i need to find a balance. No, I have an assignment due and I wont be able to go out with friends. No, I haven't had any time to sit back and relax, to nurture my soul, so I need to say no to the books and yes to taking some time to rejuvenate myself.

This has not been an easy thing for me to do, but I have found that by remembering what is important to me, it has given me the courage to say No. 

All of this can be overwhelming.  All of this can be distracting.  All of this can get you down but all of this can also be rewarding.

So while I am constantly playing a game of balance, I want to challenge you take a look at what is important to you and then stick with it, even if it means saying no to requests from others.

Obsessing over…
the number of sleeps until I go on my Iceland trip!!
Working on…
a million and one projects at the moment. I have my Scrapbook Life Journal Project as well as Move More Eat Well Project. I am currently going a book study of The Confident Heart with Renee Swoope and I have just started my Biological Psychology Course. 

These are my legs and i have started to like them. It may take me a while to really love them but i am definitely at least one step further than what i was last week.  As part of the information i have come across during my research into eating disorders and disordered eating, I have found that low self images go hand in hand with the disorder.....and in my case, that is very true. 

I came across this list of 20 ways to love your body and wanted to share it.  Some of them include making furst lists for specific things which i may do a little later on. 

Enjoy and i hope that this helps you too:

1. Think of your body as the vehicle to your dreams. Honor it. Respect it. Fuel it.


2. Create a list of all the things your body lets you do. Read it and add to it often.

3. Become aware of what your body can do each day. Remember it is the instrument of your life, not just an ornament.

4. Create a list of people you admire: people who have contributed to your life, your community, or the world. Consider whether their appearance was important to their success and accomplishments.

5. Walk with your head held high, supported by pride and confidence in yourself as a person.

6. Don’t let your weight or shape keep you from activities that you enjoy.

7. Wear comfortable clothes that you like, that express your personal style, and that feel good to your body.

8. Count your blessings, not your blemishes.

9. Think about all the things you could accomplish with the time and energy you currently spend worrying about your body and appearance. Try one!

10. Be your body’s friend and supporter, not its enemy.

11. Consider this: your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, your liver every six weeks, and your skeleton every three months. Your body is extraordinary--begin to respect and appreciate it.

12. Every morning when you wake up, thank your body for resting and rejuvenating itself so you can enjoy the day.

13. Every evening when you go to bed, tell your body how much you appreciate what it has allowed you to do throughout the day.

14. Find a method of exercise that you enjoy and do it regularly. Don’t exercise to lose weight or to fight your body. Do it to make your body healthy and strong and because it makes you feel good. Exercise for the Three F’s: Fun, Fitness, and Friendship.

15. Think back to a time in your life when you felt good about your body. Tell yourself you can feel like that again, even in this body at this age.

16. Keep a list of 10 positive things about yourself--without mentioning your appearance. Add to it!

17. Put a sign on each of your mirrors saying, “I’m beautiful inside and out.”

18. Choose to find the beauty in the world and in yourself.

19. Start saying to yourself, “Life is too short to waste my time hating my body this way.”

20. Eat when you are hungry. Rest when you are tired. Surround yourself with people that remind you of your inner strength and beauty.

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott