"No Slamming the Body"

The title of this post comes from a guest speaker in my class this wed. She teaches at ISU and explained to us some of the studies she found on how we as LDS women see and need to see our body. I really want to share with you and other's about this lesson because I really do feel that it has been life changing.

She asked us these 3 questions today, that she called the 3 questions that Influence Body Image

1. How do I view myself in the mirror?
2. How do I perceive how other people see me?
3. How do I feel in my own body?

Now as a reader of my blog I would  like you to truly answer these questions, either to yourself in a journal however you want to do it.

Okay now that you have probably overly critiqued yourself I want you to think about this question and write your answer on a separate sheet of paper.

• What does God think about your body?

Now I want you to look at your first piece of paper with the three question and if none of them are positive, NONE... I want you to take that list and tare it up, burn it shred it. What you want to do is never say those things to yourself again! NEVER!

Now you might be saying well I don't know what God thinks about my body? Here is the simplest answer you will ever get..... Pray and ask!  Thats it.. I am a firm believer in prayer and I love the time I get to talk to my Heavenly Father because I get to really hear what he thinks and helps me solve problems in my life. So try it be patient and maybe ask him everyday to give you that extra boost!  

Now as a Latter-Day Saint we are taught some Doctrine about the body which is:

1. That we are created in the image of God
2. That our body is a gift from God
3. We have to have a body to return to our Heavenly Father
4. We should consider our bodies as a temple

Now with that knowledge "Do you or I have the RIGHT to call  our body fat"? When it is a gift from God? I never thought of that questions until our guest speaker asked us that very question.

Why do we get up and look at ourselves in the mirror and say all the mean things? Why do we say we are fat, ugly, have wrinkles, not good enough. When in fact Our very own Heavenly Father doesn't think that?

Through this last week I have learned that the media is training us for failure and wants us to never feel good enough so we will tweak, stab, cut, eat and do anything to be what the media wants us to be. The media is teaching us to worship our body and to do what ever it takes to have the "perfect" body, clothes, shoes, and everything else. When in fact there is no perfect person on this earth, I know shocker right.

Now with Doctrine of the church we are able to have a plan and direction on what to do but sometimes we miss associate Doctrine with Tradition.

An example the speaker used was her niece was in a textile class in college and her assignment was to go to church dressed in a non-LDS look.

Okay so lets talk about "the LDS look"
Not LDS: Tattoo's, more then one earring, and tight fitting clothes
that's usually what we associate with dress and grooming.
(Now I am not saying people can't have these and be in the church, but generally if you have grown up in the church and haven't done these.)

Her niece stayed within doctrinal standards but just had a pok-i-dot shirt and striped skirt. As she went to church where people in her ward new her and talked to her frequently ended up not talking to her and giving her weird stares the whole time. People treated her differently.

Now what does that have to do with the body? Well we go through life worrying so much about how we look, and how others look that we forget that the people around us are just like us. We face the same problems, we feel left out, we feel like we don't fit in. When in fact it is our own mind, what the media is feeding us, and Satan tempting us to feel these things.

If we woke up each day and said wow I look great my body is amazing. Our attitude would be completely different. We would be able to enjoy the life around us and also feel great about ourselves. We have to change our paradigm of how we see ourself to how does God see me.

Our bodies are amazing and do so much for us. The fact that our heart and lungs monitor on their own with out us having to tell it to is amazing. Our fingers, thumbs and eye brows are amazing and can do so much. So why do we slam it with all the negative words that only hurt ourself.

My challenge is for you to wake up every morning say a prayer asking Heavenly Father what he thinks about your body, because you would like to know.

Second I want you to look in the mirror and tell yourself your body is amazing and believe in it!  Look at how you feel that day.

Also if you have a friend that is complaining about his/her body tell her/him "No slamming the body" and explain to her/him that the body is amazing.

We all have imperfections but those imperfection should never define who we are as a person