The muscle you MUST strengthen to change your body

We all know that we’ve got to exercise our muscles to be fit, healthy and strong. And when we are trying to lose weight or change our bodies, we put a lot of emphasis on working these physical muscles – sometimes a little too much emphasis.

But there’s another muscle that is much more important to strengthen if you are to successfully release what’s no longer serving you, whether that’s unwanted weight; self judgement and criticism around your body; compulsive eating habits; or any other form of emotional or physical clutter. In fact, if you DON’T use it, you won’t LOSE it.

You see, unlike something you “do” once, forgiveness is a practice. Much like a physical muscle, it requires use, over and over, and the more you use it the stronger it becomes. And while I do know some people who have experienced a sense of complete forgiveness in a powerful instant, I usually experience it as more of a process, an ongoing commitment to re-forgiving. I know I am increasing my forgiveness fitness when I can look back and see that my feelings of pain around a certain person or situation are becoming fewer and farther between, until eventually they have faded away completely.

So what does forgiveness or the lack thereof have to do with eating and weight loss? Think of your physical body a storage container… When you carry resentment, anger, hurt, blame and shame, these emotions take up energetic space in your body, and what do you need to hold them but a bigger container.Or perhaps that stored energy takes on a life of its own and demands to be fed, leading to binge eating.

Another way to think of this is to view excess weight on your body (which is essentially unused calories) as stored energy for something, maybe even stored personal power. So where have you perhaps not exercised your power to forgive? Where have you neglected to digest and assimilate your emotions? In a way, this energy has nowhere to go but into your flesh.

A Course in Miracles teaches this affirmation, “Forgiveness offers me everything I want.” What this means is that every step you take toward forgiveness is actually carrying you one step closer to your ultimate dreams and happiness.

Look, I know it’s not always easy, especially when you’ve been hurt. And it can be even more challenging to forgive yourself. But no matter who or what the situation, it is in your highest good to release those burdens and begin to experience more lightness in your being. Then just watch and see where else lightness shows up in your life.

– Lewis B. Smedes

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