How to Stop Air Brushing Your Life

Hello Lovable DIVA You,

I had an epiphany the other day. I belong to Andrea Albright’s Trim Tribe Fitness TV and periodically we do 28 Challenges. I had begun a challenge right before I had some issues with my neck (a topic for a separate blog post). So the first week I was all systems go and then I got derailed due to the lack of movement and mobility from the pain my body was expressing through my neck.

I still finished the challenge yet it was with a bit less of the vip and vigor I had started it with.

Some of the other ladies had decided that they were going to do another challenge, as they were feeling so good from the first one, so I joined them.

I was all “YES!!!!! This is going to be great, can’t wait to get started”.

I decided that I was going to dedicate the 28 days to have some heart to heart conversations with my body to see why I was struggling to get over a hump with my fitness goals. I have indeed been having those heart to hearts and am in the process of working through what is surfacing.

Yet, although, I have been having these “good talks” with my body I have found that I am still not quite back to my normal routine with eating, fun ing out (aka workouts), meditating, etc.

So over the weekend I had this great idea that I would give myself a “Do Over” and RE Officially start the challenge on Monday.  My husband and I were going to head to Pittsburgh for a concert on Sunday and I knew I was not going to be eating the healthiest while we were there, on top of the fact that I had already indulged in some cocktails and food that is not in my normal protocol because I was in vacation mode.

Then it hit me.

No! This is how I showed up for the Challenge. I am not perfect.  It made me think of all of the pictures of models and celebrities that get air brushed. All of the times we retake a picture because it’s not at the right angle. We try to manipulate and control what we let other people see. We look, act and be with rules, conditions and expectations limiting us.

It is our own version of walking around with an internal air brush that we spray over all of these times and moments of ourselves and of our lives that we do not feel are perfect.

We do it all of the time to protect ourselves from being hurt by others, from hiding what we feel embarrassed and ashamed about. The reality of it is that we are simply being judgmental and critical of ourselves when we do it.

We hurt ourselves and break our own hearts whenever we tell a part of our self that there is something wrong with them as they are in this very moment.

Two of my 5 Key Principles of Living a Divine Inspired Vibrant Alive LIFE are Making Peace With Your Life and Loving Yourself In Each and Every Moment. We can’t do either of those when we are in the midst of air brushing the parts of ourselves and our lives that we don’t feel meet whatever rule, condition or expectation we are putting on them.

The easiest way to stop air brushing our lives is to simple be honest with ourselves and about ourselves.

Life is messy.  Life is beautiful.  So are we.

My idea of perfection is to keep showing up as myself in every moment knowing that every day is going to look a little or a lot different.

It is exhausting and takes too much energy to do it any other way.

It is time we put our internal air brushes down and let the powerfully messy and beautiful women we are shine through.

I love YOU!!!
Cathy

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