2018: Exactly You

By Morgan Burke

With the New Year upon us, many women feel pressure to be better. Much of the time this “better” is attached to our physical appearance. Losing weight and tightening our bodies tend to be at the top of many resolution lists. So we join gyms, we buy diet books, we tell ourselves, “This is the year that I’m going to look my best, and therefore, be my best.”

The diet industry in America makes upwards of 60 billion dollars every year.  By telling us we need to lose weight and tone-up, their marketing experts make us believe we aren’t enough unless something drastic changes in our physical appearance.  We feel like there’s something innately wrong with us because we don’t look the way we are “supposed to.” So we spend, with the promise that we’ll be our best ever!

But what if we challenged these resolutions and anything else that suggests we aren’t enough? What if we looked at ourselves and chose to love what we see? What if we met our bodies where we are and told ourselves we’re going to honor ourselves in a whole new way?  How about no more being angry with ourselves for wanting that cookie or not feeling up for taking the stairs that one day?

At Alive and Well Women, we are challenging the cultural norms that tell us to starve ourselves so we can be the size we’re told we’re “supposed to be”. Instead, we are going to honor our bodies with fresh vegetables and juicy fruit and delectable whole grains. And savor every bite of that chocolate chip cookie we decide to eat. If we have a sore ankle and decide to walk rather than run, we’re proud of listening to our bodies and still getting out of the house to move and enjoy what we can do. Our bodies will tell us what they need, if only we listen. Let’s stop the dieting resolutions, and have a new type of resolution: to work with our bodies, just as we are, and find our own unique life-giving rhythms of eating, moving, resting and recreating. Sounds like the type of 2018 I’d like to live.

It’s 2018 – A brand new year to appreciate exactly who you are. Alive and Well Women is dedicated to helping women meet ourselves  exactly where we are and appreciating what and who we see if we choose to look in the mirror!   

If that sounds like something you’d like to include in your year, our Contemplative Path to Health and Well-Being begins in February.  We’d love to have you join us, exactly as you are!  

Click here for the details!

Morgan Burke is an accountant, as well as a teaching assistant in the psychology program at Sierra Nevada College.  Following her passion to promote body positivity in women and girls, as well as lifting up women in our successes and failures, she launched her blog Bosswomyn.com. Morgan deeply values her friends and family, and feels fulfilled nurturing those relationships.  Currently, her favorite activities include exploring the outdoors, drumming, golfing, eating, and reading.  She hopes to continue learning and growing with, and from, people through healthy, positive interactions.