I recently began gaining weight for the first time in years. Exercise and dieting did nothing to help. I was not sure what to do next. I decided to contact my naturopath Cheryl Townsley. Cheryl is an amazing Christian woman and health care provider. Over the last few years, with her help I have come off 20 prescription pills a day, and have gone from on average 10 migraines a month to 1 or 2. Cheryl recommended her Inflammation Breakthrough Program. As part of this program, I have access to over 50 helpful videos. These videos cover everything from what to eat, how to reduce inflammation, what movements can help, and how to treat myself better.

Cheryl has a series of videos about how to overcome abuse. One video called Self-Abuse is especially insightful. I received permission from Cheryl to share the video on this blog. It lasts about ten minutes and is worth listening to. For those of you who don’t have the time, I will summarize it here.

Cheryl says that we often treat ourselves worse than we treat others in our lives. We judge and criticize our bodies, and put ourselves down. When we do this, our judgements stand as evidence that we are not acceptable and are not enough. We begin to believe we have no value. Why do we do this? It could be because of the trauma we have experienced in our lives.

This negative belief about ourselves impacts our health, our weight, our work and our relationships. Tweet This

This causes our brains to no longer be able to hear what our body is telling us because our body reflects what goes on in our minds and souls. This is part of the reason we live with physical pain and weakness and why we carry extra weight.

This made so much sense to me. I know I am not the only one who does all the right things, eating well and exercising, and cannot lose those extra pounds. Cheryl gives several pointers for overcoming our self-abuse. She shares how to:

  1. Understand what our bodies are trying to tell us.
  2. Accept ourselves and our bodies as they are.
  3. Prevent our “stress buckets” from filling up. (An overflowing stress bucket causes us to gain weight and be in pain.)
  4. Forgive ourselves for judging ourselves.
  5. Look for what we can celebrate about our lives and our progress. If we don’t celebrate our small steps forward, we lose the progress we’ve obtained.
  6. Get safe people to help us stop our self-abuse.

When we begin seeing our strengths instead of only our weaknesses, we begin to see our value. Our value is not dependent on our actions. When we can see our value we can say, “NO” to our self-abuse and begin taking baby steps toward health and peace of mind.

Question: Do you treat yourself negatively?

God values every human. We are all made in his image (Genesis 1:26). Psalm 139:13-14 says:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

Lord, I pray that we will begin to see our inherent worth, and learn to treat ourselves better. Amen

Bless you all today,

Caroline