Did I hear someone say they feel in need of a cleansing body-make-over? Are you ready to exchange cold-weather heaviness with feel-good, spring-in-your-step lightness and glow? Is all the blossoming around you making you want to refresh, beautify and rejuvenate every slowed-down winter cell in your precious body too? However, you don’t know where to start? And are tired of following some restrictive detoxifying programs that leave you feeling more tired, ravenous and anything but the best version of your gorgeous self? I hear you. How about making the following simple swaps in your life and giving your whole body, mind and soul a self-nurturing, loving ‘unleash-the-inner-goddess-within-you’ overhaul?
- Swap body negativity, restriction, dieting and being at war with yourself with love and compassion towards the whole YOU
I know easier said than done. However, I invite you to make a promise to yourself to not say anything belittling, mean or down-putting towards yourself or your body for 7 days. Instead, whenever a not so nice thought pops into your head like ‘I am stupid’, ‘My thighs are too fat’, ‘I hate my belly’, or ‘I can’t do this’ replace it with a more loving one. ‘I am stupid’ then turns into ‘I did my best’, ‘my thighs are too big’ can become ‘I thank you thighs for being so strong’, ‘I hate my belly’ can change into ‘thank you belly for being a home for my children, absorbing vital nutrients and keeping some of my vital organs safe’ and ‘I can’t do this’ will be ‘ let’s try again’. Words are incredibly powerful. Whatever you tell yourself, you start to believe and act accordingly. Clearly nurturing yourself with love and positivity will invite more goodness, beauty and life-changing opportunities. Hating yourself or treating yourself in such manner, on the other hand, will hardly foster in-and outside calm, blossoming and glow. We are so very aware of all the tender love our children or pets need to fully thrive, yet, we are pretty bad at extending that same care and nurture to our very selves. Here is your cleansing challenge: over the next week, treat yourself like your best friend with utmost gentleness, kindness and respect and watch your world change.
- Swap low nutrient foods with beautifying, nurturing, up-your-glow wholefoods
For the next week commit to nourishing and beautifying your body, mind and soul with everything you do. This involves not putting anything into your digestive system that could cause any form of inflammation or have any negative effects on the miracle that is YOU. By saying ‘no’ to foods like refined white grains, meat, dairy, gluten and added sugars, you are giving your body the opportunity to focus all its energy on thriving. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going back in time and in a very old-fashioned manner, start consuming an abundance of fresh produce and wholefoods such a vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, and cold pressed mono-unsaturated oils such as virgin olive oil. Would you join in if I told you that it is as simple as cooking up a healthy-licious, hormone-rebalancing storm? Would you feel excited about prepping your meals in as many different, bright colours of the rainbow as you can find in your fresh produce section? Would you be curious to taste how wonderfully delicious healthy can taste while re-setting your blood sugar levels and keeping you full for longer without making you feel stuffed? Are you ready to take a great tasting leap of faith and allow all of those many micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other phyto-nutrients, to do their incredibly up-your-glow, and feel-amazing magic? All without weighing you down. Awesome, go for it, eating yourself beautiful can truly be that simple.
- Swap alcohol with cleansing water and delicious herbal teas
Over the next week, would you be similarly open to let go of any habits that are not supportive of uncovering your best, most glowing, refreshed and energised version of yourself? Such as adding alcohol into your weekends or evenings more often than not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you can’t enjoy your lovely glass of wine at all anymore. I am rather suggesting to consciously not do so over the next few days and observe what happens. A glass of wine can be wonderful if it is drunken with mindful love and given to a body that is strong, refreshed and feels radiant. Lots of glasses of booze filled into a body out of mindless habit without celebrative compassion will rather add to you feeling heavy, gloomy and more imbalanced. Once you break your alcohol habit, you will quickly notice how your energy levels are delightfully increasing, and how any sense of heaviness will decrease and bit by bit totally let go of your body, mind and soul. The more willing you are to add lots of unsugared, rehydrating, cell-rejuvenating filtered water, herbal teas and cold pressed green vegetable-based drinks into your spring days, the quicker you will be flushing out any toxic residues. When is the last time you felt so good you wanted to dance through your kitchen, skip around the house or run up and down the next flight of stairs? You better mentally prepare yourself for the copious amounts of refreshed exuberance and vitality coming your way.
- Swap stressing and rushing with calm mindfulness
No matter how much we rush, hurry, stress and pack into our crazy days – fact is we will never have enough time. Our days will always be only 24 hours long. And yes, ideally, we will have to make time in those 24 hours for sleep too. So, how about starting to fill our days with more calm mindfulness instead of rushed madness. Truth is, still, quiet focus will help you to get much more done than any frantic racing around ever will. Can I please ask you to trust me on the following and plan 10 minutes of meditation of any kind into your day over the next week or so? Your way of meditating can take many different forms: walking, dancing, sitting, lying, having the legs up the wall, doing yoga – all of these are amazing if done with mindful tranquillity. Whatever it is that makes you focus on your breath, do this for 10 minutes every day. Whenever you feel your mind wander off, come back to that same breath again. Again, and again and again. For 10 minutes. Every day. For 7 days. And see some real inner magic of blissful calm happen.
- Swap inactivity with joyful movement
In a kind and loving way that is. Let go of any self-punishing thoughts or behaviours and fill your happy-licious moving space with cheerful action-bliss. Can you remember which forms of movement you enjoyed as a child most? Can you think back to that sense of freedom and empowerment that skipping, hopping, running, dancing, backflipping, squatting, leaping, doing splits or propelling your body sideways brought to you back then? Can you still sense the happiness and joy of it? I invite you to pick one or two forms of such joyful movement which you commit to doing every day for the next 7 days. Start where you are at and use what you have. Walking for example, in my humble opinion, is one of the most underestimated and under-utilised forms of exercise ever. So is yoga – even though I prefer to refer to yoga more as a mind, body, soul awakening instead of using the word exercise for it. And no, neither walking nor yoga is just for the elderly. Both have far reaching scientifically proven health benefits. In addition, they are gentle to your joints, you can do them anywhere, without any high-tech or expensive equipment and you don’t need to be particularly good or advanced at them when starting off. Of course, by all means, if you prefer to challenge yourself more and move with more impact and intensity, do so. Just make sure this is sustainable for you and you are not running out of your merry steam too quickly or even start dreading your exercise rendezvous with yourself. Whatever you decide to do, the most important part of it is that you love it and can keep doing – and wanting to do it – without hurting yourself or feeling resentful about it. Fact is our bodies are absolutely amazing and your goal here is to empower yourself and discover your delicious strength, fitness, health and beauty from a new very self-compassionate angle!
Here you have got it – your total spring body make-over. Maybe it looks a little different than what you were expecting. But trust me it is the most successful one you will ever do. This spring do not make your detox about hating yourself thin, restricting calories or being mean to your body, mind and soul in any other way. So, what do you think? Are you with me? Are you ready to join me on your new adventure? Are you curious about uncovering a whole new YOU in this tenderly self-loving, joyful and positive spring make-over? Out-glowing yourself really starts with prioritising your own health, happiness and balance in a compassionate way. Here is to making room for gentle, self-accepting radiance and letting go of anything that will stand in the way of it. Awww…. spring-cleansing vibes, I love you like this!!!!!