#FridayFeels Enough Already 

Yesterday I shared a Facebook Live video in which I called BS on the multi-billion dollar diet & beauty industries. I see it Year-round, but most prominently just before summer: SHAPE UP. LOSE WEIGHT. LOOK YOUNGER. It’s the bombardment of media messaging that you aren’t good enough and need to be fixed. 
And that, my friends, is bullshit.

Diet doesn’t mean starving yourself, and exercise should always bless and support your body, not punish it. Food is meant for our enjoyment and pleasure as well as for our fuel. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. It’s the reason why Nature has supplied us with such a wide variety of tastes and textures and why master chefs, bakers & home cooks alike use their creativity to make good food so appealing. 
Creating balance and joy in our lives is so much easier when we release ourselves from the lie that our bodies are only perfect if they have no fat, and the lie that fat bodies are ugly bodies. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes naturally, and deserve to be celebrated as the magnificent temples of the soul that they are. To perpetuate the lie to our daughters and sons that their bodies aren’t good enough? That is not okay. 

Now, to be clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, feel your best, be happy in your body and comfortable in your own skin. I mean, I love having my monthly facials, and I always feel better after moving my body, and I like the way my face looks with my brows accented and a nice cat-eye. A perfect red lipstick? Love it. Makeup and beauty creams (cruelty free ones, please) can be great for a boost of confidence, and should be enjoyed to enhance your natural beauty. But when we become so conditioned as to refuse to be seen barefaced? To believe that we are just too ugly in our natural state? To buy into the lie that the size of our bellies and thighs determines whether or not we can wear a swimsuit if we damn well want to? That’s bullshit. I enjoy my “maintenance days” and love to feel pretty, but I’m finally clear on the fact that I don’t need those external things to be beautiful. And neither do you! You are already enough!