19

Day 19 has been back to normal.

I ran to yoga and had a great class.

Hot but not too hot, challenging but not too challenging. I felt strong and flexible and for the first time in months I didn’t wear full body covering clothes. I’ve been wearing full length leggings and a long top to practice in for quite some time, but I used to practice in shorts and a bra top back when I felt better about my physique. On the yoga retreat I went on in 2015 I felt really good about the way I looked, particularly by the end of the week of no alcohol, eating raw food every day and practicing 2 yoga classes a day.

I’ve been thinking a bit today about having body dysmorphia and the weight I put on through the drugs I was prescribed over the last year. I’ve particularly thought about how conditioned the human race is to focus on how people look, to feel bad about ourselves.

The billion pound industries of beauty magazines, makeup manufacturers, fashion  and fad-diet industries all capitalise on conditioning the thoughts of men and women to feel not good enough. Marketing and advertising agencies invest in telling us all that our worth is physical, that we must buy this or look like this, or do this to be popular or successful.

We are conditioned to not feel good enough so that we invest in these billion pound industries, yet it never really makes up feel good!

Over the last few years I have cleansed my life in many ways to try and be happier. I do not buy any magazines (except for New Scientist once in a while), and I am really trying to focus on how I feel to be a measure of my health and happiness – rather than how I look or how others perceive me.

This last 19 days of exercise has helped me to feel better. I feel less anxious, less depressed, less of an insomniac. I feel better physically, less heavy, less bloated. I know that I am losing weight without the scales to put a number on it.

The key thing is I am not doing this to lose weight. Yes, I needed to, and still do. But my primary motivator for my happy life project was to make a  better relationship with myself. Losing some weight is an added bonus. Being able to stand in a multi-sex hot yoga class, looking into full length mirrors for 60 minutes whilst moving my body and to not be ashamed is something I began to achieve today and it made me feel good.

I didn’t have my body fully covered up (Still the full length leggings, but with a bra top). I didn’t focus on all the wobbly bits and scars. I focussed on how strong and capable my body is and what a journey we have been on together. I thought how wonderful it is to have the ability to exercise every day for 19 days without injury. How blessed I am to be able to stand here at all. Then to top off these great feels I only went and kicked out my right leg fully in ‘standing head to knee’ pose, something I haven’t done for months. It was just my right leg, and it was for only about 10 seconds but it is such a big shift forwards in my practice. I’m super happy about this and going to bed very contented.

Thank you, more please.