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Whether desire for beauty leads you to an inner or and external pursuit, one thing is clear. A blind-spot in our consideration for how we treat ourselves on a daily basis can make or break our success in either. As if you haven’t noticed, life has gotten pretty harsh. And not just globally or fiscally... Look at a typical morning in America. It starts with a jarring alarm clock (pumping stress hormones through our veins) and chlorinated showers, where we lather up with stripping detergents and petrochemicals (stripping our skin and compromising our body ecology). Once in front of the mirror, we might even pass a little harsh self-judgment before we brush our teeth with typical fluoride toothpaste (containing ingredients long known to cause canker sores and myriad health risks). Then we gargle dutifully (a full minute like the commercial says!) with a stinging, alcohol-laden mouthwash (linked to dry mouth, which increases tooth decay), apply paraben-laden deodorant (linked with, but not yet proven to cause breast cancer) to freshly-shaven underarms and coal tar-derived makeup (don’t ask) to freshly-exfoliated skin. With a spritz of great-smelling neurotoxins and carcinogens (found in several famous perfumes), we hit the kitchen for our blood-sugar-spiking juice and cortisol-spiking coffee. As we sit down with our newspaper to dwell on the “important” things, we think: ‘Ahhh, the most relaxing part of my day’ as our bodies reel and shudder at what awaits us when we go out the door…
What often awaits are skipped meals, commando fitness trainers and lunch hour peels to show our body who’s boss. Or the two o’clock sugar or caffeine assault as we ignore our screaming body chemistry (which we think is just in our heads). We blame too many calories and too little exercise for our figure flaws.
It Wasn't Supposed to Be This Way
What I’m about to tell you will anger the diet, fitness, and drug “police.” And the former food-addicted and exercise-driven woman I was would never have believed it if I hadn’t been forced to by a health crisis: Today’s bull-doze-your-body approach to hygiene, “health” and beauty won’t fix your health or your skin, and guarantees you eternal struggles with food, your weight and your skin, while forever distracting you from the real solutions, as the real problems worsen (conveniently requiring more quick-fixes).
After a decade of temporary “success” (and ultimate failure) at pursuits that required willpower or harsh regimens, I stumbled upon answers that caused no guilt trips, suffering, set-backs or new problems. And they transformed my shape, my skin and my spirit beyond recognition, and beyond what any conventional advice ever could. The only hard work was the decade of suffering I endured before stumbling on these answers. Unfortunately, it took me an “incurable” health crisis to finally consider them. But you needn’t wait for yours.
If you find yourself saying “My doctor has me taking this” or “my trainer has me doing that,” stop yourself. Only you have yourself doing those things. Too many of us give up our vitality and beauty by forfeiting our roles as self-cultivators and succumbing to marketing lures to let others “maintain” us by appointment. Only we live with ourselves twenty-four hours a day, making seemingly unimportant (yet truly life-changing) split-second decisions that impact our health when no one else is around. Only we can catch those valuable clues in the mirror before we cover them with our makeup and wardrobe techniques. And only we can see and feel the subtle changes in our bodies in response to our daily choices.
Only you have created what you are today, and only you can create what you’ll become tomorrow. Looking back on my eating disorder and the health crisis that forced me to try alternatives I didn’t even believe in (and thank God I did), it struck me how many of the destructive choices I’d made throughout my former “denatured life” were defined by industries via “expert” recommendations! And I would not be here if I had waited for permission from those same “authorities” to save my own life and recover my physical potential with choices they weren’t presenting. But because I had created what I’d become by twenty-four (a poster child for today’s scary health statistics), I could also totally re-create myself by thirty. And do it again by the time I reached forty.
No one ever faulted an artist or chef for demanding only the finest raw materials and tools to create with. We should all become such passionate artisans and connoisseurs of ourselves.
Reconnect With Your Better Instincts
Don’t wait for permission to take the lead (it will never come). Hand-pick your own team of professionals and resources to inform your ultimate decisions based on good (not just industry-promoting) science, and your own gut instincts. If your doctor doesn’t think for himself, discourages you from asking questions, brandishes the prescription pad too readily, or generalizes about “alternatives” (a dead giveaway of ignorance), find a new one. Reject the over-simplified, no pain, no gain approach to weight loss and fitness and the “stripping, zapping, peeling, then painting” approach to beauty (which leaves skin robbed of its inherent anti-aging functions). Let go of industry-serving mindsets, harsh products and procedures, and the idea that you must ultimately suffer or resort to “extreme makeover” measures in order to dramatically improve how you look and feel.
Convert self-trivializing goals such as “lose weight,” or “do something about my wrinkles,” into smarter, health-focused goals such as “stabilize my blood sugar,” “reduce inflammation in my body,” or “look into all my options for my hormone situation.” Stop counting calories and start considering your chemistry (trust me, chemistry counts much more). Expand your knowledge beyond the standard sources. Most important, seek true solutions instead of short-sited band-aids. I encourage you, and everyone you love, to rise above the merry-go-round of problem-causing solutions. Once you do, you’ll look back with amazement at how you once lived. And you’ll take back untold time and money for life’s more meaningful pursuits. The result is something you’ll pass down through generations, in spirit, and in the flesh.
For more articles and updates from Kat James, be sure to subscribe to her free quarterly newsletter at www.informedbeauty.com. For information on her acclaimed Total Transformation® Oceanfront programs, call 877-54-TOTAL(86825).
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