“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” Norman Vincent Peale
I’ve been running lately. Lately meaning for the last couple of months. It’s brand new.
I’m not running away from things, like I used to. Not even running toward things. Actually, physically running.
I’ve always been fairly active, whether it was being on the dance team, lifting weights and doing cardio, taking aerobics classes, doing Zumba, or using the elliptical machine.
I honestly never thought I’d enjoy running.
I love it. LOVE IT.
In order to explain why, I’ll need to give you some back story.
When I was a little girl, my Dad was the workout king. He went from being a lanky, slim man to being built and buff. The kind of Dad boys would be scared of (and were). He went to the gym religiously. He became a personal trainer. He completely transformed how he engaged with his body.
Now you’d think that doing this could have transformed his confidence level. You’d think that his confidence would have skyrocketed. Right?
It didn’t. At least not any more than superficially.
And that makes sense.
The only change he made was superficial – his body.
He hadn’t changed the reason he wanted to change his body. That reason was insecurity. And that has nothing to do with body shape or size. That comes from within. So even though he changed his outer appearance, his inner world was the same, and he found more reasons in his outer world to be insecure (relationships, career, etc.).
When I was a freshman in high school I decided I wanted a different body. I decided that because I didn’t like my body. I was insecure. I was actually insecure about a lot of things, and I handled it by taking action that superficially handled the issue. I lost weight. Like, a shit ton of weight. I got better grades. As in, I went from mostly A’s and B’s to straight A’s. I went WAY overboard to compensate for the inner work I didn’t even know I needed to do.
All of that came from a place of hate and fear. I hated my body, so I changed it. I hated my academic status, so I changed it. I was so damn insecure with who I was that I altered my outer world.
We can all alter our outer worlds.
But unless we change our inner worlds first or at the same time, the outer world will just deliver more of the same shit, just in a different way.
The same goes for relationships. Unless you address the inner work, your outer world will always keep reflecting back to you the crap inside. The bullshit. The insane story you’ve been telling yourself for far too long.
And that’s why I love running.
I do it because I’m celebrating how strong my body is, not because I want to change my body.
I do it because I cherish the endurance my mind creates for my body. (Because, yes, it’s all about mind over matter.)
I do it because I LOVE my body, not because I’m trying to change it from a place of lack and insecurity.
That’s how we need to approach shifting our inner world so the outer world reflects what we truly want: from a place of loving ourselves enough to shift into a different experience.
Hate and fear keep you stuck. Confront them, move through them.
Come from a place of knowing how freaking worthy you are, and how much you deserve your own love.
With love and light,
What belief or thoughts would you need to shift in your inner world in order for your outer world to completely match? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.
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