Welcome to a brand new decade! If you’re like the majority of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, your top resolution probably has to do with your appearance. You may have resolved to “get fit” or “lose weight.”

It’s understandable that the majority of women have issues when it comes to their appearance. We’re bombarded almost from birth with messages about what our bodies should be; we can’t turn on a television, surf the internet, or get through a checkout line without seeing ads intended to make us feel dissatisfied with the way we look—so that we will be inspired to buy the products and services that will “fix” us, of course.

When we hear and use phrases such as, “the battle of the bulge,” “fighting those extra pounds,” and “blasting that fat,” we are steeped in bellicose language that makes an enemy of our own bodies! When our daughters hear us use this language, they begin to think of their bodies negatively as well—girls as young as five or six talk of going on diets.

This month, we’re going to get vulnerable and look at our relationship with our bodies. I’ve already kicked off our daily prompts for January; I’m calling it the Love Your Body Project. Each day, check out DoYouMind.life on Facebook or Instagram for your body-positive reminder for the day. January 1st was “Smile at yourself in the mirror.” Simple enough—but did you do it? I encourage you to try out each small exercise this month, and then post on social media what you are doing to love your body right now, as it is. Please remember to use #loveyourbodyproject and tag doyoumind.life!

I’m looking forward to sharing two book reviews this month. The first is The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor. The second is a children’s book entitled Your Body is Awesome: Body Respect for Children by Sigrun Danielsdottir. I hope you’ll get your own copy of both of these books so that we can have some conversation around them!

I’m also kicking off biweekly podcasts! I have enjoyed talking with podcast guests each month—I get so much from each conversation! This year I will release a new podcast every other Saturday at 8:00 a.m. CST. The first one for 2020 is my conversation with Gwenda Sharp, an occupational therapist and Jazzercise instructor and consultant. She and I had a wonderful chat about body image and joyful movement

As I usually do, I’ll share research that I’ve done on the theme, and of course, I’ll share some personal stories. I’ll get vulnerable and describe some of my own hang-ups with my body, the stories that I’ve told myself, and steps in my journey of healing. I hope that you will share some of your stories as well, because it’s in the sharing of our stories that we help one another to overcome our feelings of not-enoughness.

And now, about that image at the top of this article…”New Year New You” may be motivating to some, but I have a visceral reaction to it: I don’t want to be a brand-new person, thank you very much! I want to be more fully what I already am. I want to embrace my body for all that it does for me. I want to stop trying so hard at “becoming” and start enjoying “being.” So I will reframe: “New Year New You” can mean that I will commit to allowing my old patterns of thinking that keep me “stuck” to shift. I’ll be gentle with myself.

I hope you, Dear Reader, are enjoying the start of the New Year. Join me this month for the #loveyourbodyproject, and tune in to the podcasts.

Until next time,