After 25 years of dieting the verdict is in…

I cannot remember a time until recently that I felt comfortable in my body.  My whole life I have shied away from my femininity and instead harshly focused on my weight.  I was in grade 8, just 12 years old, when I went on my first diet – and I have been on a version of that diet on and off for 25 years.  How does that quote go?  The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results?…nice.

 

VenusBoticelli2This past January I began to virtually connect with a bunch of fabulous women doing some amazing work in the realm of what I call feminine empowerment.

I define this as the ability to connect with one’s innate feminine nature, our Yin energy.

Not FEMALE empowerment, and not FEMINISM – but specifically feminine empowerment.

This is our ability to be deeply receptive, intuitive, sensual, nurturing and connected to our body.

For a woman, true courage and strength comes from a place of softness and receptivity, not from being harsh and aggressive.

 

I grew up in a ‘stiff upper lip’ fashion, hold your emotions back for fear of being weak.  I felt unsafe in my female body, especially when it generated unwanted attention.  So I developed a way to interact with the world where I seemed to be confident, strong and brave.  But in order for me to operate in this fashion, I had to deeply DIS-connect from my body and my feminine nature. I joined the yang dominant forces of our culture and shut down.  But emotions need to go somewhere, so I suppressed them with anger and food, which led to my life of chronic dieting and hating my body and always feeling fat, regardless of the number on the scale.

As a prenatal yoga teacher, I help expectant mothers to deeply connect with the innate wisdom of their bodies and their female power as a creative being.  So the messaging coming from this group of feminine empowerment goddesses fell in alignment with my beliefs, but the ironic thing was that I was still struggling to apply it to myself in my everyday life.

One of the women I discovered in January is Sarah Jenks, creator of LiveMore WeighLess – who has since become my fabulous mentor and coach.

(This is Sarah)
(This is Sarah)

She is the epitome of feminine empowerment – she encourages her clients to nurture their bodies, to experience pleasure and fun and to bring out our inner softness and beauty as a means to losing weight and creating an amazing life.  She helps us truly indulge in what it means to be a feminine being.  At the heart of her work is the search for emotional freedom from food and a release from what she calls ‘body jail’.  When I found out about her LiveMore WeighLess program I immediately signed up for it – THREE months before it even began!

Until signing up with Sarah my wardrobe consisted of black Lululemon gear and a few other choice pieces in shades of gray and eggplant.  I was dressing this way because I was WAITING to lose weight before I could go shopping for nice clothes.  I wasn’t participating in some great activities, like dance and going out with friends, because I was WAITING until I was rid of my extra ‘baby’ weight.  I was playing small and not having a whole lot of fun doing so.

I was tired of hiding out, I was tired of holding back and I was tired of counting calories in and calories out.  I was tired of being angry, uncomfortable and disconnected. BLECH.

Sarah’s approach for reconnecting with my body is just what I needed – she made it safe for me to explore my femininity in a different way.  She helped me to make peace with my very feminine and curvy figure.  She taught me to bring mindfulness to my connection with nourishment – for my body and my soul.  I learned new ways to handle my emotions and channel them constructively.

She believes that a lot of us use food to make ourselves feel better.  Eating keeps us entertained, comfortable, relaxed and loved – but only for a second until our anxiety or boredom or anger or whatever comes back and we’re left with a bloated tummy and lumpy thighs. You know the feeling.

On top of that, many of us are waiting for our lives to begin when we’re thin, so our daily routines leave much to be desired which further drives up our cravings.

So my results?  A kick-ass new wardrobe that I feel amazing in, my scale in the garbage can and more fun and freedom in my life.  I feel vibrant and beautiful and at peace with how and what I eat and I feel reconnected with my beautiful and wise body.  I have embraced my femininity and feel the power of that beautiful, receptive force.

Because at the end of the day, it isn’t about the number on the scale, it is about how I feel in my own skin, how I feel about myself and how I process my emotions.

Oh and people are telling me all the time how great I look – radiant and beautiful (that is the inside shining out my lovelies).

Sarah’s created an easy to follow and incredibly fun Live More Weigh Less 28-Day Challenge designed to get you you in touch with your femininity and your body and to get you out of the diet/binge cycle by creating a fun, meaningful and romantic life.  And it is FREE.  You can click here to  sign up for the challenge http://lmwlchallenge.com/?orid=446&opid=3.

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I have already signed up and I am so looking forward to this challenge.  Will you join me??

 

 

 

 

Let’s celebrate being women, let’s celebrate our ability to feel deeply and nurture, let’s harness our female ability to be powerful creative beings.  And let’s put down our obsession with weight and get back to what really matters, like hanging with the people we love, taking care of ourselves, feeling connected with our bodies and having a ton of fun.  The icing on the cake is that focusing on these areas helps us to naturally shed that extra weight.

In the comments below I want you to dish it – what is your relationship to your body and femininity?  Tell me – will you join me for this irresistibly fun challenge?

Here’s to a life you love and feminine empowerment!

Maria 🙂

 


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Meet Maria

My vision is to help you be YOU in the truest sense of the word. I will help you to break the patterns and stories that keep you imprisoned in your smallness and instead create the story that is aligned with your heart + truth.
We do this by reconnecting you with the source of your power: you inner Wisdom-Keeper. This is where you open to and trust your intuition. This is where you can hear your inner voice and discern from a place of knowing. This is the place where you co-create with the divine to create your own heaven AS earth.
And one by one as we awaken and find our own liberation, we also strengthen and heal the collective, empowering and elevating humanity.
I invite you to step into my world of possibility and explore how we can work together to make the deep lasting shifts you desire in your life.
© Maria Kurylo – 2021
Photography by Patrycja Maksalon
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