5 Years ago I certified as a group fitness instructor. Up to that point, I had never really been the fitness type, but I found High Fitness and fell in love with the format and when my friend decided to get certified I decided to come along for the ride. Other people quickly fell in love with the format too, and we were packing our classes a few times a week. But the pandemic rocked the group fitness world and it has been a slow process to build those classes back up ever since. Last year around this time, I was trying to find ways to increase the reach of my Instagram in hopes that I could spread the word about my fitness classes and I decided to do a gratitude challenge during the month of November. I called it the “thankful for my body challenge” and committed to post one thing I was grateful for about my body, every single day during the month of November, and encouraged my followers to join in on the challenge if they wanted. And while my Instagram account didn’t blow up and my classes didn’t grow the way I had hoped, the experience had a huge impact on me. As we have been talking about gratitude here on the podcast and over on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jenbelltate/) and as I have been preparing to teach the “gratitude and abundance” workshop in my ENJOY Coaching Community (Get access here: https://client.jenbelltate.com/membership), I have been thinking about this gratitude challenge and how powerful it was for me. Body image is a huge issue for our teens. One study found that 53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies at age 13 and by age 17, that number reaches a staggering 78%. But it isn’t just a problem for girls, a study found that 45% of teen boys are unhappy with their physical appearance. This dissatisfaction with their bodies contributes to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, unhealthy dieting, compulsive exercise, inadequate nutrition, overuse injuries and stunted growth, eating disorders, substance abuse, and even suicide. The way you think about your body and talk about your body is impacting the way your teen thinks about their body. One of the most common things I heard from people who were following along with my daily “thankful for my body” posts last year was how much it changed the way they saw their own body. How it made them think about their body differently. How it helped them to appreciate their body more than they ever had before. We have been talking about how powerful gratitude is, and gratitude for our bodies is no exception. So today, I am sharing some of those things I appreciate about my body in hopes that it will you a new appreciation and perspective about your body. Because when you see your body in a different way, you will teach your teen to see their body in a different way too. I hope it will inspire you to feel gratitude for things about your body you may have never considered. I hope it will change the way you talk about your body and other people’s bodies. I especially hope you will start to share these perspectives with your teen. I am thankful that my body can breathe…all day long without a single thought or effort from me. Even when we are sick or tired or fast asleep, my body keeps breathing. And if I get upset or nervous or overwhelmed, I can take a few deep breaths and immediately I start to calm down and feel more peace. When I exercise, my body makes sure I can keep up by breathing faster. I am thankful for a body that breathes. I am thankful for vision The world around us is so beautiful! Blue skies, plants and flowers, sunsets, changing seasons. I am so thankful for eyes that can see all of it. I remember learning about how our eyes work in school and being completely blown away by the miracle that is sight. I am thankful that my eyes work together with my brain to process all the things that they see. I am thankful that my eyes can recognize people’s faces and identify emotions. I am grateful that my eyes can see what is and then imagine what could be…whether it is how to remodel a kitchen, the way my teenager’s tenacity will serve them as an adult, or how my weaknesses can become strengths if I just keep going when things get hard. I am thankful for vision I am thankful for sleep. Does your phone ever get glitchy and start acting crazy? You turn it off and then back on and it works perfectly! That is how I feel about sleep. It is the perfect reset for my body when I start getting a little glitchy or acting crazy (you know…every day.) I am so thankful that when I climb into bed and close my eyes, my body gets to work growing, healing, rejuvenating and recharging. I am thankful for sleep. I am thankful that I can sweat. Sweating is so cool. When your body temperature starts to rise because of exertion or environment, your body gets to work regulating its own temperature by sweating to release the extra heat. How cool is that? It also uses sweat to get rid of toxins, avoid kidney stones and increase blood circulation. I am so thankful that I can sweat! I am thankful for balance We walk around all day, every day dodging things in our way, weaving in and out of crowds, picking up heavy things, holding babies on our hips, reaching down to pick things up and reaching up on our tippie toes to grab things from a high shelf and that whole time our bodies are adjusting and compensating so we don’t fall over. It is amazing! I think about when I was pregnant with my twins…how my belly got so giant. If you made a figurine of me pregnant with my twins there is no way that thing would be able to stand. It would immediately topple forward. But my amazing body, managed to keep me upright perfectly. I am thankful for balance. I am thankful for my heart. I am thankful for a heart that just keeps pumping blood 24/7 without a single thought from me. Talk about exemplary work ethic…our hearts don’t take a break from the work they are doing for even a minute! I am thankful for heart that starts racing to warn me about danger or when something is exciting. It is our very own alert system built in to our bodies to let us know when we need to pay extra attention to what is happening around us. I am thankful for my heart. I am thankful that I can smell. Have you ever thought how weird we would all look walking around without noses? I know I haven’t always loved my nose…it is bigger than I would like and has a strange shape that looks so funny in certain light, but I would take that every single day because it means I can smell. Sure there are some smells I could live without (ahem…teenage boys), but freshly baked cookies or bread? the familiar scent of home? the combination of vanilla and coconut? The smell of newborn babies? I am so thankful that I can smell. I am thankful for recovery. I can’t lie…I get frustrated when my body doesn’t want to go at the pace I wish it could. There is so much I want to do and sometimes, my body just says no. But I am thankful that it knows when it needs some recovery. I am thankful that my eyelids get heavy to tell me I need some sleep. I am thankful that my feet start aching to let me know I need to sit down. I am thankful that my mind goes fuzzy when I need to take a break from learning or creating or consuming. I am thankful for a body that knows what it needs and tells me, if I am willing to listen. I am thankful for recovery. I am thankful for versatility. I am thankful that my body can do so many different things! It can run and jump and dance and swim and hike and sit. It can grow and shrink. It can be wet or dry, cold or hot. It can stop and go. It can give hugs and hold hands and cradle babies or heartbroken teens. It can move up and down and side to side and twist and reach and bend and stretch. So many things are designed to just move in one way, but not our bodies. Our bodies are so versatile and I am thankful that they are. I am thankful for Muscle Memory. Have you ever considered how cool it is that our bodies learn how to do something and then they just remember how to do it automatically without having to think about it. Right now our daughter is learning how to drive. She has to think about which pedal to push, how hard to push it, how much to turn the steering wheel, when to use the turn signal and how soon to push the break. But when I drive, I don’t have to think about any of that. My body just does all of it automatically. And when it sees a sign or a stoplight, it knows just what to do without me having to think about it. And it isn’t just driving: writing, entering my iphone passcode, shuffling a deck of cards, reading, doing choreography. I am so thankful for muscle memory. I am thankful for growing life. One of my greatest joys is being a mom and I am so thankful that I have a body that could create and grow little humans! It is easy to be frustrated about the sagging and drooping and stretch marks from growing and feeding 6 babies. My hips are wider than they used to be after expanding to hold those babies, and a little scar will always live on my stomach where they had to enter for laser-scopic surgery to save my twins life when they developed Twin to Twin Transfusion in uetero. I try to remember that all of it is evidence of the amazing miracle that my body can grow life. Not only that, but my body figured it all out on its own. It knew how many nutirents to send to the baby and how many to keep for me, it knew just how to push those babies out, it knew how to adjust the amount of milk it was making to accommodate growth spurts and multiple babies and it knew how to expand to make room and then recover and shrink back down after the babies were born. It is a complete miracle and I am so thankful for a body that could grow life. I am thankful for a body that can dance! Dance parties are my favorite! We used to have living room dance parties all the time when my kids were younger…and sometimes we still do! It has this magic way of turning stress into fun, meltdowns into magic and frustration into connection. I don’t consider myself a dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but music makes me want to move and I am so thankful for a body that can dance. I am thankful for hinges. Have you ever thought about how incredible it is that our bodies have hinges? Elbows and knees and sockets that allow our bodies to move and function in incredible ways! Each one has a different function, but just imagine how difficult it would be to get around or even just get through our day without them. I am thankful for a body with hinges. I am thankful for expression. Back when I studied photography, I was fascinated by expressions. How even if all you could see was someone’s eyes, you could immediately tell whether their smile was genuine or fake. Just by our faces, someone can tell if we are happy, sad, surprised, afraid, worried, stressed, or in love. What a gift expression is. I am thankful for a body that makes adjustments. Ever since we were born our bodies have been making adjustments. Temperature adjustments, adjustments to fight off illnesses, adjusting to the dark so we could see, adjusting to compensate when we have an injury, adjusting our metabolism depending on our food and activity levels. Adjusting to function on less sleep when we have a newborn or a nightmare or a teenager who needs to talk. Our bodies are constantly adjusting so that we can keep functioning effectively and efficiently and that is pretty darn cool. I am thankful for the ability to learn. I love to learn! My body is the home for brain. Not only can it learn how to do physical things, but I can learn new ideas and perspective too. I can listen to a podcast and learn how to be a better parent. I can study to become a life coach. I can read scripture and learn how to connect with God. I am so thankful that my body includes a brain that can learn new things, change its mind and keep growing and evolving in the world. I am thankful for my voice. Singing is one of my favorite hobbies. I have been performing and singing since I was small. I am so thankful for the ability to express my emotions through music. I am also thankful that my voice, like my face, can communicate my emotions. MY kids can tell if I am happy or mad or talking on my Instagram stories and not to them just by the tone of my voice. I am thankful that we have the ability to communicate and connect using our voices…it makes it so much easier to discuss complex ideas. Can you imagine if charades was the only way we could communicate? I am so thankful for my voice. I am thankful for my ears. What good would our voices by without ears? Ears allow us to learn about others and hear beautiful things. Ears alert us to danger. It is amazing to me how I could pick out the sound of my own child’s cry in a crowd because it sounded unique to me. It is so cool that my kids can talk to someone on facetime in the other room and I know just who it is because I can tell by their voice. Also…we would look ridiculous without ears. And it would be really tricky to wear sunglasses. I am thankful for my ears. I am thankful for healing powers. I am sure you have thought about which super power you would choose if you could, but did you know that you already have a super power? Your body is healing itself ALL the time. When you break a bone…it immediately goes to work producing more bone to heal the break. When you cut yourself, your skin immediately gets to work to stop the bleeding, create a scab and start creating new skin to repair the cut. And while it doesn’t happen in a matter of seconds or start glowing like in the movie Tangled, our bodies are constantly healing themselves. Amazing!
I am thankful for legs. I don’t love my legs…I’ve always wished they were thinner or more toned or longer. They are my least favorite feature of my body. Do you have something about your body that you don’t love? But do you know what? I really do love my legs. They allow me to run and jump and climb and walk and dance. They can kick a ball, climb a ladder, squat down to comfort a child, hike and swim. They get me all the places I want to go. So, they aren’t perfectly smooth and toned and thin…oh well. I am thankful for my legs. I am thankful for taste. Home cooked meals, Ice cream, treats, fancy flavor combinations and the simple goodness of a freshly picked peach. Our tongue can taste so many different flavors and combinations of flavors. Taste can take us right back to a memory or a feeling. What an incredible thing it is to be able to taste! There are so many more things to love about your body, but I hope this has at least gotten you thinking about your body in a new way. Whether you do a “thankful for my body challenge”, take 15 minutes and write down everything about your body you are grateful for, or just start talking about what you love about your body as much as you talk about what you don’t love, I hope you will allow this perspective to become a part of how you teach your teens to see their bodies. Change starts with you and we can teach the next generation to do a better job of gratitude when it comes to their bodies! Today is the last day to join my ENJOY coaching community where we are learning more about gratitude and abundance all month long. Inside you also get access to private coaching on the Marco Polo app where I can help you with anything you might be struggling with, including the way you see your body. Don’t miss your chance to join me inside! https://client.jenbelltate.com/membership
