What makes you feel beautiful? How do you evaluate your beauty?

The narrow definition of what it means to be beautiful can affect the attitudes and beliefs we have about ourselves. Feeling a sense of not measuring up or not being good enough will impact all aspects of your life: The relationships you have with others and the relationship you have with yourself. No one can change that but you.

This month the challenge is to widen the definition of what it means to be beautiful and find the beauty that you possess.

Mary Desaulniers is a fifty year old woman who struggled with her weight and body image all her life. After the death of her husband everything changed. She found herself re evaluating what really matters and the attitude she had towards herself:

“Life, I decided was too short for weights and measures. I would run and I would eat. I would take pleasure in both. I would neither deny my body nor starve my soul. I was going to love my body in whatever shape it took. My body was here to serve a higher purpose, my soul’s purpose, and my soul was not here to be shaped or stuffed into a standard mold.”

Don’t spend another second of your precious life yearning for a body you don’t have. Every day is a chance to celebrate the abundance you do have.

Don’t let a magazine cover influence how you feel when you look in the mirror. You know who you are – you are better than that.
Set your own standards – That’s empowering!

The glory of your potential does not begin and end with the number on the scale. Today can be a day of liberation. The day you decide to make each moment a moment of joy, acceptance and strength; Making exercise an experience that brings you inner fortitude as well as physical wellness.

And food: the fuel that drives your dreams.

The struggle is over. There is on fight because you already won.

You made it. You are here. You are strong.
You are beautiful.

“If we live with caring, lightheartedness, and love this moment will have been worthwhile.”

The goal for us – each and every day should be to keep growing out of ourselves, evolving to our best possible lives. Your life’s purpose is to live each experience to your highest potential.

With every encounter and every situation ask yourself – does this elevate me to my greatest self? If not, walk away. You deserve better than that. Time is fleeting. Life is too short. Discover the joy of your greatness in all that you do.
Find joy in the warmth of each sunrise or a simple act of kindness and pass that on to others.

Never give up on your dreams. Believe in what you can achieve and follow wherever your wildest dreams take you. It is possible.
Think about someone you admire. Someone who you want to be like.
The only difference between you and that person are the choices you make each day.

This moment will impact the next. What do choose to do or not do in this moment will determine the picture of your life.

If you choose to live with negative emotions
that will be your life.
If you choose to ignore your health and not do all you can to be fit and strong
that will be your life.
If you choose to live with less than all you are
That will be your life.

Today can be a day of change. Today can be the day you rise up and say,
I will not give up on myself.

Today can be the day you decide to follow the sound of your own voice.
Setting your standards and doing what is important to you.

Change is possible – You deserve to be your BEST.

Never give up on that.

Grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.

-Serenity prayer