I’m excited to welcome back Nicole Moore of Love Works. Nicole is a love coach but in this episode, we’re going to talk about what it really means to accept your body just the way it is. She recently posted on Instagram about how her experience of her body changed after having a baby. Our bodies are always changing and yet we all have a tendency to get hung up on why they are not the way we think they should be. In this episode, we talk about how to change our mindset about our bodies, why our self worth doesn’t have anything to do with the way we look and why we need to feel good about ourselves.

I’m curious about the changes you’ve had in your body and how that has affected you?

Nicole has observed people saying how having a baby ruined their body and this got her thinking about this message that is being spread on social media. Nicole saw a lot of posts about people ‘snapping back’ after having a baby but that didn’t happen for her. She decided to embrace where her body is right now.

How did you avoid getting into this dialogue of beating yourself up? Because I think that’s the easy thing to do.

Nicole realized she could choose not to make herself feel miserable. Throughout her 20s she suffered so much from the thoughts in her head and comparing herself to other people. She has made a commitment to herself to keep her mind full of love rather than full of negativity.

How you relate to your body, doesn’t really have anything to do with how it looks, right?

Nicole agrees. It’s all about the thoughts in your head. Which is better – to have a body that weighs more and not be in mental turmoil or to have a body that weighs less but have your mind in turmoil?

Every woman at some time has called themselves fat in their heads. And it’s not nice.

When Nicole first started gaining weight she was upset. She started to look at why her self worth was linked to her body. She had to look at what her other values were. When she was at high school she lost a lot of weight and boys started to pay attention to her. She had to go back and start unravel where this feeling came from and what her true worth was.

Can you share an example of what an internal essence would be?

For Nicole one of her essences is love. If she goes to a dinner party she could put a lot of focus on how she looks or she could focus on how to be really present with people. Your essence is who you are internally when everything that can change is stripped away.

What do you say to somebody who is feeling that their weight is holding them back in love, work or just in being more seen?

It’s not the weight. It’s your thoughts and judgments about the weight. It’s your decision that because the weight is here you shouldn’t feel good about yourself. That’s what is holding you back. When Nicole first started gaining weight, she wondered if she could still do media appearances. She thought about how she would look on camera. Then she realized that she deserved that experience of being on camera.

So often we think we need to look a certain way in order to receive love.

Although there are always people out there who will criticize how you look, that just means they aren’t the right people for you. A romantic relationship is not going to work unless you are accepted for who you are. It’s so much easier to find somebody who accepts who you are than to change who you are in order to find someone.

I love how you talk about how it’s not that you don’t have those negative thoughts, but you deal with them differently.

Nicole watches here mind all the time to see what thoughts she is having. If her mind is telling her something which makes her feel crappy, she will feel the feelings and then choose something different.

When I was put Evan to sleep and I say to him ‘you can do anything’. And he said to me the other day ‘Mummy you can do anything’. I actually found it helpful for me to hear it from him. It reminded me of the power of words.

Kids are the truth. For Nicole one of the biggest benefits of having a child is seeing what she wants her son to have in his life and to see what that means about her perception about things.

People talk a lot about what they lose by becoming a mum but there’s so much that we gain. Focusing on all the bodily changes misses the point about what it means to become a mum.

Don’t you think that helps soften some of the guilt that you may have?

This conversation about women and their bodies just takes away power. We only have so much attention available throughout the day. Nicole used to count calories and it would take up so much attention and so much power. When we’re not focused on what our bodies look like we have so much power to focus elsewhere.

What would you tell your younger self?

You are better than you think you are.

You are already worthy.

You’re always going to be beautiful.

 

And you are going to meet him and he is going to love you

Nicole has a lot of single clients and they have this thought in their heads that they may not meet the guy. If you look at how much time is in front of you, it’s crazy to think that you won’t meet someone.

Just to play the other side. It doesn’t mean don’t take of yourself. It doesn’t mean don’t buy the eye cream or get hair extensions. It doesn’t mean you don’t take action on things that make you want to look better. It’s more about where that is coming from. Is it coming from a place of ‘I’m enough’ or is it coming from a place of ‘I’m not enough’?

Nicole talks about how she gets eyelash extension regularly but she also has a conversation with herself about how even if she didn’t have them she would still look good. There’s nothing wrong with doing these things but it’s important to do these things from a place of worth.

The way that we look, the way we do our hair, we can let those things hold us back. I know I have.

Nicole did a Facebook live video where somebody commented that she needed to condition her extensions. Those sorts of comments might stop a lot of people from putting themselves out there. Nicole told herself that it was more important that she jumps on and does Facebook live even if she doesn’t look perfect. It’s all about the inner game.

And then it becomes easier if you reinforce that positive relationship with yourself.

One of the things we can do is stop giving attention to this conversation. Nicole often reminds herself that men will just turn on the camera and start recording without thinking about how they look.

We identify with all of these parts of ourselves. Hair is a big deal. How do not we let these perceptions of ourselves and how we look hold us back?

It’s alright to have an idea of how you want to look, but we wouldn’t let ourselves feel bad if that’s not how we are right now.

And complimenting ourselves. And other people. I love seeing you without your glasses because you can see your face.

Glasses was something Nicole had to accept about herself.

It’s a habit we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and see everything that is wrong with us. That we want to change and want to fix. I’ve done some mirror work, where I looked at what was beautiful about me. I can see myself start to change.

Our self-perceptions determine our reality. Most people have a more favorable perception of us than we do. Aside from the haters. When we look in the mirror and see flaws that come from someone in the past telling us that we have a flaw.

What is a question people can start asking themselves?

What is the beauty I can see in myself today?

What’s the one thing that I really love about my face?

What idea can I let go off today that’s stopping me from feeling beautiful?

How can I make sure that in my heart, on the inside, I feel good about me?

Anything else you want to say?

You deserve to feel good about yourself.

 

Links

Love Works

https://loveworksmethod.com/