The Body Gifts with Leela Francis
Guest Blogger with The Daring Woman

You body is a wilderness of self discovery and a canvas for creative change! Meaning that there is infinite wisdom to be accessed from within your body about you and your life, and that by making shifts and changes in your body, you can affect shifts and changes in your life. The trick to tapping into your body’s wisdom however, is to affirm its brilliance and its blessing.

If you’re walking around all day resenting and criticizing your body, it’s unlikely that it will offer you any insights and gifts. On the other hand, if you regularly acknowledge how blessed you are to live in a body, how intelligent the body is in the way it functions and makes most of what you accomplish in a day possible, and appreciate it for the innate wisdom it houses, you will have much greater access to its abundant gifts.

Once when I was ill, just a common cold, I noticed how inconvenient and un-appealing it was to be laid up, not able to carry out my daily activities, no energy to live a normal life. I noticed how much I take my body for granted when it’s healthy. Often I just drag it around instead of savoring how delicious my body can make me feel and the opportunity for sensual adventure it makes available to me.

Take time each day to have a sensual body experience, whether it’s stopping to smell the roses, enjoying the texture of your clothes against your skin, or letting yourself merge into the beautiful vision of a sun set. These simple yet vivid experiences will bring you back to your body as an instrument for self discovery and creative transformation.

For information on Leela, please visit  The Daring Woman’s Guest Blogger page: http://www.thedaringwoman.com/dw-partners/dw-contributors/

Eating for Beauty

In my new book, “Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy,” I’m not taking away your favorite foods, but instead helping you make lateral shifts for great health and to lose weight.

Now a confession: Many of the foods that I want you to shift towards will also help you look younger, reduce wrinkles and keep your skin in great condition.

You’re welcome!

But seriously….beauty experts have known forever that creams can only do so much. What you eat directly relates to how your skin looks – and how it ages. For examples, if you’re someone who ingests a lot of sugar through juice or cola then your body will be working overtime to process all that high fructose corn syrup in these products. That sugar overload will create inflammation that will make your skin look older and saggy while making it more prone to wrinkles.

To continue reading this article, click here: http://successfromtheinsideouttelesummit.com/2010/07/eating-for-beauty/

My body is the only real home I’ve got. When I was homeless for 3 years, bouncing around training, teaching and learning, I really got that in a profound way. And I have no doubt that 3 years as a gypsy were meant precisely to teach me the essence of truly living at home in this body temple that is my woman’s body.

It is here, in this vessel of your spirit, that your feelings, your sensations and your life experience carve themselves into everlasting somatic memories. Your body can either come along for the ride of your life, or your body can be an enthusiastic navigator in the dance of your dreams weaving themselves into realities. It is yours for the choosing how you wish to do or dance your life.

What I hear from many of the women that I have sat and danced in sacred circle with is this: “For the first time since forever I am living in my body again” and “I am dancing for the first time in years and loving my body” not to mention “my partner is loving me loving my body” and “I am remembering what it’s like to be a woman.”

Remembering? As if the body could ever forget. It’s only a chronic referring elsewhere for the answers that stops you from enjoying the delicious aliveness that your woman’s body always has access to.

Here are 3 tips to keep you in touch with the wisdom of your body’s remembering that is ever available to you, yearning to be heard and honored:

1. Notice the distinction between your feelings, thoughts and sensations.

2. Hang out more in the sensations that correspond to your feelings, instead of the thoughts that justify them.

3. Savor the sensations, both pleasant and unpleasant, and watch the pleasant sensations expand and the unpleasant sensations fade. Miraculous but true.

These 3 habits will make a significant difference in how authentically you relate to your body and live your embodied presence. Embodied presence speaks volumes about how much you can be trusted because, it speaks volumes about how much you trust yourself. In todays world where the personal is the professional, this is key!

Be yourself, Vividly,

Please find out more about Leela Francis and Vividly Woman at Vividly Woman Facebook group and Twitter

For more information The Daring Woman’s Guest Bloggers click here:  http://www.thedaringwoman.com/dw-partners/dw-contributors/

Would you like to become a Guest Blogger with The Daring Woman click here for more information: http://www.thedaringwoman.com/exposure/

As a Daring Success Expert, Alice shared with us in a teleseminar: The 9 Life-Changing Secrets Every Woman Must Know.   As part of The Daring Woman Success Circle Membership you have access to the Audio replay of the teleseminar and her bonus gift to our members:  Losing Weight with a Lifestyle Change, a $19.00 Value.   While healthy living sounds great, few people choose to live that way. In this Inspiring, self paced, take action Guidebook, Alice shares with us her proven and positive lifestyle coaching methods that generate new beliefs, ah-ha insights, self-honoring choices and positive behavioral changes for life-long healthy choices. 

Alice is the founder and president of Feel Your Personal Best, a leader in healthy lifestyle coaching. She is also the author of a series of Healthy Living Guides, co-developer of the Living Free Diabetes CD program, and co-host of Living Your Personal Best radio show.

As America’s Healthy Lifestyle Coach, Alice is leading the way in blending lifestyle coaching with fitness, nutrition, emotional eating and wellness to create a healthier way of living. She has countless certifications and very impressive credentials. She is a certified ACE personal trainer, Dream Coach® group leader, and certified in intuitive eating. She is also a graduate of the Fitness by Phone® coaching program and has completed coursework in lifestyle fitness and wellness coaching.

Interestingly, what Alice does today as America’s Healthy Lifestyle Coach and the life changing benefits that her clients gain from working with her, came directly out of her personal struggles. It was during the lowest and most challenging moment of her life, that Alice found her calling and passion. Six years ago, she resolved to finally get fit, gain control over her weight and poor health, and leave the high-tech consulting firm she started and ran for sixteen years to create a lifestyle coaching business based on her successful experience.

Alice just turned 50 and is in the best shape of her life and living the life of her dreams by using the same concepts she provides to her clients.

For more information on Alice visit her website

Her Body’s Wisdom by Guest Blogger Leela Francis

Have you ever watched a woman who is comfortable in her skin, a woman who is living fully in the radiance of who she is vs in spite of who or what she is not? This flirtatious love affair that she is courting with the juiciness of her divine temple is infectious and magnetic.

When a woman lives her life in honor of her body’s wisdom, she radiates an irresistible glow that speaks for itself. The clothes she picks, the shape and size of her body, the make-up that would erase how life is carving itself on and in her, are all secondary to the connection she is nurturing with the divine feminine, the essence of the Goddess, and the sacred sensual unique textures being expressed through her being. All these weave delicately beneath the appearance she so covets.

Marcia Hutchison writes in her book Transforming Body Image, “In a woman, body esteem and self esteem are married to one another.” Meaning that we find our self worth based mostly on how we feel our body looks, rather than how we feel in our body. And the truth is that most of us do not even really feel or listen to our body at all. We pay more attention to what the mirror says about how we compare to other women, than the feelings and sensations that dance and play within us.

Unfortunately, relying on anything outside of ourselves for an accurate read on what is true and authentic for each of us, least of all a mirror, is a recipe for giving up our power and the sensual aliveness that is the birthright of every woman.

In textures of a life richly live I write, “if there is anything that describes the essence of a woman’s femininity it is her sensuality………sadly many of us sacrifice this very potent power in a misguided frenzied life focused on results at our sensuality’s expense”

Living a sensual life means paying attention to and honoring the mmmm’s and ahhs and ooohs of life and knowing that these are what nurture and ignite all our endeavors. Our sensuality is a wellspring of power that cannot be quelled by any external standard.

When we dive into the felt sense of our existence, our authentic sensual experience for the answers, there is an abundant source that drives our greatest visions and dreams.

Embodiment, the practice of living in the body rather than in spite of it, will infuse your life and connection to your body beyond what any mirror’s approval could ever offer.

The Vividly Woman 5 Textures, (Sense, ground, Mobilize, Harness & Express) is a system and practice to proudly inhabit the very temple that houses your spirit, now. It is a system that teaches you to live radiantly in relationship with your body for a making love to life that permeates every aspect of your being. It is a path of loving communion with what we sense and feel, rather than what we think about how we look. This vital communion is not purchased and cannot be disguised with, but rather celebrated by the adornment of sensual fabrics and jewels. In this way, a woman and her body become a healing force, not just for herself, but for her sisters and all beings who have the blessing to know her.

Decide in this moment to connect to the vitality of your embodied essence; sense it enchantedly, ground it in the here and now, mobilize it when you take action in the world, harness it to expand and grow it and finally express it for all the world to celebrate. Dance a passionately loving relationship with your body for all of creation but most of all for you to richly savor and vividly adore!

The True Reflection of You by Johnny G.

Johnny inspires you to realize that when your mind, body, and spirit unite “Your Authentic Self“ can shine through.  As he points out in his book “Creating Beauty from the Inside Out”  ”You are Beautiful” just as you are right now! 

I’m happy to let you know that Johnny will be one of our speakers on our upcoming  Telesummit “Creating Success from the Inside Out, How to Live Happy, Healthy and Whole.”  Get our priority list by signing up now. Details about the Telesummit will be available soon http://www.thedaringwoman.com/events/reclaim-your-power/

THE TRUE REFLECTION OF YOU

 It’s time to get up and start the day. The first stop is the bathroom. There you are, staring at yourself as you gaze into the mirror.

I have learned that a mirror provides the most powerful connection to the real you. Think about it. When you look into the mirror, it can only reflect what is there.

The mirror never says anything. It harbors no judgment. It is simply there to show you the truth of your personal reflection.

Judgment begins when you start evaluating how you look. Then, a flood of feelings and emotions arise as you consider your reflected image.

It’s funny how you can either limit or boost yourself with the thoughts you produce as you gaze at your reflection. The oddest thing of all is that you may see and judge this mirror image of yourself before you see anyone else – before your daily journey has even begun.

If you feel bad about how you look, that state of mind and blah feeling will probably stay with you all day. Nothing you wear will look right. Nothing will seem good enough. From your hair, to make-up, to clothes – it will all look bad. You know what I mean. You go on your daily journey – not looking or feeling great about yourself – simply going through the motions.

This scene plays out, on average, about 90% of the time with most of us.

Throughout the day, you are in contact with others and you’re still feeling blah. That’s when you start judging other people and mentally begin putting them down to make yourself feel better.

Think about it – when you are on top of the world, you look at others in an entirely different way. The people you judged yesterday are getting compliments from you today.

See how you may sabotage yourself before taking a step into the outside world? You may think, “But Johnny, that’s how I look and feel. I can’t help it. That’s what I experience when I see my reflection in the mirror.”

Think about it deeply from the heart for a moment. One day you look at your reflection and feel blah. The next day you can look at yourself and be on top of the world. It’s not your reflection that changes your mood. It is your perception and judgment about what you see in the mirror that sets the tone for that day – and your life. There, in that moment of truth, you have a choice to make. You can run yourself down by harshly judging yourself or you can choose to focus on your assets and feel great all day. Every morning when you look in the mirror the choice is yours.

How long have you been harshly judging your reflection before the day begins? If you’re like most people, you’ve been doing it for the majority of your life. If you think about it – that’s no way to live.

To be the reflection of real beauty, what I call beauty from the inside – out, you need to let the world see the real you, your true essence. When you can do this, the events of life will no longer control your mood. You will be a passionate, joy-filled person living life to the fullest, without judging or worrying about being judged. Choose to lower your negative view and critical self-judgment by a small percentage each day. Eventually, you will wake up one morning and be excited to see the truth in the mirror.

That truth is realizing that You ARE Beautiful. The reflection you see is that of the most beautiful person you know. When you feel that truth all the time – watch out! I definitely want to be around you. You’ll energize everyone around you because you’ll be expressing your personal truth; the truth of the realization of the perfect you. Every day life will be brighter because you have an elevated view of yourself.

Now it’s up to you. Realize that you are not broken. We are simply going to do some fine-tuning. Then, watch out when the old is made new.

You will fall in love with yourself. In fact, you will want to jump forward and kiss yourself. The truth is it’s already buried deep inside your heart – the truth of YOU!

“We act, behave and feel according to what we consider our self-image to be and we do not deviate from that pattern.“ Dr. Maxwell Mattz

Daring Principle#1 is about Heightened Confidence, Positive Self-Talk, Practicing Acceptance and Self-Care.

It starts right there, the expression of how we love ourselves is the same expression of how we love others. It is a critical place to start. Because if we do not love ourselves we cannot really love anyone else!

How many women do you know who genuinely and authentically love themselves? Are you one of them? Are you Daring enough to fall madly in love with yourself, with genuine pride not ego? If not, think about what your life would be like if you did!

My words of wisdom:
The key is that we believe that we are lovable and capable no matter what and we have an acceptance of who we truly are, defined by us, not by others.