The Wonders of Self-Love, From Us to You

As registered nutritionists here at The Glow Paradise, we have become more and more exceedingly conscious about how important mental health is to our and our clients’ overall health, wellbeing and happiness.

Weight is always a constant topic of conversation, since it is after all at the core of our positioning. This has led us to fixate on all the things we dislike about ourselves. Feeling bloated? Take this as a remedy. Skin flares up? Eat these it’ll go back to normal. Weight gain over the holidays? Do this to drop some kilos.

After a while, we started wondering how all of these have worked out for us so far, our clients included. The answer is, you guessed it: not that great, especially not in the long run.

Nutritional knowledge is great, but it can only be helpful if we’re being kind and gentle to ourselves as we work to discover who we are. In fact, health is as much about embracing our tenderness and vulnerability, as is it about knowledge and discipline.

The journey to health and happiness is equal parts heart work and head work, and we have been lacking in our very own heart work.

Therefore, we have decided to take on this new journey of self-love and acceptance with a campaign that will change the way our clientele looks at weight loss. Because first and foremost, our relationships with our bodies are complicated to say the least... One day we might love the way we look, and the next be lacking confidence depending on outside factors that are for the most part out of our control. But in the case of inside factors that ARE in our control, we are embarking on one of the most difficult learning curves of all: being more forgiving towards ourselves, and establishing a healthy lifestyle without relying on willpower and brute force. There are no real standards for beauty, and there is no such thing as perfect eating. Normalize that.

Unrealistic expectations that are being fed to us through social media turn us against ourselves and disable us from being kind to ourselves. Pretty girl, pretty coffee, cute cat, beach trip. It is filled with people looking like they’re having the best time ever, while looking their “best”. We think it’s time to hold the media accountable for upholding dangerous and unrealistic lifestyle and beauty standards, without even acknowledging that they are entirely utopic and absurd.

On those days where we find it hard to feel beautiful, even if someone genuinely compliments us, we tend to disregard it and even dismiss it. In these situations it’s important to take a step back and think about how beauty standards constantly change, yet still remain completely unrealistic. The main takeaway here is that we were given our bodies to house our spirits, passions and wisdom. How your body looks is the least interesting thing about it. Look at what it can do! It can save lives, create humans from scratch, cook delicious food, give amazing hugs, make art and music, dance all night long. The most effective way to loving yourself and your body is to give it gratitude for all the things it does for you by intuitively listening to its needs. Looking “good” or whatever is at the very bottom of that list. The Glow Paradise’s two cents on the matter is: “healthy” is not a label to put on a body without context. It IS the context. Because if all men, women and genders ate, drank and exercised the same amount, we would still have different body types.

We absolutely love them all, and you should too.