I am running a doggie daycare over here!

We are dog sitting Bear Bundon for three weeks and we added Stella to the mix today too. She’s my friend Virginia’s cockapoo puppy. She’s 8 months old and 10.2 pounds but man can she ever hang with the big dogs. She LOVES them and totally plays rough with them. Virginia is doing an internship here in Charlotte this summer and sometimes her days are long so she drops Stella off to hang with us. We love it! Arnie the pug is unpictured because he wanted to stay as far away from this chaos as possible.

Today was a good day. I taught yoga at 6 a.m. and then spent most of the day wrangling this crew and catching up on a ton of work for the studio. I taught Y2 Strength at 5 and then stayed to take some of Tanner’s class after.

I just got settled in at home and dinner is in the oven. I am doing a big one sheet dinner with lots of veggies and chicken breasts. While dinner is cooking, I wanted to talk to you about something that I heard today that I can’t stop thinking about.

As I’ve shared before, I love listening to audio books and podcasts when I’m doing stuff like walking, cleaning, driving, etc. I’ve just started exploring podcasts through Spotify and today I stumbled upon The Ultimate Health Podcast. The first episode in the queue was an interview with Kathryn Budig, who is a well-known yogi and someone who I really respect for how she stays true to herself and seems dedicated to keeping it real.

I won’t rehash the whole podcast with you but there were several great takeaways. The one that has stuck with me the most was around body image and how we talk to ourselves about our bodies and how we talk to others about our bodies and the consequences that come with that.

Kathryn shared that she was leading a New Year’s yoga retreat in Mexico one year and wasn’t feeling the best about putting on a bikini in the dead of winter after an indulgent holiday season. She was in a hot tub with a group of retreat attendees and made some sort of flippant, degrading comment about her body. One of her students looked over at her incredulously and said something to the effective of “oh my god, but you’re my teacher and I think you’re so beautiful and amazing.” She later came to find that the student had struggled with an eating disorder.

What Kathryn said that made me think, “oh crap…she’s right” is that when we talk critically about our own appearance, we create the space for others to do the same about themselves…and truly…who wants to have that impact on another person?

That said, I think there is a huge difference between complaining and whining about how you feel fat/bloated/puffy whatever on the regular and having true, honest dialogues about your struggles and goals.

But gosh, I think we could cut back on the surface body image complaining a ton and all be so much better off for it. Kathryn totally admitted that she has these thoughts and regularly…at least daily…but she keeps them to herself these days because it doesn’t serve or help others for her to complain about her body. It more than likely hurts them instead.

And beyond that, how often do you receive a compliment and completely wave it off and cut yourself down instead of accepting it and thanking the person that gave it? Why do we do this to ourselves and to others?

Just some food for thought as you move into your Friday.

Sending so much love and peace to all of you wherever you are on your health and fitness journey. <3

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.