Cultivating Self-Compassion & Changing Body Beliefs
Let me just say this: I never expected a leg injury to be one of my greatest mindset teachers. But as life often reminds me (with a smirk), growth doesn’t always come through meditation cushions and vision boards—it can show up limping, swollen, and wrapped in an ice pack.
For years, I believed I had to move to matter. My daily workout was my badge of discipline, my dose of dopamine, and my unofficial therapist. If I skipped a day? Guilt. Two days? Full-blown panic. Somewhere along the line, I had picked up the belief that my worth was tied to how hard I pushed my body and what my body looked like. I believed resting was just laziness with better branding.
Then came the injury.
The kind that stops you. The kind that makes walking feel like a full-body negotiation. And the kind that makes you do something terrifying: pause.
The Body Holds More Than Muscle
While I rested, iced, and rehabbed, something unexpected happened: I got quiet enough to hear what my body had been trying to tell me for years. I had pain in my left leg which I ignored. “it’s fine, I will stretch more, I will see a PT.” But I never did. Then one morning I woke up and could not walk without severe pain.
I realized that this injury didn’t just come from a misstep. It came from years of tension, stress, and unspoken emotions stored in my body. It wasn’t just my leg, it was my nervous system waving a red flag.
I had treated my body like a machine. Push harder. Lift heavier. Move faster. But my body? She’s not a machine. She’s an oracle. And she had been whispering, “Please slow down… I know what to do.”
Shifting the Workout Narrative
One of the most liberating truths this experience gifted me was this:
I don’t need to work out every day to stay in shape. My body is intelligent. It knows how to process the delicious food I eat, I know about the brain-body connection for goodness sake, why wasn’t I using it to say, “ Lori, your body is beautiful and strong, you have a fit body, having strong muscles and a fit body is so easy.”
It's been over 40 years of conditioning and old beliefs. I remember doing the Jane Fonda tapes as a teenager, and I recall Richard Simmons.
Rest days are no longer “cheat days.” They are essential recalibrations. Movement now comes from a place of love, not punishment. Some days that’s mindful yoga, a walk, or gentle stretching. Other days, it’s dancing in my kitchen like a joyful maniac. But every day, it’s guided by how my body feels, not what a schedule says or fear of being out of shape. Now it is work for me to shift this belief. “Sorry beautiful body that it took me so long”.
Compassion is the New Core Workout
This injury taught me to stop looking at my body as something to fix, sculpt, or grind into submission. Instead, I began to see her as an intelligent, intuitive, living guide.
She doesn’t need my criticism.
She needs my compassion. I hug her every day and tell her how beautiful she is.
When I give her that, she gives me everything in return, strength, resilience, and deep inner peace.
The Wisdom Within
Here’s the magic: My body always knew what to do to heal. It didn’t need a drill sergeant. It needed a listener. Now, I listen. Every day. With gratitude, curiosity, and a deep respect for the innate wisdom that lives in my skin, bones, and breath.
This leg injury slowed me down, but it also woke me up. Each day is a little challenge to hold my new beliefs in my heart. Decades-old beliefs do not shift easily. Awareness is the key for me, I have the power to say to my ego…”Thanks, but I no longer need that old belief. I am the boss of me.”
And from where I’m standing now (on both feet again, I might add)—that’s a beautiful place to be.
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