The why behind every idea.
Confidence: All of us want to be confident in our skin, yet many times there is an insecurity, seen or unseen holding us back. This chapter is about how I learned how to love my scars and ultimately, how I built my confidence in who I am, not just the body that stares me back.
Evaluation: Understanding where you are now is essential to knowing where you want to go. We all have twenty-four hours in the day and we all see the same person staring ourselves back in the mirror each morning, but how often do we stop and really look at how we spend all that time and who that person really is. This chapter is meant to reveal what your ultimate values and goals are, and further why they are your ultimate values and goals, so that you can know how to get there.
Comparison: Comparison robs many men and women from feeling secure in who they are and the body that carries them. With millions of people to compare ourselves to every day, there is no getting rid of it, there is only dealing with it. This chapter aims to give applicable tools to dismantle comparison and to understand what role it currently plays in your life.
Perspective: At the core of redefining the way you see your body or life is gaining a new perspective. Whether it’s learning how to love an insecurity or learning how to view a difficult trial, a healthy perspective makes all the difference. This chapter is about how to take full responsibility for the outlook you have, the attitude you bring, and the perspective you find.
The Mind: Our minds control everything we do, say, think, and feel, so understanding the science behind it and how it impacts our lives can be beneficial when desiring to grow in the perspective we have about our bodies and lives. This chapter dives into the limbic system, reticular activating system, subconscious and conscious mind, as well as applicable exercises to help your mind.
Growth: For many years, we grow whether we want to or not. However, as we mature, we reach a point where have to make the choice to be intentional about whether or not we will push ourselves to grow to our potential. This chapter seeks to push you to grow towards the person you know you are capable of becoming, help you fight procrastination, and provide a number of resources to aid in your growth.
Habitual: There is a misconception that the only people that use habits are the high achievers who are committed to becoming a better version of themselves or become more profitable. Truth is, we all have habits, it’s just a matter of whether they are serving us or not. Once you figure out what your ultimate values are in the evaluation chapter, this chapter is meant to help you make habits based on those values.
Stress: Stress and it’s close cousins anxiety and depression wreak havoc in not only our hearts, but our bodies as well. In this chapter, I share my experience with stress, anxiety, and depression, what I learned from them, and how I moved forward from them. Phones and social media have a huge impact on all three of these areas, so I also discuss how to develop a healthy relationship with social media, as well as why it is important for a healthy self-image.
The Heart: Sometimes we are secure in our bodies, but insecure in our hearts. What flows out of us is ultimately what is already within our hearts, so if insecurity is flowing out, the heart is where we must first look. This chapter is about bringing the truth down from the head to the heart, understanding where false labels come from, and how to do the heart work that requires both compassion and curiosity.
Your Circle: This chapter is about everything I have learned about relationships, and particularly the close relationships I have chosen to build. We become who we surround ourselves with is not new information, but in a world of filters and surface-level connection, many of us don’t feel like we have a strong circle of relationships anymore. This chapter is about why a circle is important, how to build it, when to let go, and ways to strengthen it over the years.
The V Word: Vulnerability, a lost art becoming known once again. Being bold about who you are and the body that carries you requires vulnerability because you must know who you are in order to be vulnerable about who that really is. In this chapter, I share my own journey with learning how to become vulnerable, what vulnerability really is, the myths of vulnerability from the work of Brene Brown, and how you can build it for yourself.
Identity: Never place your identity in something that can be stripped from you in a moment. Many times we can fall into the temptation to place our identity in our work, relationship, body, or so on. However, this can leave a lot of people in an identity crisis when they get fired, broken up with, or in an accident that changes their body forever. In this chapter, I share the questions I asked, the trials I overcame, and the lessons I learned along the way when it came to placing my identity in God and who He says I am, not who I say I am. No matter where you choose to place your identity, this chapter is about learning to ask questions and have grace with ourselves as we figure out the person we want to embody.
The Body: The body matters, not because it defines our worth, but because it carries who we are. I desire for everyone to be confident in the body that carries them because ultimately it’s the only body that will ever carry them. However, our body isn’t everything, nor is where to start, hence why it is at the end of the book. This chapter is about body-image and is an introduction to the two factors that impact our body the most, our fuel and movement.
Fuel: There is no shortage of advice on what to eat and how much to eat to obtain a healthy body. Therefore this chapter is about how to develop a healthy relationship with food, simple lessons I have learned along the way, understanding the impact your gut has on everything else, as well as a simple place to start on nutrition.
Movement: This chapter has to do with why you move, whom you move for, and lastly how you move. Just how there is no getting around our bodies needing nutrients, there is no getting around our bodies needing to move. However many times, our movement is rooted in guilt over what we ate or pressure to become something for someone else. This chapter is about my own relationship with movement, how it has evolved, and how you can develop a healthy relationship with it as well.
A Choice: In the end, life is simply a compound result of the choices we make every day. This chapter is a reflection of the choices I have made, the choices I hope to make, and about the one choice that we all have.
