Embracing Change

My husband and I took our son for his first official haircut when he was 15 months old. The trauma of the event was not significant, but the energy exchange during the event was decidedly intense. My son went from sitting on my lap and enjoying the process while my husband entertained him to the opposite end of the spectrum, screaming and struggling to be let down. As you can imagine, it was an emotional roller coaster for all three of us.

For several months I’d been hearing from various "experts" on the issue things like, "He needs a big boy haircut!" or "I love his hair; the curls are adorable," or "She’s precious! Oh, sorry! He’s so beautiful I just assumed he was a girl." Geez! So despite the fact that I loved my son’s hair longer with curls peeking out from under the cap, I knew it really was time for a haircut. Still, something inside me desperately desired to keep my son as a baby for as long as I possibly could. The haircut was representative of the first apron string to be cut.

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Negative Body Image Issues

Both emotional specialists and psychologists generally agree that eating disorders are generally rooted in negative body image. When this happens, sufferers usually see distorted body images when they gaze in a mirror – and as such, feel "fat" or otherwise imperfect regardless of whether these terms accurately describe the structure of their physical bodies.

Negative body images can manifest from one or more of the following factors:

Negative Conditioning Our parents' and family members' attitudes toward food and concepts of beauty can significantly factor in our body image. For example, parents who emphasize the importance of outer appearance or who obsessively count calories may have children who retain or develop similar attitudes that can potentially result in negative body image.

Negative Thinking If you have low self-esteem and therefore constantly hound yourself about your appearance or give undue importance to other’s opinions, you can develop a negative body image over time.

Unrealistic Ideals Movies, articles, advertisements and other media propaganda often promote perfection as being attainable – which, of course, it is not. Aggressive marketing techniques seek to create unrealistic aspirations regarding beauty ideals for profit. Children and teens are particularly susceptible to these techniques and can therefore develop negative body image issues due to their desire to conform to media "norms."

Overcoming Negative Body Image

You will have to affect a dramatic change in your self-perception to successfully build a healthier body image. I'll readily admit that negative attitudes firmly entrench themselves in the subconscious over time...

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Your Aura's Energy

Energy is a word from which most people draw the definition of electricity, gas or some other form of power to produce movement or change. In the context in which we use it here, these definitions really aren't that far off from how practitioners like me would describe or explain energy. But what is an aura, you ask? Simply put, your aura is the space surrounding your physical being; it extends outward and upward and is approximately the length of your arms. You might refer to your aura as your own personal airspace, and you are the flight commander with regard to what gets in and what doesn’t.

We all understand as humans that we are walking energy sources. The heat we produce keeps us warm when the air is cool, and the sweat we produce when the air is too warm functions similarly. Our metabolism is a form of energy that uses the food we consume as its fuel, and we carry a certain amount of electricity in our bodies. The electricity can affect our heart rates, breathing rates and CranioSacral rhythms. Add electricity from an outside source – you know, when you shuffle your socked feet on the carpet and "zap" your friend or sibling — and a few things can occur: your heart can actually stop or go out of normal rhythm. More likely, however, nothing at all will happen except your friend becomes focused on getting you back.

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