Healthy Habits we can Learn from Ocean Creatures

This is a tough subject to breach, but one that has been on my mind for quite some time and I believe it deserves a lot more attention. My friend and a Gogh Jewelry Design Brand Ambassador, Cristina Zenato just posted about it on IG. Her post resulted 4000+ likes and 300+ comments making me believe that Healthy Habits and Eating Disorders is a topic that interests and affects many of us, so I am going to share her thoughts and my favorite replies and in the end, the best crystals for anorexia and the best crystals for eating disorders that I found to assist us on a journey of healthy living.

It was triggered by a post of a fitness account I WAS following on the fact that beauty is having a gap in between our thighs. As someone who has been affected by certain expectations of beauty and size, it triggered my desire to address something I see more on social media.

I have a past of eating behavioral problems and while I openly talk about them, I rarely post about them.

At age 17 I developed anorexia nervosa, at age 19 it evolved into bulimia. Both triggered by the same issues they manifest differently at a physical level. While anorexia is visible, bulimia is subtle and can be in anyone and go unnoticed. The person may appear healthy on the outside but have terrible behaviors towards food on the inside.

I healed from bulimia many years ago, a path I went through alone as there was zero support where I live, with the exceptions of two motivations I used: my love for a healthy life and the example that marine animals gave me.

They showed me that body shape and size does not matter but it's about who we are and how we act.

Fast forward to that recent post and what I see happening on social media and these are my concern. We are bombarded with images, most extremely modified, of a certain level of beauty; however, it influences minds and creates impossible expectations, including the feeling that sometimes, to be involved in something we need to look a certain way.

It creates a sense of exclusion. We come (both men and women) in many sizes, we should behave like the marine animals and value who we are and how we act. It’s time we appreciate the body we have, we nurture and take care of it by staying healthy, without demanding something it cannot do.

I feel there is a need in our world and in the scuba industry, to create a community of appreciation for who we are and not how we look. I applaud Fourth Element because they create the best bikinis for moving bodies, made of recycled nylon & because in their catalogues and posts they represent all shapes, sizes and show the true beauty we all possess. 

And here are just a few of my favorite heart felt responses:

• Thanks for sharing and love the way you talk about what the sea animals can teach us about helping us learn and embrace who we are. 💗 We all want to love our bodies and that takes intention and effort daily. That is hard sometimes. Ask how I know 😂 Feeling shame about your body is draining, I am glad you have put it behind you!
  
  
• Thank you for speaking up for so many women that struggle (including myself) of this ideal of what a perfect body is or what we “should” look like. If we could all simply compare ourselves to who we were as individuals yesterday versus who we think she is today our world would have far more love & much more authenticity. In the pursuit of the perfect body I thought I would be more accepted but the moment I accepted myself I realized that is all I needed ❤️
  
  
• Pretty is, as Pretty does! My mother would say this, and explain to her daughters, that if you are beautiful on the inside, and show your beauty in your actions, people will see you as Beautiful. Beauty starts within - in your heart and is shown through your kindness, your empathy, your actions towards others. This is what I share with my daughter now. It's nice to take care of yourself and strive for health and beauty on the outside, but:. Pretty is, as Pretty does. 🙏❤️ (Thank you, Mom. I miss you every day 😘
  
  
• What a brave and personal post…I just read an article about how damaging Instagram is to young females…how so many images are processed through filters that do this ´n’ that, to « enhance » certain parts of our actual appearance. The article continued to say that young women’s self images are making us feel insecure and not « good enough » about ourselves…IG can be very unhealthy for women on a subconscious or conscious level. It’s time we start accepting our physiques, stop comparing ourselves to others and to break free of that vicious cycle 🌈🦋💖
  
  
  
  
• I binge eat. I play it off as blaming my fast metabolism for being able to eat so much, but it's not my metabolism. I eat my emotions because i can't verbalize them. It's not only how i was raised (not verbalizing emotions) but also it's something that is very hard for me to do in general. So when something bad happens like stress or grief or even when I'm really angry, i will eat non stop. I know that with that much food in one stomach, most people often throw it up from eating too much. On two occasions i have actually eaten myself PAST the point of being nauseated and just having gut rot for a good two days and laying in one spot while my stomach digests. It's not something i talk about because i have a fast metabolism and people just blame that so i play it off as that for that reason. I can write my emotions and how I'm feeling but i can't verbally say them. So i eat. It's not fun. Thank you for showing people like me that it's okay to talk about things because there are people out there who listen. Animals are definitely great teachers. Especially marine animals. Even the smallest crustacean can teach us something that we would never realize on our own. Hermit crabs teaching us it's okay to come out of our own shells is an example i have always kept in mind.
  
  
• I deeply thank you @cristinazenato to share your story and your thoughts about this subject. We live in times where being yourself became only for the braves, but it’s not. Let’s challenge this trend of “fake perfection” with positive examples like yours ❤️
  
  
• I have had body issues all my life as well...up and down in weight, body shaming myself thinking I should be skinny. I have learned over the years, that my binge eating is where I need to work on for myself and want to be healthy for me!! I checked out @fourthelementdive and I love the post of women dancing in their bikini of all different shapes. It makes me feel good... 💙💙💙🦈🦈🦈 I had a long road and like any road I traveled it one small step at the time.
  
  
• We can learn so much from the animal world. Just one example, I was fortunate to experience the mountain gorillas of Uganda, and I remember thinking to myself, “they are more human than we are!” It was one of the most beautiful encounters I have ever experienced! In our group, we were all deeply touched. It was life changing! Thank you for sharing your personal experience, and for representing that even strong women are vulnerable!
  
  
• Self love is a hard topic, especially with the beauty standards in today’s society. There is so much pressure in our world to look a certain way and social media has only exacerbated it. Taking care of your body is important but who you are on the inside is what it’s all about in this life!!!! Everyone needs to hear this, especially young people who are constantly bombarded by messages that they aren’t good enough. TY ❤️

 Acceptance doesn’t mean not to strive to be greater. There’s a subtle but essential distinction. If you strive for more without accepting yourself in the absence of what you think you lack then you will never have enough no matter how much you gain, and you will always feel “less than” because your worth will be dependent upon whether you gain what you think you lack.

By accepting yourself right now, as you are, you can and will still strive to grow, but that striving will come from a place of wholeness, not a place of insufficiency. And when you truly can believe ‘I am Enough”, you will absolutely be pulled toward growth and expansion because that’s human nature. But you will do it from a place of power, not a place of powerlessness. And that is the secret to lasting, true growth and progress toward Healthy Habits.

Affirmations can change the programming of one's mindset and can also activate the law of attraction. They can help you overcome negative self talk, and they can improve your state of mind body health. You can use positive affirmations to change your thought patterns and habits, and avoid thinking negative thoughts.

Positive Affirmations work by doing three things. First, they allow us to maintain a good narrative about ourselves (or self-identity), one that is moral, flexible, and can handle stressful situations. Secondly, keeping our self-identity helps us understand what we value and why. And lastly, these affirmations can change our behaviors because we wish to be as the statements say. 

That is why I created a whole collection with Positive Affirmation Jewelry and searched for the Best Healing Crystals for Eating Disorders, crystals for anorexia and I compiled the crystals to help with eating disorders for you to assist your journey as well developing healthy life habits and to feel good in your own skin.