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by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

This morning, I was feeling blah.  I was feeling eh.  I worked steadily from home all morning, finally showering and getting dressed in the late afternoon so that I could run a few errands before meeting a friend for tea.

I had thrown on boring, easy clothes — leggings and a sweater, not much makeup.  I had dressed like my mood, a little boring and dreary and gray.

I didn’t have to leave yet, so I decided to do this thing that I had learned from one of my mentors, Mama Gena.  It’s a skill that she teaches on the first day at her school, and most of her students consider it to be one of their most important, life changing tools.  Once I did it, it completely changed the tone of my day.

It’s called bragging, but it’s not your typical bragging.

With this type of bragging, you take responsibility for all of the amazing things that you do all the time.  It’s about acknowledging your power in the life you’ve created.  And the more you recognize this power, the more it grows and the more you get turned on to it.

Just like with typical bragging, a good brag is often all about the way that you tell it.  A good bragger can talk about doing the laundry and make it sound like an astounding feat.  For example, you could write or say, “I have the most amazing brag.  I’m so creative with always finding outfits to wear that I had really let my laundry pile up.  The bag was so heavy that I could barely get it to the laundromat!  But I brag that the book I’m reading is so good, that having all that laundry to do left me with plenty of time to chill out and read.  I am such a genius for procrastinating with my laundry, because otherwise I never would have set aside all of that time to read this great book.”

You see how bragging can change the way you experience the world?  Suddenly, you’re not beating yourself up for letting your laundry pile up, you’re praising yourself for the power you have to create situations in your life.  You turned a boring afternoon at the laundromat to a brilliant decision to take time out to read a book.  Life didn’t just happen to you, you decided how you wanted it to look.

As you can imagine, you can use bragging for the big and astoundingly wonderful things that happen in your life as well as the difficult things that happen in your life.  It’s such an immensely powerful tool for allowing you to see all of the wonderful things you do every day, as well as the opportunities that may arise from difficult situations.

I know that for many of you, bragging has negative connotations.  We associate it with being obnoxious or self-centered, or we think of braggarts who boast of events that never even happened.  This is not that kind of bragging.  This is the kind of bragging that acknowledges your power, and allows those who hear your brags to (a) agree with you and cheer you on or (b) notice how they can have similar experiences in their own lives.

So this afternoon, I logged on to Mama Gena’s alumni community and wrote out some brags.  I shared all the amazing things that are going on in my life right now, lots of new clients and new friends, lots of opportunities to be in the world in a new way.  Once I was done typing, I was feeling really good again.  Life got a little more vivid.  I changed my outfit, suddenly preferring more form-fitting clothes.  I put some glitter powder on, even though I was just going to the post office and meeting an old friend for tea.  I felt powerful again and I felt turned on by my power and excited for the next brag that I knew was coming my way.

This week, I want you to experiment with bragging.  Write out at least 3 brags about anything in your life.  For extra credit, get a friend to try it with you.  Email each other your brags or speak them aloud.  When you’re hearing or reading someone else’s brag, remember to praise them, let them know what about his or her brag inspires or excites you.  Notice how you feel after bragging.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.