Hi lovelies! I was recently interviewed by a rocking site HerFuture.com and I thought I would share it with you! It was a great chance for me to further share the Bodylove Diet principles which include
mind-body nutrition, emotional detox and energy healing! Enjoy!
How did Bodylove Diet come to be?
My Bodylove journey was ignited by my deep desire to get out of the funk and fear of body hate.
Once upon a time, I was a model and an aspiring actress. Everyone told me I was beautiful, but I was blinded by my insecurity, my career aspirations and my skinny obsession! At the ripe old age of twenty I hot tailed it to New York City to pursue my acting and modeling dreams! In a desperate attempt to get super thin, before you could say “Jimmy Choo”, I was popping a copious amount of diet pills or if we want to get real legalized speed was my daily fix.
It was the height of the Kate Moss waif era and the lifeless grunge look was all the rage. Before long the weight fell off and I was skinny. At five foot five I became a petite model and spent most days going to castings and auditioning for acting roles. Existing pretty much on coffee, diet coke, sorbet and a handful of Gummi bears for weeks on end, my daily diet pill addiction kept me speeding along. Within nine months I had gone from the new kid on the block and the life of the party to a sick, miserable and disillusioned young woman.
I vividly remember my agent, Dorian, taking me to bustling Fifth Avenue late one afternoon. Dorian, a crack addict, was a bigger mess than I was. The consummate self–promoter, Dorian claimed to be Claudia Schiffer’s booker at the start of her career. I didn’t trust him but I willingly let him lead my career. Dorian drew me close, and with animated exuberance shouted, ‘Ingrid, look up at that model on the billboard. That is going to be you one day. You’re going to be a star!’ But his predication was so very wrong. I did not become the next Kate Moss but rather just some wannabe who was literally dying to keep up.
The truth was I had lost my sparkle by trying to fit into a world that I didn’t belong to. I had run away from my problems in Australia and, rather than deal with them, I put all my focus on attaining beauty on the outside whilst suffocating on the inside. The pills kept me buzzing all night long. The insomnia and stabbing hunger pains drove me nutty but I kept habitually repeating the same regime in a desperate attempt to be thin, happy and successful. All I got was thin for a brief moment. Happiness and success eluded me. What made my situation more precarious was that, like so many young girls, I had blindly entered into the drama of crazy diets at twelve. If we do the math, I had been on this rollercoaster ride for thirteen years already. My body was freaking out and so was I!
On my twenty-fourth birthday I headed home to Australia to discover that I had uterine cancer – or so the doctors told me. After several surgeries, I found out it was something else – not a terminal condition, but serious and life changing nonetheless. As I later learned when I decided to walk away from my past, my health problems were linked to my dark emotions, my grief, rage and trauma. This was my mega wake up call and I was forced to listen. My metabolism hit rock bottom after years of starving myself and bulimia and when I started eating again I gained 30 pounds. After two years of healing my body and soul, the weight came off and I felt free because I didn’t have any fear around food or body woes either. I am now l free to enjoy life to the fullest because I’m not stressing out about what to eat and what not to eat or about how my body looks!
The word ‘Bodylove’ came to me during this dark and painful time in my life. I knew that if I felt such excruciating torment then other women did too. It was at my lowest point that I had this vision. I vowed to find a new way of living that would free me from critical judgment and paralyzing fear. I was so over struggling. I had to find a way of living that was based on pleasure, peace and love. As I healed, I felt compelled to share the Bodylove philosophy.
Bodylove is like discovering that one true gorgeous loving partner who devours your loins with such an appetite of appreciation that you feel like you’re in a constant state of bliss – only what you have found is your own true self and the magic of learning to love your body with absolute conviction and gratitude.
What do you believe the connection is between our minds and our bodies?
The mind and body work as one inter-related entity, each communicating with the other part, each equally important and powerful. It’s your choice whether the body-mind dance together in unity or not. Your emotions and your mind can either create beauty or dis-ease and it’s largely dependent on how you process, relate, perceive and respond to life.
The mind is controlled by the emotions and our emotions control our body on a cellular level. When we are angry, anxious or bully ourselves with the all too common internal rants of “I’m too fat” and “I’m not good enough”, we place the body and spirit into fear mode setting off chemical and emotional reactions in the body. I also believe that everything is energy and that our emotions and the food we eat create the energy within the body and then in every other part of our lives. It starts within and moves outwards!
To have peace and health in the body we must first create it in the mind and soul. In a nutshell my Bodylove philosophy is – we are all divine beauty. When we are disconnected to that truth we are at war with ourselves and the body retaliates by showing signs of illness, depression, weight gain and lethargy. Unfortunately most women are exhausted for many reasons but the most common reason for our lethargy is the constant ugliness and toxic energy that we expel into the body with self-bullying that typically sounds off from the moment we wake.
I believe that what we say holds a vibration, and that vibration can either cause pain or pleasure depending on thought. In my opinion, it’s imperative to get our self-talk to vibrate in love and joy if you really want to have a juicy life.
When the mind is at war, the body is at war. When the mind lives in beauty, the body creates beautiful miracles. – Ingrid Arna
Can you describe your own path of healing your relationship with your body?
Integrating mind, body, and spirit, Bodylove was initially a mantra I used to heal my body and spirit = to get my mind and body to live in the energy of love, trust and self-acceptance.
I made a commitment to myself to heal, transform and to become a vital, confident and loved up chick. I literally got down on my hands and knees and prayed to God to show me the way. It’s amazing what we attract when we are fully committed to healing. We grow, we let go of the BS and we transform. There is no other way!
My first step to invoke the desire and make the commitment to myself and the second was dealing with my stored emotional trauma. I started to take a good look at how my past shaped my beliefs and I worked to release and heal all the bogus thoughts that were causing such destruction in my life. I purged out a truck-load of crap, forgave myself and others, and reclaimed my divine connection to source, love and limitless bliss, baby! I believe we experience the same process of reinvention. As soon as we move from the wounded victim to the woman who takes charge her world, divine intervention steps in to support you!
My healing really took hold when I started to call out and ask for what I wanted. My call was my desire to create a new life and body. In my counseling practice I teach women how to get the CALL process down and it works in every area for your life from love to money to yeap your body baby!
I wanted peace and I wanted to feel sensual, confident, sexy and in tune with my body. I also wanted to eat food without feeling guilty! I wanted to be able to not freak out at every meal overwhelmed by my fear of putting on weight. So I had to go within to clear out the emotional junk in my trunk that was driving my toxic beliefs and emotions.
I prayed, visualized and was totally committed to growing because I wanted to get out of the hell I had experienced and then kept creating. So I did. I also studied holistic health, mind-body healing and nutrition to obtain the knowledge I needed to reach my goal of ‘Bodylove’ and a sexy radiant body to boot without struggle or sacrifice.
I have a free e-book on my site at mybodyloveblog.com that clearly outlines the 10 Rituals To Bodylove but the key is start being kinder to yourself.
When you’re not loving to yourself it’s your inner bitch talking to you, not your true divine sacred self. As soon as you become aware, you can work towards being more loving and appreciative of the divine woman you are.
So tell me about the Bodylove Diet?
The Bodylove Diet is a new juicy eating and living paradigm.
The word DIET for us Bodylove babes stands for: Daily, Intuitive, Energy and Transformation
I think it’s quite genius!
Any diet that’s not loving is a waste of your time and detrimental to your physical, spiritual, and emotional health. The Bodylove Diet is a new and revolutionary philosophy that goes way beyond what we are eating and looks at how we eat and the emotion that determines how we digest and metabolize our food.
Eating great food must be combined with a great mood for vital health. Food and emotion work in harmony together and each feeds and dances with the other. Having a positive attitude and eating crap food won’t take you far. And in the end the low vibrational foods you ingest will affect your mood – and vice versa. Eating nourishing food and having a crap attitude won’t hold out for long. Eventually your body will suffer and it will let you know!
When you don’t nourish the body with the right vitamins, fats, and nutrients, it effects your emotions. In fact, the right foods work to create healthy, loving emotions that reinvent the body. That said, if you eat really well but have blocked emotions and spiritual torment trapped in the body and soul, eating well will support you but it won’t give you that rocking vital health we all want and deserve. If you want the full ‘Red Carpet’ makeover then you need to address both mind and body and see them almost as one entity dancing together.
The Bodylove Diet marries the quality of food, the energy of food, the energy we have towards food, and the emotions we have about ourselves, our lives and the body, to create a powerful program that friggin’ rocks!
Why do you feel so moved now to help others heal?
I think my life and my dedication forever changed after experiencing a chronic illness. The compassion I feel for others drives and inspires me. A divine power keeps me moving in the healing realm. The older I get the deeper and more compelled I am to share my knowledge and the way in which I do constantly evolves.
I love women and I think we really hurt ourselves by not loving who we are. Not only is it a great shame that so many women battle with self image, their sexuality and food but the truth is this can be totally transformed if women know what to do. When you have a solution, I think it is our responsibility to share it and pass it on.
I have a provocative way of communicating and it’s so much fun to perform, connect and radically guide someone’s life. I don’t know if you choose this sort of work or whether it chooses you!
The Bodylove Diet is the culmination of 15 years of study and it’s the program I put myself on to heal. I’m sharing it with as many women as I can so they too can live juicy, sexy and rocking lives. My mission is to inspire as many women as possible to enjoy nourishing food, connect to pleasure and look and feel great without calorie counting or stepping on the scale. Imagine this – if each woman really loved herself, the revolution and beauty that would unfold would be miraculous! It’s time to live in the beauty of Bodylove babes!
Featured in Cosmopolitian, Instyle, Grazia, Body & Soul magazines, Ingrid Arna is an holistic health counselor, weight loss and new energy coach, speaker and blog addict! Her daily diet is Bodylove, good food, hugs and lots of laughter! Check out her blog at www.mybodyloveblog.com or www.bodylovediet.com
