The #1 Gratitude Practice You Need To Start Today

Imagine, for a moment, living in a world where you appreciate your body for what it does, rather than how it looks. What if you could change your perspective and cultivate a deep, loving relationship with yourself without obsessing over your weight? Today, I'm sharing a profound tool that empowers you to do just that - in less than two minutes a day!

We are shifting towards love, power, and gratitude for our bodies. This gratitude practice is about reframing our focus on the positive aspects and capabilities of our bodies.

But this isn't just about us - it's about a collective shift in how we as a society perceive and value our bodies.  Together, let's create a ripple effect of self-love and body confidence, showing the world that beauty is not defined by size or shape. By shifting our focus away from the mirror and instead to our body's capabilities, we can reclaim hours lost to worry and step into our power. Remember, your body is remarkable in its own unique way, and it's time we celebrated it!

If you find this episode powerful, please share it! 

Let's Be Social Media Besties: https://www.facebook.com/DanielleNicoleLaRose/
[ OR ] https://www.instagram.com/danielle_nicole_larose/
Let's Connect - Website: https://www.prettypowerfulgirl.com/

Transcript

Danielle La Rose: 0:09

is that when you learn how to create a healthy relationship with your body and you learn how to have appreciation and gratitude for your body, the rest of your life will drastically improve. Oh my gosh, sister. Okay, we are having a conversation today. I won't keep talking like that, but I am so excited because today I'm sharing with you a little secret, a little nugget, a little tool that I use and have used and continue to use on a consistent basis to really create that self-love that we're all looking for and, in particular, more of that body confidence, that body love, without losing weight. Okay, because loving your body isn't a goal to reach, it's a daily choice. Ooh, did you catch that? Okay, let me back it up. Back it up and drop it. Okay, I'm having so many dance parties today, I don't know. I'm just, I think I'm just really excited to hang out with you today.

Danielle La Rose: 1:09

But so loving your body isn't a goal to reach. You ain't ever going to get there. There's no finish line, but it's a daily choice. So the good news is is that you have control. How many of us are like control me. You have control right now, in this moment, to love your body. The bad news is, it doesn't come naturally to really any woman, so you have to make the decision to actually do the work to get there. So that's good news, bad news. And so you have the opportunity today, right now, in this moment, to love your body. And you may be thinking but do you know? That doesn't make any sense. I don't love my body. Right now, I'm going to show you, I'm going to show you something that you can start doing every single day, that literally takes less than two minutes. That will help you get to a place of loving your body Right. So I'm going to show you exactly how to love and appreciate your body. But first, if you want, do you watch Big Brother? I always think I'm like Julie Chen when I say that Like, but first, I love Big Brother so much. Hey, if you're listening in your part of Big Brother and I want to be houseguest, like, sign me up. Anyways, okay, I digress.

Danielle La Rose: 2:27

Here's a quick reality check, though, about self-love and body image. Your body right now. Are you sitting down? You're standing up? You're taking a walk? You're driving to work?

Danielle La Rose: 2:38

I don't know where you are, but right now, wherever you are, in this moment, your body is perfect as it is right now, the only freaking reason you think something is wrong with it is because society told you to think something was wrong with it. They showed you this quote unquote perfect body on TV and in magazines and you believed them. You believed them. They tell you what creams and potions and lotions you need to quote unquote fix your problem areas, and you bought in. You know I'm right, because you know you got some wrinkle cream. You got some stuff to cover up your, your blemishes. You got some your coloring your hair, your gray hairs. Listen, we all do it. Okay, I know what you're doing, right, and we've bought into this idea that our bodies are not perfect and so, therefore, we have to buy into products and stuff that will allow us to fix ourselves, because our mission in our life is supposed to be to be perfect. Looking for the rest of the world, have you ever felt that pressure To look and act a certain way? Yo, we all have. Okay, we've all we do like that. That is how we are, that's how we operate. So there's nothing wrong with you, right? But they companies, society profits by us hating our bodies. It's a business, homegirl. It's a business. So they, they profit from us hating our bodies. So you're like.

Danielle La Rose: 4:08

You know, I thought this was supposed to be a positive podcast. It is because when you can become aware of that reality, you can make different, you can choose to do, take different actions to shift your thoughts. And when we shift our thoughts, we shift our feelings. And when we shift our feelings, now we can set more into love of our bodies, now we can set more into power, now we can set more into gratitude and appreciation. Right, here's what I need you to know it's okay to not love your body.

Danielle La Rose: 4:40

If you haven't heard me preach this, I did a whole preaching. I don't want to say shouldn't say preaching. I did a whole podcast episode about this that you can go back and listen to. It's okay to not love your body. And that was that's really hard for me to say because, if we're being honest, it's really not okay, right, it's not okay that a little girl at five years old is considering dieting because she believes that she's supposed to be skinny. It's not okay. And you might be thinking do you know how that? Is that true? Yes, go go search Social science.

Danielle La Rose: 5:14

Research shows us that girls as young as five years old are considering dieting. 70 to 80% of women are not doing life activities. They're not going to the grocery store, they're not going to the game, they're not going to the amusement park, they're not. They're not stepping outside of their house because they are so insecure in their bodies. And you may be one of them, because it's 70 to 80%. That's a majority of us women. So there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. It's okay to not love your body.

Danielle La Rose: 5:45

But that really hurts my soul to tell you that, because, deep down, it's not okay. It's not okay that we live in a world where so many women don't love what they see when they look in the mirror, that we live in a world where little girls are picking themselves apart looking in the mirror, and so it makes me sad and it makes me angry, if I'm being honest. But I also realize that we live in a world where we're preached to 24-7 now to love ourselves and our bodies and we are literally feeling bad for not loving our bodies and we are beating ourselves up over it. So if you're here listening to this right now as my pretty powerful bestie, you're here with me. If you're here and you are struggling with wanting to love your body and not being quite there yet. I want you to know it's okay to have those feelings. It's important that you're patient with yourself.

Danielle La Rose: 6:49

Losing weight doesn't increase your love for your body. The workouts and healthy eating that lead to weight loss definitely help. You have some appreciation for your body and what it's capable of, but the simple number on the scale doesn't give you self-love. It's actually quite the opposite. When you learn how to love your body as it is right now, today, where you're at, whether you're sitting down and you're standing, wherever you are listening to this when you learn how to love your body as it is and appreciate it for what it's capable of first, then you will find you naturally want to take better care of it, leading to possible weight loss if your body needs to lose weight.

Danielle La Rose: 7:30

Can not listen. We're besties. Now I need you to hear me. Your body might not need to lose weight if you're making healthy food choices and you're moving your body and you're taking care of yourself. You're getting your sleep, you're getting your water, you've got your vitamins going on, you're doing all the things. If your body isn't changing and you don't have an underlying health condition, then let me tell you something your body probably doesn't need to lose weight. Guess what, and that's cool. That's for a whole different podcast.

Danielle La Rose: 7:57

I get on a little tangent because I'm so passionate about this, because they need you to know that the goal of working out and eating healthy is just to make you feel good. It's to help your heart work better. It's to help your blood circulation Right. It's to help us function better, our bodies function better. That's it. It's not to lose weight. I totally went off track.

Danielle La Rose: 8:18

So my point here is that the scale doesn't determine your self-love. Okay, so get rid of it. At least that's my. I'm just going to throw that in there. Maybe I should do this every single podcast episode. Get rid of your scale. Subliminal messages, okay, so how? Okay, you're like you know, okay, god, blah, blah, blah. Tell me how. What's this tool that you're talking about and that's going to help me love my body more without losing weight? Because I don't believe you. Okay, let's get to it. How can you love your body today, especially when you find yourself constantly looking in the mirror and hating what you see? And I use the word hate because that's how I used to feel. I hope you don't hate your body, but that was the language that I used. So I just want to be real, raw and honest. If that's where you're at right now, again, it's okay. So this is how we do it. This is how we do it. I hope you just had a dance party right there and if you didn't, you need to go listen to that song after this and then have a little dance party. You're welcome for your exercise idea for the day.

Danielle La Rose: 9:22

Okay, what you focus on expands, right? We know that to be true. So if you focus on what you do not like, you'll see more of it. It's like when you never see a specific Jeep, right, you're like I've never seen a red Jeep in my life. I'm going to buy that red Jeep and be the only human in the world to have a red Jeep. Then, all of a sudden, you buy the red Jeep, you drive around and you're like oh and G, everybody at least 20,000 people decided to go buy the same red Jeep yesterday as I did, and now we're all rolling around looking the same and I thought I was about to be special. Right, you buy something and you're like now everybody has it. I'm not as cool as I thought I was. It's not that they weren't around before, it's just that you weren't focused on them until you got yours.

Danielle La Rose: 10:10

And the same goes with your mindset and loving your body. If you focus on the negative, what you determined to be negative you're going to see more of the negative. If you focus on the positive do you know how the sentence finishes you see more positive, right? So I want you right, and when I work with my clients and I have workbooks where there's like a whole sheet laid out for them to do this, but you don't need that right now. All I need you to do today is I need you to get out a little piece of paper. You can think about this right now, as you're listening, if it's not safe to write, but later I want you to grab a piece of paper and I want you to write these things down. Okay, and here's a pro tip I want you to look at this daily, to serve as a constant reminder of how powerful your body truly is.

Danielle La Rose: 11:01

Okay, so we're choosing what we're going to focus on. So here's what we're going to focus on from this day forward. This is called body gratitude, and this is something. This is a practice you can implement every single day that will help you focus on what you want to see more of. So let's do this together. Ready, okay, I just became a cheerleader again. Okay, my body allows me to, and I want you to fill in the blank.

Danielle La Rose: 11:35

So later, when you're able to write down, you're going to write four. Do I have four for you? Five, five, yes, five is the answer. I have five. Question five fill in the blanks that you're going to write down for yourself. Okay, number one my body allows me to fill in the blank. What does your body do for you right now? That's important, okay, okay, if you are driving right now and you're thinking, I don't know, you better look at your arms, homegirl. You better be holding that steering wheel. You better be those feet. You got your feet on the gas. And if you're like when I used to work at the university and I had to drive an hour and a half to get to work, I was hitting that gas, brake, gas, brake, gas, brake. You know traffic, your body, whatever you're doing right now, in this moment, you can find whatever you're doing, it's allowing you to do and you can show gratitude for that.

Danielle La Rose: 12:31

So some of my clients have said things. Like you know, my body allows me to feed my babies, go to work, be intimate with my partner Okay, maybe they didn't use those soft up words, but I'll keep a PG here right. Run after my kids go to work oh yeah, I had that one already. Hike mountains, see beautiful places, eat delicious food. And right now it can be as simple as, for example, I like to stand. If you want to know how I roll with my podcast, I like to stand. It gives me lots of energy when I'm standing to talk to you. So I'm grateful right now that my legs are allowing me to stand and have this conversation with you. I'm grateful that my arms are able to move, because you can't see me right now, but my arms are flailing everywhere. I got that whole like head bob going. I got. My fingers are snapping. I got. You know, I'm just throwing, throwing my arms around. I'm grateful that I can do this. I'm grateful that I can talk to you right now, standing up, you know. So my body allows me to fill in the blank.

Danielle La Rose: 13:34

What does your body allow you to do? Next is I love that my body can. What can your body actually do that you may be taking for granted? Maybe it's running right If you want to. Maybe it's running. Maybe it's that you can type messages to your friends you just met on social media. Maybe it's that your ears work and allow you to hear nature. Maybe it's holding growing babies or jumping in puddles in the playground or taking care of yourself, right.

Danielle La Rose: 14:09

What can your body do that you may be taking for granted? Next is my strong arms. Allow me to Right. So now we get to get a little bit more specific. My strong arms allow me to. What do your arms do for you on a regular basis that you don't even pay attention to? Do you push a stroller, maybe carry a baby, snuggle with your wife or husband, lift weights, reach for food?

Danielle La Rose: 14:42

High up in the cabin is write letters to your favorite humans? High five your kiddos. Ski, play tennis, go bowling, slam, dunk a basketball. What is it for you? What do your strong arms allow you to? Like I said right now, just talking to you, my strong arms allow me to move, to express myself more. My strong arms today allowed me to get pulled by a 92 pound German shepherd as we were going into the vet and he was trying to pull me the opposite way and I was like homie, come on, you know, and I didn't know if I was going to make it, I didn't know if I was going to be able to actually get him in there, because I mean, he heavy and he strong and he pulls very, very, very hard, but I was pulling harder because my strong arms allow me to do that. And then once we get in, and he's an anxious little dude he's not little, he's very big, but he's anxious, so he's shaking and getting all upset that he's there. So my strong arms allow me to pet my dog and calm him down.

Danielle La Rose: 15:40

Some of these things feel silly to say right, it's like, well, duh like. But when was the last time you really thought about the fact that not everybody has arms, not everybody has strong legs? Not everybody's body is functioning the way that yours is, and maybe yours, maybe let's just be real, sister maybe your body is at a point where you're like my body is fighting against me too. You know what, dino, I'm struggling in this area. My body has this disease. My body, actually my arms aren't working right now. Actually my legs aren't working right now. But you're listening to me. Right now, your ears are working and you can be angry and frustrated with parts of your body.

Danielle La Rose: 16:29

But when we do this practice, this is practicing gratitude for what we do have, and we take the little things so much for granted. So what about those strong legs? Right? The next one is I don't know what number I'm on for my strong legs. Allow me to your legs, homie. If your legs, if you are able-bodied and your legs are moving, your legs put in so much work each day. Let's celebrate what they do for us your walking dogs, your climbing stairs at home and at work.

Danielle La Rose: 17:01

You're running to catch a flight when you're late Is that just me? You're bouncing your baby. You're playing duck-duck-goosh, you're jumping high, you're, you know, you're taking walks. What your legs are doing so many things throughout the day, again, that we just take for granted. So what do your legs allow you to do?

Danielle La Rose: 17:19

And finally, my body feels the strongest when it's time to pay attention to the times when your body feels really, really good. So that way, you can do more of that, right? So fill in the blank. My body feels the strongest when. For me, my body feels the strongest when I'm dancing my heart out. It feels strong, mainly emotionally, like. It just feels like I'm in my zone, it's just where I'm meant to be. That's, for me, right. Maybe your body feels the strongest when you're eating healthy foods, or you're in a big bear hug with a family member, or when you're running, or when you get enough sleep, or when you're taking a bubble bath, or when you're getting a massage, or when right, what are some times throughout the day or the weeks when your body feels the strongest.

Danielle La Rose: 18:05

So I want you to really write these questions, or write these five fill in the blank sentences down, so that way you can come back to this. And here's the truth. You're probably not going to do this because, if you're like me, you listen to something and you're like that's a really great idea, I'll try that, and then you never try it, or you think that's kind of silly, that's really dumb. I probably really just need do need to lose weight. I probably really just do need to say these affirmations, or I probably really do need to do XYZ. And you're going to hear this and you're going to think, danielle, this is dumb, this is crazy, this is stupid.

Danielle La Rose: 18:42

I'm going to be a little out there because I do gratitude. I'm grateful for my life, I'm grateful for food, I'm grateful for my family and I'm going to say that's great, but if the thing that I believe is holding you back the most from living your highest potential is that you struggle with the relationship you have with your body, then all that other gratitude it's great, but it's not going to solve some of your problems. My truth, my belief, is that when you learn how to create a healthy relationship with your body and you learn how to have appreciation and gratitude for your body, the rest of your life will drastically improve. Because the average woman spends about 12.5 hours a week thinking about her body and how she wants to change it. I want to give you your time back. Can I do that? Let me give you your time back.

Danielle La Rose: 19:34

The way that we do that is we start by this body gratitude, of showing gratitude towards our body. When we do that, we're focusing on what our bodies do, not how they look. And when we can see that is actually what our bodies are put on this earth to do is what they're doing, then we can start thinking about our bodies less for how they look. Then you can take that time and you can go apply it to every part of your life that's really important to you. You can build the business. You can have that great family time, you can do the things that you want to do, because now it's not bogged down by these negative thoughts about your body standing in a mirror, picking yourself apart, wishing that you were different. Now, instead, you're practicing gratitude for the very thing that's holding you back and with time and with effort and with energy, it will become second habit. Second nature is what I was trying to say. Second nature because it will become a habit of doing body gratitude. So appreciating, having appreciative thoughts and positive thoughts towards your body will become second nature long down the road, by making the effort today to do some body gratitude. And so you might be asking okay, well, when should I do this? How should I do this? How often should I do this? Girl, find it's long as you're doing it like progress is better than perfection. Here's what I'll tell you. Here's what I here's my morning practice.

Danielle La Rose: 21:09

Soon, as I wake up in the morning, I do not get out of bed quickly. I lay in bed and typically I try to like, do a little stretch, like I'll try to just stretch my legs a little bit, or stretch my arms, or just take a big deep breath. Put my oh, that feels good. Put my arms up over my head, you know. So I do that and while I'm doing that I'm thinking through the things I'm saying my body gratitude, homie, stomach, girlfriend. I know we had some fun last night hanging out with our girlfriend and we ate a lot of delicious food. Thank you so much for processing that. Thank you right Legs. I put you through an intense workout yesterday. That felt good and I know you saw it today. But thank you, thank you for allowing me to do that, and I just say these quick things in my head as I'm doing my stretch and then I get up and I go about my day. It's not over complicated and again, it's become a habit for me.

Danielle La Rose: 22:13

I also wanna share with you something that a couple of my clients like to do. Is they like to do body gratitude in the shower? They say you know you're there with your thoughts and obviously you're seeing your body, and so they said that. Some of my clients have said that. You know that used to be a hard time for them. It's showering right Because you naked, and so in that moment, that's when a lot of that negative body talk can come about, and so they said what they like to start doing now is they do their body gratitude while in the shower, and I thought that was brilliant. I love that idea. So maybe one of those will work. Or perhaps you're like you know, it'd actually be really good for me if I do that while I'm drinking my coffee at 10 am. Cool, whatever works for you, okay?

Danielle La Rose: 22:56

There's no perfect way to do anything in life. There is your way that works with your lifestyle, and all I want you to do is commit to doing this. That's it. That's it. No pressure, no perfection. Just start seeing your body for what it does and showing gratitude for your jer body for what it does instead of how it looks. And even better, homie, if you're listening to this and you are a mom especially a girl mom, but oh, it doesn't matter but especially girl moms do this with your kids. Have your kids focus on their bodies.

Danielle La Rose: 23:32

You know I run a girl empowerment program and one of our workshops we did with the girls. We quickly we didn't spend a lot of time on this, but we quickly did a session on body gratitude and talking about how our bodies are powerful and how we get to appreciate and value them for what they do right. I didn't go into a speech to little ones about. You know how they don't love their body because of this and society says this. Or you know wrinkle stretch marks. We didn't talk about that unnecessary, but my hope was that, starting from a young age, they start thinking about how their body functions and what makes them feel good and how to take care of their bodies and how to know that they have power and control over their bodies and that their body can be appreciated and valued for what it does. And so we had them do the same exact exercise of filling in the blanks. My body allows me to. I'm grateful that my arms allow me to, my strong legs allow me to, and I can tell you at the end of this, we did little testimonial videos of the girl saying why other girls should come to the event. Of course, lots of them are like it's so much fun. And you know I made new friends and I learned how to be nice and I learned about this, and a couple of them said I learned about body power and being grateful for my body.

Danielle La Rose: 24:57

Remember how I told you there's a five-year-old girl right now that's considering hiding because she thinks that she needs to lose weight. This is important. This is important that she knows that her body isn't meant to look a certain way for other humans, but rather to do stuff for her, to help her feel good, to help her move, to help her live a great life full of joy and passion and fun. And so, if we can teach little girls to appreciate and express gratitude for their bodies, my hope, my dream, my desire is that as they grow up, they remember that and maybe those negative body talk or the negative body thoughts get silenced just a little bit. I know they won't go away completely, but I want to silence them a little bit. So woo got all in my feels.

Danielle La Rose: 26:01

So, mom, if you're here, this would be a great activity to also do with your kids. Right, showing them, having your kids appreciate their bodies for what they can do, right, so it can help them long-term with body image issues. Start them young, focusing on what their bodies can do. And so that way, with the goal being, like I said, that long-term they focus less on how their body looks and focus more on what their bodies are doing for them. So I'm asking you today, even if you don't want to do this for yourself, do this for the next generation of humans, that we show them how to express gratitude, how to focus on what's really important when it comes to their bodies, by being an example of how to do that. So go ahead, keep thinking these thoughts today, but then what I want you to do is, when you get a chance, I want you to sit down and I want you to really write these out and then, from this day forward, every day, or at least consistently, you're going to do some body gratitude, either in your head, like I do, or on paper, totally up to you.

Danielle La Rose: 27:12

But it's time to start encouraging yourself and the people around you to stop looking for self-love from outside sources, and it's time to start looking within homie and focusing on what you want to expand. Self-love is BS, okay, and I'll share more about that in the future. You know, because now you're like, really, Danielle, you just told me how to have more self-love and now you're telling me it's BS. Yes, but we'll talk about that later. For now, I need you to remember that you are pretty powerful and body appreciation is where it is at, and how you start developing a love for your body and your mentality. Did I say what I wanted to say there, whatever my point was, that my point is that body appreciation is the starting point to helping you develop that love and mentality around a positive body image. Okay, did that make sense? Hopefully that made I think that made sense. Okay, that's all I got for you today.

Danielle La Rose: 28:14

I hear my phone going off, so if you heard my phone going off, I apologize. I thought it was silence, it was not. But hey, we ain't about perfection here, we are about progress. So I'll remember next time. And until next time again, do your body gratitude. If you were like, maybe you've never heard a body gratitude before, maybe you were like ooh, a couple of things you said to me hit me in my feels. I needed that today. Maybe you're starting to find more love and appreciation for your body Home, girl, I need to hear about this. Okay, like, don't be a stranger, don't make this weird, don't make it weird.

Danielle La Rose: 28:49

Send me a message on social media, send me an email Like can we please like, talk about this? If this served you in some way, I would love to hear about it. I would love to hear how body gratitude is going for you and again, as I always say, if this was so helpful for you. Please share this on social media, send it to a friend, email it to people that you think it could support, because the goal here is not just for me to talk I don't even like talking, I don't even like talking but I'm here because I have a mission, I have a purpose and I have a passion, and it's to help support you and other women in their lives, step away from the mirror and step into their power. So the goal is to reach as many women as we possibly can with this message. So, if this served you, share it and, sister, you are pretty powerful and I will see you. I won't see you. I will talk to you on the next episode. Have a good one, have a great weekend.