By Sheri McIntosh, Saturday at 1:27 pm

I am part of a group on Facebook that supports each other with our fitness goals. The group has almost 43,000 members and I have not read a troll on there yet. I enjoy how supportive the women are to each other. It does not matter if the woman posting is 120 pounds or 200 pounds, she will receive encouraging words or likes. I usually scroll through and give likes or if there is a question that I have an answer for I will respond.

Last week a lady posted a picture of herself and she looked totally fit to me. She was complaining about how other people who were her same height and weight looked better than her. She stated that she could not be great. I had to respond and tell her she was great, and she should not compare herself to other people. She said she was just stating facts.

I am not sure what she sees when she looks in the mirror. I am convinced she has a distorted view of herself. I am not judging her because I feel that many of us have distorted views of ourselves. We have let the opinions of others dictate how we feel about ourselves.

If you want to be healthy physically you need to be healthy mentally. I am convinced that the two go hand in hand. You need to have a healthy mindset. Stop the negative self-talk. Do not continually go over your flaws. We all have them. Do not rehearse your failures. We all have them also. I like this quote from Dr. Maya Angelou. "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." Negative self-talk with sabotage your success. You have heard the term you are what you eat. You also are what you think.

You may have had people speaking negative to you from childhood into adulthood. You must not let the words spoken to you by other people control how you think about yourself. You are beautiful, intelligent, and great! Find a place of calmness and peace where you can take hold of the person you are meant to be. Find positive people to be around. Realize that God created you and He does not make any mistakes. Declare that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

A lot of times, I write in my blogs that if you feel that you cannot deal with your circumstances seek professional help. I am writing that in this blog. Seek professional help if you are overwhelmed. There is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking professional help. Search the Internet there are some places that offer free online counseling if your insurance does not cover it.

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Healthy Mindset | Spiritual and Physical Wellness - ChicagoNow