About Laura: Laura's Message

 

About Laura Fenamore

Laura Fenamore is a passionate advocate for personal development and a shining example of how one can transform their life.  She is a Body Image Master, body esteem expert, successful entrepreneur, life coach, Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), and consultant.

Laura specializes in supporting people to design a life that is happy, joyous and free. Laura also works specifically with woman and men around body esteem issues. She draws from her own personal experiences. Her work is about turning people’s pain into power and supporting them to make their dreams come true!

“There is nothing that makes me happier than watching people’s lives transform!”
~Laura Fenamore

Laura has worked with author Jack Canfield, creator of Chicken Soup For The Soul® brand, and she has also worked with the teacher of transformational wisdom, internationally acclaimed speaker and author, Marianne Williamson.

To assist others in attaining their life-long goals, Laura founded Body Image Mastery, which specializes in helping people who want to transform their bodies through lifestyle changes and to transform their careers by unleashing their inner entrepreneur. Through her workshops, teleseminars, speaking engagements, and writing, Laura has helped thousands of people make positive changes in their lives, as well as create more balance overall. 

Laura’s recent focus has been to support people in having a healthy, balanced relationship with their bodies. She teaches people that what they say to their body, how they nurture it, and what they feed it has a huge impact on their physical, mental and emotional health and well being.

Laura’s Story

I became a leader on the transformational movement because I believe that anything is possible.  I believe that no matter how trapped or powerless a person might feel, it is what they do that will set them free.  I believe that each of us has the right to a radical life shift every single day.

My own radical shift began when I came to understand that the only person who could truly love me, was me.  Although I was neglected and abused as a child, I saw clearly that I could use the rest of my life to love and take care of myself and to inspire others to do the same. 

I am not saying that other people cannot love us, they often do. I am simply observing that a person without self-love is like a hidden treasure.  You cannot see or feel the miracle that you are, even when others adore you and want the best for you.  Without self-love, who you are is locked away in some tower or buried under years of pain and self loathing.

Many of us know the anguish of being overweight, trapped by eating disorders or yo yo dieting – the feeling powerless of the body we live inside and even hating ourselves because of it.  I totally understand this pain.  By the time I was in fourth grade, my mother had taken me to an obesity clinic at a local hospital.  Imagine being nine-years old, led into a hospital (pretty scary under any circumstances) because something is very wrong with you.

I was weighed in and the doctor sat down and told me I had to stick to the diet he would give me. I remember sitting there, thinking about the foods I loved to eat (none of these were on his “diet” of course). There was absolutely no discussion about how I was feeling (physically or emotionally), why I ate, etc. The entire conversation was the diet. My mother drove me home in shaming silence, interrupted by the occasional “you must” stick to this diet, lose weight…." I was already feeling humiliated and hopeless without her lecture.

That was over three decades ago, and I still remember what happened next as if it were yesterday. When we got home, I ran to my room and cried – filled with shame, anger, and sadness. Later, I snuck downstairs when I knew no one would be in the kitchen; I opened the door to the refrigerator and started shoving food into my mouth.  I just kept shoving and shoving and shoving until I heard someone coming.  That was the end of that DIET.

I continued to go to the obesity clinic until someone labeled me hopeless and sent me on my merry way, wishing me luck.  I had lost a few pounds, only to regain it – plus a few extra. (Sound familiar?)  Between nine and twenty-four, I remained a tried and true compulsive overeater.  My journey of self-loathing included alcoholism, bulimia, and cigarettes – anything to escape my self-imposed prison – a lie, of course, the bars only closed in more and more, instead.  My core illness was, of course, compulsive eating.  Quite simply, I was out of control with the quantity and the kinds of foods I put into my mouth.  

I ate as a child because I felt no one loved me.  Later, I would beg my therapist to help me control my overeating.  I can still hear myself, pleading with various professionals, “Please help me turn off the switch in my brain that causes me to binge.”  Little did I know that what I needed was something to be turned ON, not off.  I needed to turn on the self –love switch.  It would “turn off” the myriad of voices chorusing that I was unlovable every day.

Finally, a person who came into my life who was a guardian angel and told me I was worthy of love. This person's unconditional love helped open the door to my self-love. By the time I was twenty-five, I had lost one hundred pounds. I went from my lowest point to a new beginning. My heart opened, and I felt hope. The power that I gave food was mine to reclaim. I let go of the self-destructing force that had taken hold of my soul and discarded it to the universe. The freedom and joy I felt with that act was indescribable. It was a rebirth. 

The real work had just begun, of course. A lifestyle change had to be completely embraced to maintain that loss.  I had to continue to learn to love myself at deeper and deeper levels.  I started to explore every talent I could offer the world around me and began to take the chances to share those talents at every opportunity.  I was simply too busy to chase food – and my nourishment was too rich to be replaced by empty cartons and cans.

My radical shift is out there for anyone.  When I tell my story to others, I share it with one goal in mind, that someone will hear it and use it to start their own “radical shift.”  That they will start to repair some wounded part of themselves.  To this day, when people ask me how I lost all those pounds and kept them off forever, my answer is simple.  I tell them that I learned to love myself, and self-love goes a long way.

Laura at age 21