Glow Girl! Gina Silvestri

What is YOUR story? Who are YOU? What is YOUR life journey all about?

My name is Gina Silvestri. I am the founder of 300PoundsofBeautiful.com. This name came to me seven years after serving as a life coach for people wanting to eat healthier, lose weight and build a financial life that allows them the freedom to do what they love to do, from any location they desire, eating food that nourishes them most. Many of these clients learned about me from a blog I began in 2009, on which I shared my journey of losing 150 pounds (yes a whole person’s worth of weight), healing 17 official medical diagnoses, and building a thriving home-based business that has allowed me to enjoy incredible freedom and success. Can you guess which part of that journey was most powerful?

Perhaps you’re thinking …

Feeling gorgeous, Fitting into jeans?

Having men attracted to me?

Getting rid of those nasty looks of disgust people once shot me on the street?

Walking pain-free, feeling light and having fun in my body again?

Getting engaged?

Making my own money again (instead of relying on others for financial support)?

Those all felt great – but nope, it was none of those.

Hands down, it was learning how to love myself when I weighed 300 pounds. In fact, that was the turning point that allowed me to release everything that was weighing me down and creating tension, stress, suppression, and illness in the first place. This deep “no matter what” kind of self-love is what I see as our glow, and I’ve noticed all these years later (I have been living in a lighter, healthy body for since 2009) that when I lose touch with it, or forget it is right here, inside of me, no matter what I look like on the outside, I feel lost. I gain weight again. I feel sick again. On the other hand, when I am in touch with it, I’m alive, radiant, and living in a gorgeous creative fire that expands my dreamy ideas of what is possible for my life, and gifts me with the wisdom I need that precedes the action I need to turn the dream into reality.

What has been YOUR biggest challenge or life obstacle that YOU feel has dimmed YOUR GLOW? 

What dimmed my glow is forgetting that I am, at my core, as we all are, pure light and beauty. Like you, I was born into this world as the purest, fullest, most complete, resilient, trusting, joy- filled light  —and then, I forgot who I was. Growing up, my Nonna had taught me that no matter what my body looked like, or what ideas and judgments I had about the way I looked, I am beautiful —and then, I forgot that too. Even though I was slim and athletic until age 27, and even worked as a fashion model, I didn’t feel good enough. I was watching actresses on TV, and models in mainstream magazines, and regularly ingested the message that I needed to be different, I needed to be better. Slimmer. Lighter hair. Every kind of prettier. I needed to have much clearer skin, make more money, and just be different –  because I just wasn’t good enough as I was. Truth be told, I didn’t even know how to accept myself as I was. Subconsciously, I didn’t know it was possible, and so, the exact life experience I needed arrived to teach me that it was.

At 27 years old, I experienced significant trauma and began taking pharmaceutical medication to manage it. I took time off work, accepted disability assistance for income, and I could not function. Six years later, I stepped on the scale and weighed 300 pounds, and was sicker than I had ever been in my whole life. That’s when the message that I was unworthy reached it’s peak, and almost – almost – took permanent root. I say almost because that is how brilliant each of our souls are.

The glow that lives inside of you, and the one that lives inside of me, can overcome anything. It is more powerful than any challenge before us, and when we allow it to, it will help us transform any circumstance in our lives. It was more powerful than 300 pounds of ugly, of feeling absolutely unworthy. It helped my incredible body carry that extra weight and significant illness, while I was learning how to remember, and live, my glow. It was stronger than the hateful remarks that were slung at my heart during the six years I lived as an obese woman, while my glowing heart was finding its way back to compassion, so I could awaken to this truth: that the people being so cruel to me were hurting too – maybe even more than I was. No matter how bad my pain was, how exhausted I became, how much I abused my body as I tried on the “I am unworthy” illusion, my soul my glow would not give up on me. And the day I opened up to it, the day I surrendered, and just let it be, the day I chose to follow my glowing intuitive guidance, I was led straight into the most beautiful life, the one I live and love now, as one with my glow.

Today, I let myself shine brighter than I ever have before – in my personal life, and in my business life, too. I feel like I am celebrating the very glow that created the Universe every day, and that it is celebrating me, too. I have learned that what we see in our physical world before us – whatever is happening with our finances, our relationships, our health – is truly a reflection of what is happening on our insides. When we allow our inner lives to glow, our outer lives do too. That leaves us with one, and only one, fundamental question to ask ourselves every day: Am I living in my glow?

How have YOU grown as a woman in the last year? What lessons, insights or ah-ha moments have you had?

This past year has been all about money for me, and I mean that in the best of ways. For the first time in my life, I created more money, through my own business, doing exactly what I love to do, than I have earned in any other job. I cannot tell you how good this feels, and it has nothing to do with the dollar amount, rather it has everything to do with empowerment. Trusting that when I take care of myself, when I allow my glow to shine untethered and uncaged in every way possible, and when I align my intention, integrity and purpose with the very energy that created you, me, and our entire universe, I become empowered to create freedom. For myself, for my clients, and for people I give money to, or teach skills, tools, and techniques to for free, so that I can give back all that I have been given, too. Money is nothing. It is just energy, painted with whatever colour we choose. Why not let it glow, too?

What else do YOU want to share with the YOU GLOW GIRL!® Community? 

I want to share that I wouldn’t change a single thing about my story, and that, if you are right now living through any of the “shadow” parts of this story, or if you’re living a similarly shadowy version of this tale, I want you to know that shadows are beautiful too. You are a tree in the sunlight, your awareness either facing the side with light, or the side with shadow, and those around you see your beauty, no matter what, and we hold it for you, even when you forget. The glow is in the journey, not the destination. You are beautiful, right now. So Glow on, Girl!

Learn more about Gina and her works at www.300PoundsofBeautiful.com

Girl – YOU are ENOUGH! Right now in this exact moment, exactly the way you are! Watch the YOU GLOW GIRL! video here .

Read more inspirational women’s stories each week in the YOU GLOW GIRL! Community. Join today! https://www.facebook.com/groups/YOUGLOWGIRL/