Choosing to Respect Your Body Even When You Don’t Think You Can Love Your Body
Today’s podcast episode will start a series I’m doing on body image. Body image is always challenging, but especially in the spring and summertime I know feeling positive in your body can be especially difficult. That’s why we’re going to be spending the next few weeks talking about body image. My goal is to talk about the hard topics, maybe even the things that no one talks about. And as we go, know that at any point if you have questions about things we talk about or what we talk about brings up other topics that you want to discuss, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Maybe the title of this episode caught you off guard a little. How is body image not about loving my body? Maybe you up until now have thought that having a good body image meant you would finally love your body? Which, that can 100% be true. But one place that I see women getting stuck is believing that in order to have a good body image they have to love every part of their body. And that likely feels really unattainable. You may have parts of your body that you can’t imagine feeling good about. So you think, how could I have a good body image with this body as it is right now?
Today, we’re going to clarify what it actually is to have a positive body image and debunk the belief that you have to love your body to be body positive.
First off, why does a better body image matter for you? Take a moment and think about this for yourself. Maybe you’re tired of not feeling good in your body. Maybe you desperately want to be confident. Maybe you’re starting to see the ways that your body image impacts your family, your relationships, your habits and overall health. Not many people realize, but body image is very interconnected with food and our health. The members in The Nourish Lab hear me say it all the time, but we take care of the things we care about. So caring about your body and having a good relationship with your body directly correlates with the actions you take to care for your body.
But this doesn’t mean that you’re going to love your body all the time. In fact, it’s totally normal to have days where you just don’t feel amazing in your body. Some days it’s going to be more challenging to wake up and feel good in your body and some days are just easy. The goal is to have more days where you wake up and want to care for your body.
So, with body image, I want you to remember that the goal isn’t to love your body. The goal isn’t to wake up every morning and love every piece of your body. Think about it... If our goal is to love every part of our body, we will be setting ourselves up for failure. Because what happens, then, when your body changes? What then? Our bodies are ever changing and we would be risking a total crisis if we put all of our hope into loving our current body.
Instead, I want you to think about positive body image as respecting and caring for your body. Respecting your body doesn’t change with body change because it’s not determined by looks at all. It’s a mindset of, “I care for my body and that’s why I do what I do, talk to myself the way I talk to myself, touch myself the way I touch myself”. Nothing changes when you wake up one day and feel crummy in your body. Body respect isn’t contingent on you feeling good in your body.
I like to paint this image with clients when we talk about how you feel about your body and respecting your body. Body respect is like your base line… it doesn’t fluctuate even while how you feel in your body may be like a rollercoaster. Especially if you’re just starting to work on your own body image, it may very much feel like this up and down roller coaster of a ride with one day you feeling like superwoman in your body and the next day not feeling so hot. There is nothing wrong with you if this is how you feel.
When you choose body respect as the basis for your body image, you can have those ups and downs, those highs and lows, and still care for and respect your body. And as you grow in the relationship you have with your body, how you feel about your body gets more consistent and even becomes something you just don’t focus on anymore.
For me, having a positive body image doesn’t mean that I wake up and feel amazing about my body every single day. It means that I just don’t think about how I look as much or allow how I see myself to determine how my day will go.
So, when you think about respecting your body, what types of actions do you think about as being part of your life?
Likely you think about wanting to care for your body through how you eat, what you eat, your mindset around food. You probably think about getting out and moving your body in a loving way and wearing clothes that feel good and make you feel good. You also may think about the way you speak to yourself… you don’t allow negative thoughts to permeate your mindset and you don’t say unkind things to yourself. These are all ways to respect your body.