The Goal is NOT to Love Your Body
Have you been struggling to love your body? Maybe you can't even imagine what that feels like...it seems so far from where you are right now. Can I share something with you? The goal with body image isn't to love your body. I know, probably not what you expected me to say. Let's talk about this a little more and why you may want to shift the goal you're reaching for with your body image. If you've been a reader here for a while, you've heard me talk about how we take care of the things we care about. Maybe another way to say this is we grow in appreciation of the things we respect.This is what a positive body image looks like. It's more about a foundation of respecting your body rather than loving how you look.Maybe, even, we shouldn't call it body image, but rather body relationship. Because body image doesn't have anything to do with how we view ourselves physically. It's everything to do with the deep-down relationship we have with ourselves.
What does this mean and why does this matter? I mean, we're just switching out one word and it feels a little nuanced, right?
Totally, but this little word change makes it more about how we choose to care for ourselves versus what we look like.Think about it, if you are striving to have a good body image by trying to love your body right now, what happens when your body changes? Body change is such a normal and natural part of life, especially for women. We go through body changes in puberty, in pregnancy, in postpartum, in menopause. If our belief about body image is about liking what we look like, then it's really hard to navigate the normal body changes we go through.
Now, that is not to say that you won't ever like what you'll look like. But it's really hard if your foundation for having a positive body image is all about looks. Being body positive doesn't mean you'll never have bad body image days. It means that when you have those harder days, you choose to treat your body with respect by caring for it's basic needs. Respecting your body means feeding it nourishing foods & eating enough. It means coping with your emotions with kindness...letting yourself feel what you're feeling and seeking out how to best cope with those emotions. It mean moving your body if that's what sounds good, or resting if that's more what you need in the moment. It means touching yourself with kindness instead of pinching and poking at parts of your body you don't like. It's noticing your daily self-talk and trying to say more positive things to yourself. Oftentimes, the message we receive about having a positive body image has to do with how you feel about your body and liking what you look like. But this message, again, can make us feel like failures when we have a harder body image day, like we're not supposed to have those "issues" anymore. But instead of thinking about loving your body, or even liking your body, I want to encourage you to think about, "How can I respect my body today?" I share all of this because one of the best things you can do for yourself on harder body image days is acknowledge that it is ok to feel how you feel about your body. It's ok to have bad body image days. It's ok to be at a place where loving your body doesn't feel possible. Living in this culture that praises thinness makes it hard for everyone to feel good about their body 100% of the time.
You also have permission to not be someone who shares photos on social media of you loving every part of your body. You don't have to be a loudly body-positive icon.
When I think about how my own body image, or rather body relationship, has changed over the years, I'd say the biggest thing is that I just don't think about my body all that often. Or, when I do think about it, it's a quick thought that doesn't effect my emotions and how I feel about myself for the rest of the day.
This is what it REALLY means to have a better body image. It's about caring for yourself, respecting yourself, but really it's about living your life IN your body. Get that? It's about living life.