Making Peace with Your Body

I get it. So many articles, videos, posts, and marketing campaigns center around the idea of making peace with your body – and usually feels like a load of absolute bs. “You’re fine JUST the way you are!” is usually taken to toxic levels that enable unhealthy habits and “You’re a fat POS!” is OBVIOUSLY the toxic other end of the spectrum. So where do we start?

Scan Your Body

A coworker of mine recently was talking about this concept. I am missing the larger context, as it was from a podcast, but the basic idea was to sit down and do a mental scan of your body. Think about your head, your eyes, your lips, your heart…your stomach, your thighs, your butt, your breasts…keep scanning until you find one (or multiple) things that stand out to you that you have sent hate towards throughout your life.

For me, it’s been my stomach and my upper arms, right underneath and next to my armpits.

Acknowledge What Your Body Parts Do For You

The next step is to take a second and send those parts that you have sent hate towards some extra love. Understand that for biological women, if you’ve always had a little pudge there that you can’t get rid of – CONGRATULATIONS! You have organs! The womb sits right where that lower pudge is and you cannot (easily) remove that.

So, what DOES your stomach do for you other than (in your opinion) currently exist in a state that is too large?

It digests your food so you can nourish your body.
It protects your muscles and internal organs from accidental injury
If you’re a womb-owner – it protects your womb!
The fat stored there keeps you WARM.
Etc.

Do this for every body part you might have sent hate to over the years.

The Energy We Give – We Get Back

Think about this…if you’re up high in the mountains and you yell:

“HELLO!”

What do you usually hear back?

“HELLO! Hello! hello! hello…”

An echo returning to you as the energy you put out gets refracted and reflected back at you, usually multiple times in a row like ripples on water that a stone was just thrown into.

Everything in life is this way. If you send mental hate towards your stomach, for example, you tend to abuse it as well. Eating food that will harm it, manifesting anxiety in physical symptoms such as stomach aches or nausea, wearing clothing that is too tight that can even cause bruises, etc.

Your thoughts become your words, your words turn to action, and that action is harmful towards yourself.

In The Public Eye

You know that little voice in your head that’s always whispering that everyone around you hates you and wants to see you fail? The one that reminds you of that one embarrassing time you accidentally and quite literally pet your crush’s face with a manilla folder because you were so caught up in just how CUTE they were in the 7th grade? (That one was me…it was terrible).

Well there is good news and bad news about that.

The good news is that everyone has that voice! Which means literally everyone is just as worried about themselves and THEIR actions as YOU are of YOURS!

The bad news is that as long as you are vocal about what you hate about yourself, the more that others are likely to notice and think about those things instead.

So…that brings me to my last point

Lead With Love – That Means With Yourself, Too!

Showing more love to yourself is IMPORTANT! Just as when we fill our head with negative thoughts about ourselves and it leads to negative physical results – if we fill our head with positive thoughts about and for ourselves then it will lead to positive!

Treated yourself with love is NOT:

Enabling yourself with unhealthy habits
Confusing self-isolation as self-care
Filling your body with toxins (to an extreme point)
Surrounding yourself with people who DO NOT want the best for you

Treating yourself with love IS:

Being honest with yourself about what your unhealthy/toxic habits are (physical or mental)
Surrounding yourself with people who love and support you
Building yourself up to achieve your dreams
Allowing yourself to relax and indulge (without allowing it to get in the way of what you need to do)
Being honest about how you feel about yourself and then making a working plan to change that – exercise, stretching, religious practice/meditation, being around friends, doing things you enjoy, etc.

When It’s All Said And Done

Someone, or several people, told you that your physical size determined your worth and you internalized that message. Because you internalized it, that message now has power over you because you believe it to be true.

Erasing years of bullying, isolation, name-calling, and self-harm of various forms does not happen overnight. Nothing good does.

Treating yourself and speaking to yourself with love is a healing process. Take it one step at a time and remember that you ARE worth it.

My suggestion? Start with the body scan and if more than one body part pops up, write it down and work on one-by-one starting with the one that you hate the most. Remember what good that body part does for you, remember that you are a human being who is worthy of good things, and slowly work to untangle and dismantle the idea that the numbers on the scale are the only measure of success.

You are worth loving!