The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein
As painful as it can be, it’s also common for many people to tell lies about their bodies.
We’ve all experienced body criticism at some point in our lives, such as:
I’m too fat, big, skinny, small, tall, etc.
My (name your body part) is too (negative description).
I can’t control my body.
My body has a mind of its own.
I could go on with one destructive thought after another.
These thoughts are common reflections of body criticism many people face.
The most important question is whether any of these body criticisms are true.
Is your body that bad?
What did it ever do to deserve such negativity?
It could be that your body gets blamed for many feelings or problems it’s not responsible for causing.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that your body is the vessel that holds your fears, disappointments, traumas, and wounds.
It might be if you find yourself –
- focusing on picking apart one part of your body over and over.
- negative body thoughts cloud your mindset.
- you spend your free time searching for ways to change without taking up the challenge.
- you believe you need to find the magic diet, exercise, vitamins, etc., which will make it all better.
- you believe one day, it will all come together, and you’ll have an epiphany, and it will all be better.
If your body is the vessel that holds negative stuff, it could be that in transforming your relationship with your body, you transform your life.
Take a moment and consider all the helpful things your body does in one day, one hour, one minute.
Breathing, thinking, moving about, and all the other basics keep us going. Most of us have the great fortune of enjoying these benefits without much planning. We don’t even think about it; it just happens.
And yet, when you’re stuck in a negative relationship with your body and criticise it, even if it doesn’t take up all of your time, it drags you down.
These judgments keep you from achieving what you want in life.
How often have you compared yourself to your mentor, idol, or some imaginary standard?
How many thoughts follow, usually punishing, at best negative, that lead to feeling like you don’t measure up, so you must wait until some unknown time. You push a big pause button on your dreams.
Let’s release the pause button and step into your life!
Define your body’s value instead of criticizing it.
Sometimes, it’ll surprise you when you think of the first thought that pops into your mind when you consider the value of your body.
If you’ve experienced trauma or abuse, the first thought might be about surviving the needs of someone else.
If you’ve experienced a medical or health condition that has changed your body, you might have an experience of betrayal or abandonment. Living in the Western world, you might have the experience of measuring your value based on attractiveness, and your ability to get more or less out of life because of your features can lead to body criticism for the parts that don’t “measure up.”
Now, go to the thought underneath; what’s the next thought? Keep going until you run out of self-loathing. Do you get a different response? Can you imagine a relationship built on trust, kindness, and compassion?
Just imagine for a moment how empowering it could be.
This doesn’t have to be an endpoint; it can be a beautiful beginning.
1. Be honest with yourself and build on a foundation of kindness and love.
Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives. – Louise L. Hay
Honesty is the best policy, especially with yourself; you can’t fool yourself.
Kindness and love aren’t about making yourself feel good. Kindness, love, and honesty help you gain clarity to see yourself as you are today.
It doesn’t mean you’ll be the same tomorrow. Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t.
What is certain is that honesty doesn’t have a chance of being transformative. When you’re dishonest, you cheat yourself out of the opportunity for something different.
2. Recognize when self-criticism is at its worst and plan to counteract its effects with what you need most at that moment.
The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
Body criticism is like a street light flashing yellow. Use it as a caution and be more aware of your surroundings.
Are there beliefs or feelings that need attention? Is there something missing that you aren’t sure how to get?
Use this time to dig deeper to discover what you need to feel more connected with yourself and less critical of your body. Shifting your relationship with your body is shifting your relationship with yourself and your life.
3. Live your life from a values standpoint.
When you live with a deficit mentality, “I can’t do x until I lose x pounds.” You are living with unnecessary limitations.
Hopefully, your values, even if you’re not doing it now, are more in line with following the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This also applies to your relationship with yourself. Treat yourself as you treat others, with kindness, respect, compassion, etc.
What would your life look like if you followed your belief system about how you would like the world to work?
4. Address the real barriers to change in your life.
The real barriers to change are the limits you set for yourself. Stopping yourself from taking action means doing what you need to do to make the things you want happen.
Waiting for the perfect time is not going to happen.
Putting yourself in situations where opportunities present themselves is an entirely different situation. It means attending a networking event, attending a party, sitting in meditation, going for a walk in nature, etc.; any of these situations and many more are the opportunities you need to transform your relationship with yourself.
5. Decide to live with greater acceptance of your humanness.
Do you allow yourself to make mistakes? Is it okay for others to make mistakes?
We all fall short of goals at times. Sometimes, you might think you’re just about ready to achieve a goal, and life says, nope, you need to struggle a little more. As trite as it may sound, if you see the struggle as a learning opportunity, you will be more open to the possibilities that await. This is when you are most vulnerable to body criticism.
We can’t predict when good things or troubles will come.
What we can do is increase our consciousness about how we respond. To respond consciously means that we are actively engaged with the process of life, when it’s filled with joy and when it’s filled with sorrow and everything in between.
6. Leave negative body criticisms out of your process of change.
To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.
― Simone de Beauvoir
The decision to change might be the only direction to go.
People often change when their backs are up against the wall, and avoiding transformation is impossible.
Allow yourself to trust that your relationship with your body, mind, and heart is moving and present, giving yourself time to clear out the negative thoughts, body criticism, and feelings as much as possible. It gets easier with practice. You’ll find that judgments will lift. As they do, the choice becomes possible, and with it, the confidence you need to see yourself with kindness, compassion, and love.
When you end the self-deception, you set in motion much more than feeling good about your body. You begin to fill your mind, body, and heart with the nurturing you need to move forward with your life.