How To Stop Hating Your Body
This week I’ve been talking about the mind/body connection and gut health on Instagram, and the feedback I’ve gotten has been great. Please check out my Instagram account @revolution_within31 for more on that.
But this week’s blog is going to focus on what we consume visually.
Over the past few years I’ve been learning that everything I believed about my body for decades was utter bullshit.
I thought it was too big, too flabby, too lumpy. Unattractive. Not small enough, not thin enough, not toned enough.
Not good enough.
I believed that since I was seven years old. SEVEN!
Today I know it’s just my body, and the way it looks isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things.
Sure, there are days where I’m still unsatisfied and days where watching myself getting older is more difficult to tolerate.
But I’m telling you, beauties and cuties, there can be a major shift in your perspective.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m proud of the work I’ve done to get my weight back into a healthy range, to get my stamina back, to reduce my chronic pain level dramatically. And I’ll continue to improve upon what I eat and increase my strength training once I can lift again. (I’m still doing body weight and resistance band work, because - well - I had a hysterectomy two months ago.)
But I think my progress lies more in the things I say to myself these days as compared to before…how much kinder I am to myself now.
A major part of that was normalizing what a woman’s body ACTUALLY looks like at all shapes, sizes, skin tones, and ages.
How did I do that?
By curating my social media feeds. I’ve removed most of the Jillian Michaels-esque influencers and added women of all sizes and ages. I follow people who promote body positivity.
My feed is bursting with self-improvement content that also encourages being accepting of one’s current self. (And lots of dogs. Also bit of sarcasm thrown in there, because hey…I’m still me.)
And by actually paying attention to the people around me instead of being cripplingly self-conscious, looking in every reflective surface I walked by wondering if everyone around me was judging me for being “fat,” I’ve practiced being comfortable in my own skin.
That’s how it’s done.
It’s not just about positive affirmations and “love yourself!” memes. (Gag.)
I mean, those are fine. A bit heavy-handed, but they mean well.
But learning how to really accept and embrace who we are RIGHT NOW requires more than just scrolling by 3,000 Instagram squares that read, “You are enough” in various incarnations.
Repeating “I love myself” or “I’m beautiful” in the mirror without actually believing it doesn’t get you very far either.
It takes practice. Practice to feel it in your body and believe it in your soul.
We’re not naturally wired to be self-supportive; couple that with the fact that everything we’ve learned from birth has taught us to get our validation from external sources, to look around and wait quietly for others to tell us we’re worthy.
We’re conditioned to be insecure, and when we begin to change that suddenly we’re boastful, not being humble as is required. Unacceptable!
But there’s a lot to be said for owning your own magnificence.
And we are ALL magnificent.
So please…start cleaning up your social media feed. Start noticing the women around you. Start paying attention to how much beauty there is in this world beyond size 8 and below.
It’ll help you to stop buying into the media messages that defines beauty as airbrushed-20-somethings only.
If you’d like to learn more about how to break that pattern in yourself, please reach out to me at dana@revolution-within.com.
Love & hugs,
Dana