How to love your body: Part 4 - Body Love and Body Acceptance
By Tanja, Psychologist for Eating Disorders & Body Image
In the last few weeks, we have been on the journey towards body love and acceptance.
Hi there!
I’m Tanja. I’m a qualified psychologist specialising in eating disorders, negative body image and body hate. I’m also a survivor of anorexia.
My mission is to help you to end your lifelong struggles with food and your body and inspire you to uncover and embrace you true worth. Read more…
First, we focused on Body Awareness, then we explored Body Neutrality and finally we moved on to Body Appreciation. And now, in the last part of this series of how to love your body we are going to cover Body Love and Body Acceptance so that you will feel better in the skin that you are in.
I know loving and accepting your body fully can be very difficult and challenging for you. Did you know that according to a survey by the Mental Health Foundation in March 2019, one in five adults in the UK have felt shame and disgust because of their body image?
This is quite shocking and sad, isn’t it? But not long time ago I was one of those people who truly was full of hate and disgust towards my own body. I saw my body as my biggest enemy and I talked about it to myself very harshly, even though I never talked to anyone else in such a negative way. These negative conversations in my head were so normalised in my daily life that I didn’t even notice it was happening.
However, over time, I have found self-acceptance, even love, for my physical body. I can now look at pictures of myself and think “yes, she is a quite good looking girl actually”, or look in the mirror and say something nice about my body. Of course, I do have bad days and I do think the odd negative thought, but this is just normal human behaviour.
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Categories
Anorexia
Binge Eating Disorder
Bulimia
Intuitive Eating
Mindfulness
Orthorexia
Strategies for Recovery
Body Love is not about perfection. It is about silencing the inner body-bullying voice, finding Body Acceptance and feeling comfortable in your own skin. And like any other relationship you have in your life, the one you have with your body requires patience, care and kindness.
How to practice Body Love
Before we dive into the 3 practical steps for Body Love and Body Acceptance, let go of your “all or nothing” thinking, your perfectionism and your tendency to compare yourself to others. You don’t need to be perfect at Body Love; it is totally fine to have negative thoughts or feel bad about the way you look sometimes.
Practising Body Love is not about all or nothing, so you don’t need to feel miserable or feel that you failed if you haven’t practised it for several days. That’s not how body love works – it is an individual process that takes time.
Here are 3 practical steps that have helped me finally to fall in love and accept the body I’m in.
1. Forgiveness
Forgiving others for any harm they have caused us or for their mistakes is important to our mental well-being. Otherwise, if we don’t forgive, the negativity will stay with us and create anger, sadness and hostility. In turn, this will cause us stress and harm our mood.
But what about forgiving ourselves? Well, we tend not to do this, as we think that self-judgement is the only way to make up for our mistakes or “imperfection”.
However, forgiving ourselves for these supposed flaws is essential for our emotional health and peace of mind.
Forgiving myself for my past actions and behaviours has been game-changing for me and my relationship with my body. When I was 12, I started to notice I was becoming more curvy. Over time, I grew sad and angry at my body, as I felt it had stolen my childhood and turned me into a woman too early. This anger and sadness caused me a lot of pain and led ultimately to anorexia.
Forgiving yourself includes coming to terms with past behaviours, taking responsibility for your actions and avoiding “should have, could have, would have” thinking. Let go of the idea that you can recreate a “better” past. Allow the past to be the past.
To practice forgiveness, find some time for yourself, make yourself cosy in a quiet place and focus on your breathing. Then take some deep breaths and actively try to forgive yourself for any past actions and behaviours in relation to your body. As you practice self-forgiveness over time, you will start to feel lighter and more at peace with yourself.
2. Embrace your humanity
Knowing and embracing that you are a human being with beautiful, good and “imperfect” qualities is essential for self-compassion. It means learning to accept and embrace that each human body is “perfectly imperfect”.
Whenever you hear your inner body-bullying voice, try to embrace your humanity and be kind to yourself. For instance, you could try talking to yourself in the same way that you would to a loved one. I know this might feel silly at the start, but please persist, as this kind of self-talk is scientifically proven to work.
You could write down some positive, loving notes about yourself and put them on your mirror or over your bed as reminders. Seeing these kind and loving messages about your body every day will help to reinforce a positive relationship with your body.
3. Identify the triggers
This is about paying attention to triggers, such as social media, influencers and magazines, that keep your body-bullying voice going. You don’t need to blame them for the way you feel about your body. However, it is important not to let them affect your relationship with your body. Once you have identified any negative triggers, you can start avoiding them in future.
Next time you hear your body-bulling voice, ask yourself “what has caused this?” It could have been triggered by watching TV, scrolling through Instagram or trying on clothes that don’t fit any longer. Whatever the trigger, you have the power to control what you are exposed to and what you allow to influence you. For instance, give the clothes that don’t fit anymore to a charity or follow people on Instagram who don’t focus on body image.
It is entirely possible to overcome an eating disorder or body hate –
I have done it, others have done it and so can you!
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Hi there!
I’m Tanja. I’m a qualified psychologist specialising in eating disorders, negative body image and body hate. I’m also a survivor of anorexia.
My mission is to help you to end your lifelong struggles with food and your body and inspire you to uncover and embrace you true worth. Read more…