Learn To Love Your Body With These 5 Easy Tips
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In a world where Ozempic is taking over and societal standards and media portrayals of beauty can be unrealistic and unattainable, learning to love your body is more important than ever. Body positivity involves appreciating your body for what it is, recognizing its unique features, and treating it with respect and kindness.
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Here are five essential tips to help you cultivate a loving relationship with your body.
1— Practice Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is the foundation of body positivity. It involves treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer a friend. Self-compassion helps counteract negative self-talk and harsh self-criticism.
A lot of women, present company included, have struggled with self-compassion because they’ve grown up in environments where they’ve been heavily criticized.
For many of us, to practice self-compassion perceives involves silencing the critic in your head—the voice that constantly tells you about “perceived” flaws of your body.
“Perceived” because there is nothing inherently wrong with your body.
How to Practice Self-Compassion:
Acknowledge Your Feelings: Recognize when you are being self-critical and consciously shift your thoughts to be more understanding and forgiving.
An example of this would be when you’re getting dressed and you’re thinking negative thoughts about how you feel about your body.
In those moments, we want to catch any negative thoughts and change them to understanding and forgiving thoughts.
Speak Kindly to Yourself: Replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations. Instead of saying, “I hate my body,” try saying, “My body is unique and worthy of love.”
When I think negative things about my body, I say out loud, “I love my body,” “My body takes care of me,” “My body helps me every day.”
Reminding myself of all the wonderful things that my body helps me do has helped me to build my body positivity reserve.
Practice Mindfulness: Engage in mindfulness exercises to stay present and avoid ruminating on negative thoughts about your body. Techniques like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga can help you connect with your body in a positive way.
Tools We Use For Affirmations and Compassion
2— Surround Yourself with Positive Influences
The people and media you surround yourself with significantly impact how you view your body. Positive influences can reinforce a healthy body image, while negative ones can perpetuate harmful standards and self-criticism.
How to Cultivate Positive Influences:
Curate Your Social Media: Follow accounts that promote body positivity and diversity. Unfollow those that make you feel inadequate or perpetuate unrealistic beauty standards.
You could also reduce or eliminate 90% of your social media consumption. So much of social media is about projecting these unrealistic images. There have been studies connecting social media usage and depression.
Constantly seeing images of people who look perfect while thinking, “Why don’t I look like that?” —isn’t helping anyone.
I don’t apologize when I say I do not spend a lot of time on social media looking at other people’s posts. Between the heavily photoshopped photos to the folks saying “I’m not using Ozempic, but I’ve just learned how to eat healthy and exercise,” rhetoric, I build my body positivity from within.
Loving our bodies is the homework we can do for ourselves.
Build a Supportive Network: Spend time with people who appreciate you for who you are and encourage body positivity. Distance yourself from those who engage in body shaming or negative talk about appearance.
Being in a relationship with a person who body shames you is ultimately hurting your self-esteem. How can you learn to love your body if someone is pointing out what they think is wrong with you?
Consume Positive Media: Read books, watch movies, and listen to podcasts that celebrate body diversity and promote a healthy self-image. Hello, readers of SelfHelpLove.com! We are here being positive to our minds, bodies, and our lives, on a whole.
What you consume matters. So, consume something that makes you feel better about yourself.
3— Focus on What Your Body Can Do
Shifting your focus from how your body looks to what it can do is a powerful way to foster appreciation and gratitude. Your body is capable of amazing things, and recognizing this can help you develop a more positive relationship with it.
Ways to Appreciate Your Body’s Abilities:
Make a List: Write down all the things your body allows you to do, from the simple, like walking and hugging, to the extraordinary, like dancing or playing a sport.
Set Physical Goals: Challenge yourself with physical activities that you enjoy. Whether it’s hiking, swimming, or yoga, setting and achieving physical goals can boost your confidence and appreciation for your body.
Celebrate Achievements: Acknowledge and celebrate your physical accomplishments, no matter how small they may seem. This reinforces the positive connection between you and your body.
Fitness trackers are an excellent tool to help us remember what our body is doing for us. My body positivity has definitely increased over the almost 10 years that I’ve been using fitness trackers.
Fitness trackers allow you to set physical goals, keep a list of what progress you’ve made and my Apple Watch will send me digital stickers every time I reach a goal. It’s fun and reminds me of how much my body is doing for me.
4— Nourish Your Body with Healthy Habits
Treating your body with care and respect involves nourishing it with healthy habits. When you focus on health and wellness rather than appearance, you foster a more loving relationship with your body.
Healthy Habits to Adopt:
Balanced Diet: Eat a variety of nutritious foods that make you feel good and provide your body with the energy it needs. Avoid restrictive diets that can lead to negative feelings about food and your body.
Regular Exercise: Engage in physical activities that you enjoy. Exercise should be a celebration of what your body can do, not a punishment for what you ate.
Adequate Rest: Ensure you get enough sleep and take breaks when needed. Rest is essential for overall health and well-being.
I have found taking it slow and writing down body fitness goals has kept me motivated and helped me to reach my goals.
When starting an exercise routine, you don’t have to work out 90 minutes a day, all days of the week. Start small and believe in yourself. One day at a time.
5— Challenge Negative Body Talk
Negative body talk, whether it comes from within or from others, can significantly impact your body image. Learning to challenge and reframe these negative thoughts is crucial for developing body positivity.
My favorite book on learning to reframe your thoughts is Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. It has literally saved my life.
How to Challenge Negative Body Talk:
Identify Triggers: Pay attention to situations or thoughts that trigger negative body talk. Understanding your triggers can help you address them more effectively.
When I’m not meditating and doing my yoga like I know benefits me, stress will trigger me to eat junk food. Then, eating the junk food will make me feel bad about it. It creates a negative cycle for me.
Breathing, journaling, and meditating helps me to relieve the pressures of the triggers.
Reframe Negative Thoughts: When you catch yourself thinking negatively about your body, try to reframe the thought in a positive or neutral way. For example, change “I hate my thighs” to “My thighs are strong and help me move.”
Set Boundaries: Don’t engage in conversations that involve body shaming or negative talk about appearance. Politely steer the conversation away or express your discomfort with such discussions.
We are not participating in conversations of, “My butt is too big. My legs are too fat. I look bad in this outfit.” Strike those conversations from your mind.
Learning to love your body is a journey that involves self-compassion, positive influences, appreciation for your body’s abilities, healthy habits, and challenging negative body talk. By implementing these tips, you can cultivate a more positive body image and develop a deeper sense of respect and love for yourself. Remember, every body is unique and worthy of love. Embrace yourself and treat your body with the gratitude and care it deserves.