Body Positivity: Working with your Body to Create Healthful Changes

So, you want to change your body, but you’re eager to do it differently from the myriad of ways you’ve tried in the past. Or perhaps this is your first attempt at change, and want to make sure you’re taking the best approach possible –  so you’re doing a little bit of research.

Maybe you’ve heard of the terms “body positive” before, and you want to learn more about what it means, particularly within the context of weight-loss and body change.

Long story short, body positivity is a movement that supports all people in loving and accepting their bodies, no matter their size, shape, or appearance. It is focused on finding ways to experience genuine self-acceptance and self-love in the face of popular cultural ideas that suggest we ought to feel “less than” if we don’t measure up to the “ideal” standards of beauty.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are likely pretty familiar with the world of weight-loss. It’s big business. The most common approach to weight-loss and body change is to go on a diet, add in some exercise, and let those pounds melt off the body.

The prescription might be dressed up in different clothes (Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Macros, Body Building), but the underlying message is the same. If your body looks and weighs more than the “ideal” standard range, then you are automatically deemed unhealthy and in need of a dramatic lifestyle change.

Not only does the culture of diet and weight loss lead people to experience a great deal of shame and insecurity over the size and appearance of their bodies as they are, but it also creates space for people to feel ashamed if they aren’t able to adhere to a regimented, oppressive diet or exercise program.

For a long time, I believed that I could punish my body into transforming into the size and shape that would put me into the category of “socially acceptable” and therefore beautiful. This was my solution to the shameful, insecure, hate-filled body image I held. I genuinely thought I was smarter than my body, and that all I needed to do was tell it who was boss, exert some will power to eat and exercise differently, and that it would easily submit to these constraints.

What I didn’t plan on was my body rebelling in pretty noticeable and significant ways. I can recognize now that my body resisted the oppressive nature of dieting with increased hunger and cravings for “unhealthy” foods that worked against the achievement of my goals (for a six pack and size two waist). I developed a thyroid autoimmune disease (hashimotos) that slowed down my metabolism, left me feeling lethargic, and all around crummy.

I experienced depression and anxiety, likely due to the limited nutrients and energy I was providing my body, along with the emotional toll of consistently trying and failing at an unattainable task. For a long time, I ignored my body’s rebellion. Instead of paying attention to the reasons my weight loss efforts weren’t working for me or my body, I chose to restrict further and further, rebounding with bouts of bingeing and purging, all while hoping that somehow it would all just magically work.

It wasn’t until I worked towards a collaborative, body positive approach, working with my body to improve my overall physical, mental, and emotional health, that my body easily and willingly changed and gave up some of the fat that was weighing me down.

Strengthen your relationship with your body

If you’re anything like me, you may have experienced a period of feeling incredibly disconnected from your body. For me, this consisted of ignoring pain and physical discomfort, overlooking my digestion and other general health markers, and discrediting feelings of hunger and fullness. I didn’t provide my body with any space to communicate its wants and needs to me because I needed to be in control as a means of getting to my ultimate goal of thinness.

I want to highlight that the reason for this disconnection was not random or by happenstance. Instead, there was a very understandable and logical reason for avoiding being in my body.

For me, disconnecting was a sure-fire way to resist the emotional pain from being a victim of sexualized violence. The more I could numb and avoid my feelings by indulging in or restricting food, the safer and more in control I felt. At the same time, this resistance became a prison, where I felt trapped by my drive to escape, in concert with a desire for my body to look and feel differently.

I share this piece with you so that you can reflect on the very good reasons you may have for being disconnected from your own body. This is when talking about the bigger stuff, the reasons for disconnection, can be incredibly helpful in the process of shifting the relationship with your body. It can be worth considering how you can set up safeguards for you to explore how you can feel safe and secure in your body in a manageable and reasonable way. This could look like reaching out for support from someone you trust to talk through what you have experienced or engaging in some self-care practices that are focused on healing your body from past hurts.

By working through the cause of disconnection, you create space to bond with and support your body more freely and genuinely. This can provide you with the freedom to consider all that your body does for you, and how you can honestly appreciate its existence.

Laying this foundation of understanding and collaboration allows you to work with your body, as opposed to against it. A great next step is to put your detective cap on (do detective still wear caps?) and investigate all of the different ways your body communicates its likes, dislikes, and needs to you.

Some guiding questions you can use to explore your body include:

• How does your body communicate its wants and needs to you?
• What sensations help get these messages across, and how does it feel when you take care of them?
• When does your body feel best?
• When does it feel strongest?
• When does it feel most relaxed?
• When does it feel most well?
• How does your body’s physical appearance represent its health and wellness, and to what extent?
• What feels right for your body? How does it enjoy being treated?
• At what point does the amount of body fat impede or support your body’s wellness?

As you build a stronger relationship with your body, it will become far easier to determine what you and your unique body deem to be “healthy”.

Collaborate with your body to create goals that serve you and your body’s best interests

Working with your body to create goals can support you in cultivating a foundation of health and wellness far beyond a number on a scale. For example, considering how your body feels, beyond being a certain size, provides you with greater feedback for your efforts.

You can consider the various ways in which your body communicates through:

• sleep
• digestion
• energy
• concentration
• mood
• hormones
• body temperature
• hunger
• strength
• immunity
• cardiovascular conditioning
• breathing
• hair, skin, nails

Standard health meters, such as heart rate, sleep, and digestion, can be starting points for exploring your body and how it is presently living. At the same time, it’s important to remember that these measures are based on the norm, and as such, cannot provide a full, detailed explanation of your unique body’s wellness.

To go a step further, you need to reflect on what these health metrics mean to you:

• How does it feel in your body to be living in this way?
• What would it feel like to have deeper, more restful sleeps?
• What would it feel like to have the opposite?
• What would it feel like to have consistent energy throughout the day?
• What would you be able to do?
• What would it feel like to have energy crashes throughout the day?
• How would you respond to this?

The benefits of taking this approach include gaining a clearer understanding of what you and your body are working towards, and how you will be able to know when you get there. Further, setting goals like these stands in contrast to the cultural ideas that you are working to resist (like that ideal health is only achieved in a thin, slender body).

By engaging in this type of body positive approach, you can take pride in knowing that you are taking a stand against principles that you don’t agree with.

Create goals that are measurable, attainable, and maintainable

Slow and steady truly wins the race, particularly when it comes to your body. Your body is designed to hold onto fat to keep you alive when food is scarce, and it will rebel (i.e. save your life) when it believes you are starving.

Measurable feedback beyond weight and size is more indicative of overall health, and provides you with positive reinforcement of the great care you’re taking of your body (even if it doesn’t show up as pounds lost). For example, choosing foods that leave your tummy feeling great and energize you for an entire work day provides you with feedback that your body is happy and supported to live the life that you want.

One way to go about goal setting in a reasonable way is to begin by separating a page into three columns. In the first column, write out a list of all of the ways you and your body would like to change.

In the second column, write out the actions that would be necessary to meet those goals.

In the third column, write out how you will know that you are on the right path to reaching those goals.

Reflect on that list and consider the actions that would have the greatest overall impact on meeting your goals.

• Is it realistic for you to make this change?
• Is it maintainable long term?

Start with one thing that you can do differently to meet your goals, do it as consistently as possible, and reflect on the differences it makes to you and your body each day.

By starting small and achieving that task, you will build confidence, momentum, and pride in knowing that you have the ability to make positive changes that meet both you and your body’s needs.

It’s important to remember that this is a dramatically different approach to changing your body than the standard “eat this, not that” doctrine. It’s about adopting body positivity and shifting your relationship to your body as a means to support sustainable, positive physiological changes.

Creating this shift can take time because it is so different for most people. Therefore, this is an opportunity to be kind and patient with yourself as you take on this courageous journey.

Remember: YOU CAN DO THIS! And, the reward of feeling good IN your body because you have a great, collaborative, and communicative relationship far exceeds any benefit to finally hitting that ideal number on the scale. 

Body Positivity and Weight Loss Myths

Body positivity is an amazing movement that supports people in experiencing greater love and acceptance of their bodies, regardless of their size, weight, or shape. But can you be body positive and also have a desire to lose weight or pursue fitness goals?

Transcript:

Body positivity is an amazing movement that supports people in experiencing greater love and acceptance of their bodies, regardless of their size, weight, or shape. But can you be body positive and also have a desire to lose weight or pursue fitness goals? Keep watching to find out!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

Body positivity is all about loving and accepting your body at any size and shape. It’s an empowering movement that has offered people an alternative to the very limited and oppressive idea that only skinny equals healthy, beautiful, and loveable.

I personally love this point of view, but I know some people struggle to feel at peace with loving their bodies while also having the desire to feel different on a physical level. So, can you have the desire to look or feel fitter, healthier, or leaner, while also loving and celebrating your body for what it is? Or is that just one big contradiction? Let’s get right into that!

For starters, the body positivity movement really came about in response to mainstream western beauty standards, which tell us that for women and femme folks, thinness is god. Just think of all the magazine covers in the grocery store, and all the ads on the TV and online that tell you that you need to lose weight! We’re so inundated with these messages that they often blend in to the landscape and we don’t always realize that they’re even there!

Unlike all those ads promoting weight loss and lean physiques, the body positivity movement tells people of all genders that you’re a-ok just the way you are! It’s about appreciating bodies for qualities other than those that get celebrated by the mainstream culture, and saying “you’re good enough” no matter what package you come in. In fact, from a body-positive perspective, the package you come in is GREAT!

But things get complicated when we start wondering, “Can I want to lose weight or strive to achieve fitness goals AND be body positive?”; “If I have a desire to lose weight, does that mean I’m being body-negative or hating my body?!” It’s tricky, but it’s ultimately about your reasons for wanting to make those changes.

For example, wanting to lose weight so that someone else will like you more, or to gain outside approval, or to finally be “good enough”, sounds much more like it’s about measuring up to negative mainstream beauty standards.

On the flip side, reasons like wanting to feel fitter, or to be able to do more with your body in terms of movement, or to have more energy, are about creating a more satisfying existence. They’re not coming from a place of “Your body’s not good enough so you need to make it better!” They’re coming from a place of “My body would feel better if this thing changed”. That doesn’t mean it’s inadequate the way it is, it just means there’d be some tangible benefit to releasing some fat, or gaining strength or flexibility.

If the idea of body positivity is new to you, then start by considering how you want to feel on an emotional, mental, and physical level. It’s about separating culture’s idea of what an “ideal” body looks like from how you feel in your body – what your experience of living in your body is.

When I talk about your emotional relationship to your body, I’m referring to the ways in which you want to feel about your body. Some feelings you may yearn to have are love, care, appreciation, happiness, or joy. So, ask yourself - how do you want to feel about your body, with no strings attached? You can also ask yourself how you want to express those feelings toward your body, and what makes it hard for you to feel that way all the time?

When it comes to relating to your body on a mental level, I’m talking about how you want to think about your body.  Perhaps you want to think of it highly, respecting all that it does for you on a daily basis. Again, ask yourself – how do you want to think about your body? What do you want to appreciate about it most of all? What makes it hard to do this now?

Considering the physical needs of your body requires open and honest communication between you and your body. The struggle for all of us is that the body doesn’t tend to use words to communicate. Instead, it uses physical feelings and sensations to send us messages about how it is doing. This often looks and feels like a sense of wellness or illness.

If you are struggling to communicate and hear your body’s needs and wants clearly, then please feel free to check out our video that goes into detail about how to strengthen this bond.

A great way to start is to really consider how your body feels, and how that relates to standard measures of physical wellness. Some basic physical markers of wellness to consider are:

• Energy levels

• Sleep

• Digestion

• Pain

• Hormonal balance

• Strength

• Endurance

• Comfort versus discomfort

Once you have come to realize what areas of your physical health you would like to improve, there are a ton of resources for supporting you in making these changes. I’ve linked to some good ones in the description below.

Body positivity is all about feeling good in your own skin – accepting your body in spite of mainstream ideas about what is beautiful, healthy, and ideal.

In order to improve the way you feel in your body, it could mean dropping a few pounds. It could mean gaining some. But, it is important to note that this all dependent upon you and your unique physiology.

Now I’m gonna turn it over to you, the Heart and Oak community! If you’re already family with body positivity, how have you found these ideas helpful? If body positivity is new to you, how might it help with your own relationship to your body? Make sure to let us know in the comment section!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!

My Body Positive Journey to Loving and Accepting my Body

My Body Positive Journey to Loving and Accepting my Body Creating a better, more positive relationship with your body can feel like a daunting, unattainable task. If you are looking for hope and evidence that it IS possible, then watch this video to the end!

Transcript:

Creating a better, more positive relationship with your body can feel like a daunting, unattainable task. If you are looking for hope and evidence that it’s anything but impossible, then watch this video to the end! You’re about to hear my story of how I have come to genuinely and authentically love and appreciate my body – beyond its appearance!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives. We’re therapists in Victoria BC who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give you practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

I wanted to create this video for all of you who are looking for genuine success stories about people changing their relationships with their bodies for the better. Of course, as a therapist I work with lots of people around issues like these, and part of what makes me helpful in this area is my own lived experience in dealing with challenges with my body image. I thought, “Why share examples from my practice when I can share my very own story with all of you?”

Now, this video is definitely related to our last one, “3 Ways to Love Your Body for More Than How it Looks”, so if you haven’t watched that one yet, I highly recommend doing so after this.

The first thing I need to state is that, in spite of the work I do and the person I am today, I am a work in progress. As much as I would like to sit here and pretend that I have overcome every single body image obstacle and struggle, that would be a bold-faced lie. And it’s important to me that I be genuine and honest with you, as opposed to painting a picture-perfect story of change and growth.

The truth is, I have had a long and in-depth struggle with my body and food. I can honestly say that I did not experience a consistent feeling of love and appreciation for my body between the ages of 11-29. There were moments in that time when I made a very concerted effort through therapy, hypnotherapy, guided meditation, CBT, self-help, and positive affirmations, but it all felt pretty hollow. There might have been times where I felt a slightly stronger connection to my body, empathize with it, and pretend to love it, but it never felt quite “right”.

I don’t think I’m alone in this type of experience. In fact, I know that I’m not. The clients I have worked for thus far have shared similar stories – attempts to force that feeling of love without a real genuine, consistent outcome. And that can be a frustrating and hopeless place to be.

So, where am I now?

Today I am at a place with my body where I actually listen to and prioritize its needs. I genuinely feel grateful for everything that my body does for me, and I am motivated to take care of it in spite of conflicting desires, like thinness. I also feel pretty positive about my body’s appearance, and enjoy dressing it up and showing off my curves.

I still have desires and longings to be slimmer and fitter. I want my muscles that I have worked so hard for to show up. I want my face to stay youthful and wrinkle free. At the same time, these desires do not outweigh my genuine interest in supporting my body in being its happiest, most energetic, and healthy self. This is a HUGE contrast to how things used to be.

For so long, the desire to look like a runway model was at the top of my misguided priority list. I wanted to be skinny at all costs, and I blamed my body for refusing to give me what I so desperately wanted.

The shift to where I am now took time. I was not an overnight success by any stretch of the imagination. It began by recognizing where I was at, and how frustrated and exhausted I was by this way of being. It coincided with my desire to change my restrictive eating practices to be more intuitive and body-directed. This required me to trust that my body could make wise choices, and that I could learn to listen and prioritize its needs with some trial and error.

You may be wondering – how did I get here?

The short and simple answer is that I did exactly what I outlined in the video “3 Ways to love your body for more than how it looks”.

When I began asking myself why it was so important for me to look a certain way, I began to recognize how I believed that if my body were to fit in with the acceptable “norm” of beauty, then it was more likely that I would be accepted and included by my peers. I had a longing to be in a committed relationship, and I believed that by looking a certain way, I would be more attractive to a potential mate. Logically, this all makes sense.

In realizing this, I quickly recognized that I was selling myself, and others, short. This was an old, shallow story that didn’t fit with the reality of my life. There was a whole pile of evidence that I was able to pull from demonstrating how my peers and potential romantic partners did accept me, regardless of my body size and shape.

When I considered whose story it was that my body wasn’t good enough as it was, it was easy to conclude that I was not the author of this fucked up idea.

As I retraced how my body had been singled out for not fitting in, I recalled several humiliating moments when peers or loved ones decided to call attention to my body, referring to me as “fat”. My Granny “lovingly” pinching my arm fat and calling me chubby. The writing on the bathroom wall in Grade seven that said “laura is fat”. The boy who called across a school hallway and yelled “You’re too fat to be wearing that”. Heart-warming moments of my life, I tell ya.

Those types of comments helped in forming this story, but the speakers aren’t the originator of it. They aren’t unique in judging a body based on its size and appearance. They were merely spreading common, old, culturally accepted ideas that we all live in relationship to. When I was able to recognize who the author of this story was, I was able to have some distance from it – moving away from the idea that I was the author of the story, to being a resistor against it. I realized I was angry, exhausted, and fed up with this story. That it was total bull shit that I no longer wanted to buy into.

The biggest way I have been able to successfully love and appreciate my body is by shifting my relationship with it.

I have created a lot of space for my body to have a voice that I listen to. Through a lot of practice and exploration, I have come to pay attention to its needs and wants, and do my best to respect these. Below I’ve linked to a post from the Heart and Oak Blog that has a lot of questions you can ask yourself that can support you in exploring and shifting your relationship to your body.

Again, I have to reiterate that in no way am I close to having this down perfectly – nor do I ever expect to. What counts to me, is that I even consider what it is my body might want or need, above my desire to fit our cultural ideals. Getting to this place also meant truly dealing with the underlying reasons for why it made sense for me to be disconnected from my body. There is also a link to that blog post below.

My ultimate hope in sharing my own personal story is to illustrate that it is 100% possible to go from feeling at odds with your body, to loving and appreciating it for what it is. There isn’t anything special or unique about me and my experience. With awareness, curiosity, and openness, change became possible for me. The fact that you are here, taking the time to watch this video suggests to me that you’ve got something brewing. That you are at the very least curious about your relationship to your body, and potentially yearning for something to be different. This is a brave, and courageous starting point!

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life.

3 Body Positive Ways to Love Your Body (For More Than How it Looks!)Laura shares 3 body positive ways to love your body, beyond its physical appearance

3 Body Positive Ways to Love Your Body (For MORE Than How it Looks!) So many people can relate to feeling down about the size, shape, or appearance of their bodies. If focusing on everything "wrong" with your body gets in the way of you feeling positive about it, then this video is for you!

Transcript:

It’s sad but true that so many people can relate to feeling down about the size, shape, or appearance of their body. If focusing on everything “wrong” with your body gets in the way of you feeling positive about it, then this video’s for you! Keep watching to learn how you can come to really love your body in an honest and sustainable way!

Hi everyone, I’m Laura Brown from Heart & Oak Therapy, supporting better, brighter lives.

We’re therapists who do regular videos on mental wellness, and give practical ideas and tips to make your life happier and more fulfilling – so hit the subscribe button to keep in the loop!

In my Victoria BC therapy practice, I’m really passionate about working with people who struggle with their relationship to their body and food. If that’s something you can relate to, I want to stress that you are anything but alone in that!

In fact, it’s super common for people of all genders to deal with some form of body image issues. That could look like feeling disconnected from your body in some way, feeling disheartened by the size, shape, or appearance of your body, feeling like certain body parts or regions of your body are bigger or smaller than they are – and that they’re therefore inadequate, or that your body will never look the way you wish it did.

These are all really complex issues in and of themselves, and we’ll definitely look at them more closely in future videos. But in this video I want to address the common belief that you can “should” your way into loving your body. In other words, I’m going to be talking about the discouraging practice of straining to convince yourself that you should just love your body, despite all the things in this world that make that way easier said than done.

To star this off, I want to make one thing clear: This is not an abstract, clinical issue for me. These are issues that are near and dear to my heart because I’ve lived them too. Because I have enough personal material to make a full feature documentary on my own journey through body image and food issues, I’m going to focus more on that in our next video – because otherwise this one would be way too long!

So let’s talk about some practical ways you can cultivate more genuine love and sustainable appreciation for your body.

1.     Assess what it means to you to be disconnected from your body and/or to struggle to have your ideal body type.

The first thing I’d like to invite you to do is ask yourself a very important question: What does it mean to you to struggle to have your ideal body type? In other words, why is achieving your ideal body image so important to you? This question is all about getting down to ground zero and really checking in with those things that can be easy to take for granted.

Having an answer to this question is important because it supports you in understanding your body image more deeply, and how your body image is a response to various life experiences. This helps shift the problem from being all in your head, to fully understanding the context of how and why it exists. This can also help lessen the hold of shame.

There might not be a single, solitary answer to this question for you, and that’s ok! Life is complicated, and it’s more common for there to be a bunch of intersecting reasons than just one that stands alone.

For example, deep down, does it come from a longing to be accepted or approved of? Do you imagine that if you had the “right” body, you’d be more likely to be loved or included by important people in your life?

The answer to this question is bound to be very personal to you, so think about how this longing makes sense within the scope of your lived experience.

I’ve also written a blog post that complements this video nicely, so make sure to check that out on the Heart & Oak Therapy blog, which I’ll link in the description. In that post I provide some other guiding questions you can use to explore this for yourself.

2.     Whose story is it that your body isn’t “good enough” as is?

So, once you have your own personal understanding of why achieving your ideal body image is so important to you, it can be helpful to ask yourself the question, “whose story is it that your body isn’t ‘good enough’ as it is”?

Are you the source of this story? Or is it possible that it’s come from someplace else? Is it a story you deciphered from ways you’ve been treated by people in your life? Could it be a common story in our society – one you’ve become so accustomed to hearing that you can’t even remember when it first started showing up on your radar?

The fact is, there is no objectively “right” body type to have. The very notion of an attractive body is totally contrived by culture. Want proof? Look at the history of just about any culture from around the world. For example, many different global cultures have made round bodies out to be a sign of abundance and fortune at various points in history. The super skinny or hourglass shaped woman, and the lean, muscular man are very much inventions of modern western cultures. If we’re held to those standards and told that’s how we need to look in order to be “good enough”, it doesn’t leave us many options other than to feel inadequate.

Once you’re able to identify who the story that your body isn’t good enough the way it is really belongs to, it opens the door to a few other things worth considering. Perhaps most importantly, where do you stand on that idea? If you feel sad, discouraged, frustrated, or afraid at the idea that your body isn’t good enough the way it is, does that mean you’re for that idea, or against it? Usually people don’t feel negative emotions in response to things that feel right or good to them, so if you feel down about that idea, that’s probably telling of where you really stand on it.

3.     Strengthen or shift your relationship with your body

My third tip on how to love your body for more than how it looks has to do with strengthening or shifting your relationship with your body.

When you have a solid relationship with your body beyond its physical appearance, it becomes a lot easier to resist the story that you are unworthy unless your body looks a certain way.

Your appreciation becomes genuine when you really tune in to your physical body and recognize all that it does for you.

To get started on that, it helps to take up practices that allow you to really connect with your body, as a part of the person you are. Some guiding questions you can use include, “how does your body communicates its wants and needs to you? What sensations help get these messages across, and how does it feel when you take care of them?”, “When does your body feel best? When does it feel strongest? When does it feel most relaxed? When does it feel most well?”, “How does your body’s physical appearance represent its health and wellness, and to what extent? Like is it possible to be physically healthy and well, and to carry body fat? What feels right for your body? At what point does the amount of body fat impede or support your body’s wellness?”

I’ve included a link in the description to a post on the Heart & Oak Therapy blog that offers more questions like these to help guide you down your own path toward strengthening your relationship with your body.

One thing I really want to stress is that in a world that tells us we’re inadequate in so many ways, having a really positive relationship with your body is more likely to be a work in progress than an end game achievement. By doing this work, you’re going against the grain in a big way, and that’s a challenge! The last thing we need is to feel ashamed for not having a squeaky-clean body image on top of the struggles many of us already have. That’s just yet another layer of bullshit that our culture attempts to pile on top of us.

The fact that you are even here listening to me talk about body image tells me just how strong you really are. Your courage to honestly consider where you are at, and how you want things to be different is legit, and it’s hard but important work.

It can be hard to even admit that you’re struggling with your body image. After all, aren’t we all meant to be incredibly secure, confident, and independent people? But this work is gradual and takes time – it’s not just as simple as flicking a switch and going from night to day. By opening your eyes and ears to your own lived experience and understanding your relationship to your body in context, you can start to cultivate more and more appreciation for all the great ways it can serve you.

If this video has been interesting or helpful, go ahead and hit the “thumbs up” button below. For more helpful videos related to therapy and mental wellness, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification icon to make sure you stay in the loop.

Take care until next time, and keep doing the things that help you live a better, brighter life!