Words by Liz Reichard
The Body Love movement has been around for a while and it’s getting more mainstream every day, which is amazing. Women loving the skin that they are in is a beautiful thing.
But if you are anything like me, you’re starting from a place of hating everything about your body, and jumping off into the Grand Canyon feels more achievable than body love. My invitation to you is to aim for Body Acceptance or Body Neutrality first, I use the terms interchangeably, so you use what feels best for you.
Body neutrality is the midpoint between body hate and body love. A stepping stone, if you like, in the middle of the canyon for you to aim for first. Body acceptance is when you’re able to look at your body without any negative thoughts or any positive ones, literally just “this is my body and this is what it looks like”. A pure, simple acceptance of your body with no negatives, no positives.
Imagine if you could get to that point:
- What could you use your brainpower for instead if you were able to stop thinking about your body, food intake, and exercise?
- What could you spend your money on instead if you stopped buying into the idea that your body needs to be altered?
- How would your life improve?
So how do you get there? As a woman who took over five years to finally accept her body as it is after hating it for 35, here are my top three tips to start on your path to body acceptance:
Social Media Audit
Social media is meant to be fun, social and community building, so start by being aware of how you feel when you’re on your chosen social media. Do you enjoy what you’re seeing in your feed? How does it make you feel?
You get to curate your social media feed to better suit your mental health. Yes, the algorithm is there, but you can train it. If you’re seeing ads you don’t want to, for instance, diet ads are everywhere because summer is on its way, you can use the X in the top right corner on FB or the three little dots on IG to get rid of that ad. IG has a cool feature in that it asks you why you don’t want to see it – for diet ads, I like to use “It’s inappropriate”. It’ll take a few goes, but the algorithm will shift as you do this to each ad you don’t want to see.
For people you see in your feed that make you feel awful about your body, Unfriend, Unfollow and Block are your best tools. If, however, you can’t do that because it might have outside implications, ie a work colleague or a family member, then Mute is your best option. It’ll take them out of your feed for 30 days, and you can remute them when the 30 days are up. If they say something to you that you don’t comment on their posts anymore etc, you have my unreserved permission to blame the algorithm, “it just doesn’t show me anyone’s stuff anymore”. You’re welcome!
Lastly, the fun part, finding new accounts to follow! Find ones that make you feel good about yourself and your body, for instance, Amy Pence-Brown, Taryn Brumfitt, Celeste Barber, Turia Pitt and me! Also, find ones that just make you happy. I’m following an account on IG of animals of Tasmania, and they post videos of wombats going about their day. It makes me smile, and they are so darn cute!!
Write a Gratitude List
Your body is not an ornament on a Christmas tree. It is a tool, the vessel your glorious soul is in, so that you can live this amazing life you have.
I invite you to write a gratitude list of all the things you are grateful for because you have this body. For instance, you might like to say “I’m grateful for my arms because I can hug people with them”, or “I’m grateful for my butt because it’s comfy to sit on” or “I’m grateful for my legs because I can walk and dance”. Write down as many gratitudes as you can. Notice how you feel after you’ve completed your list.
If you’d like to take it a step further, write a couple of these gratitudes on post-its and put them up around your home, car or office where you can see them often. Change them up every month or so, so you notice them afresh.
Find an Embodiment Practice
An embodiment practice is any practice or movement that helps you get out of your head and the spinning thoughts in there and feel into your body. Some common ones are activities like yoga, walking, hiking, free dance – like Qoya or 5Rhythms.
Choose a practice that encourages you to move in ways that feel good rather than worrying about what they look like. Once you start to feel into your body and feel her wisdom, you will start to shift the way you think about her, from purely what she looks like to what she feels like.
You will also become more attuned to what she’s telling you and your intuition. Your body holds ancient wisdom that you have been disconnected from, and by becoming embodied, you will start to feel that again.
I’ve created the Body Image Reset, a self paced course to help you quiet the noise, challenge old stories and take bold steps toward body neutrality with clarity and ease. I’ve set myself the ambitious goal of gifting this course to 1,000 women before the end of the year, because I want every woman to know, deep in her bones, that she is a glorious being.
Join here.
