If asked “how do you feel about your body?”, what is your first response?
Perhaps your answer is a slew of features/forms you’d like to change — the things you don’t want people to see when they look at you.
Perhaps you’re able to intermix things you’re grateful for, the body ideals you feel lucky to possess – the things you want people to see when they look at you.
Perhaps, after some thought, you shifted to the functional qualities of your body: what it allows you to do, how it allows you to feel…
But was your initial response concerned mostly with how your body is perceived/judged by the outside world? Do you privilege an external view of your body over your own decades-old, lived & felt experience of it?
Poor body image/body preoccupation is an enormous barrier to our potential as human beings, our ability to self-actualize. You can be confident & successful in many realms, yet still suffer from deep shame around your body shape & size.
This is a big deal.
Why? Because that shame & self-objectification, if allowed, will cause you to sacrifice ridiculous amounts of valuable time, energy, and resources to “fix” whatever you feel is not beautiful.
What if all the time, energy, money, etc. could be diverted elsewhere?
What could you do with all of that? Who could you be?
I don’t know about you, but thinking about that makes me sad and mad.
The reason so many people are unhappy with their bodies is due to a focus on body IMAGE over body EXPERIENCE.
Rather than experiencing our bodies from the inside, we are chronically existing as outside monitors, trying to anticipate the ways our shape/size/appearance will be judged by others.
We are well versed in being perceived, yet so detached from feeling, being, doing. This is how our worth becomes enmeshed in whether or not we have the abs, the ass, and whatever comes after that (there’s always something).
Would you rather have the “perfect” body, but still despise yourself…?
Or just… not have those feelings of hating your body ever again?
Moments of feeling bad about your body do not have to spiral into major investments of energy/time to fix yourself. With a bit of awareness (& lots of practice), they can simply act as reminders to come home to yourself, to get back in the driver’s seat, back in your purpose, back in your body and your life.
You are staying home from events, you are deleting photos that you will never get back, you aren’t allowing yourself to enjoy the foods you like, you aren’t going swimming (even though you love the water).
You are so busy policing yourself and asking “what do others see when they look at me” that you are missing your life in real time, disconnected from your joy, your relationships, your intuition, your HEALTH, your strengths, & your contribution.
Next time you start to objectify your own body, just notice it & ask the following:
- Is this distracting me from my higher purpose?
- Is this taking me out of my power?
- Is this supporting me in living a life with minimal regrets about how I allocated my precious energy?
If yes, try to just acknowledge those thoughts as distractions from your job as a living, doing, breathing, being.
Your body’s appearance is not your value, and you have big things to do here on earth.
Peace & Love,
Sofia