Well Advised
Dear Craving Body Acceptance,
Body acceptance is no easy feat, and most certainly does not happen overnight. In fact, it doesn’t happen in two, or three, or four nights. It requires hard work, patience, self-compassion, and a team of folks that care about you and can sit with you on nights when you want to unzip your skin and crawl out of it.
While we don't have a step by step fail proof plan for landing at body acceptance, we have a few ideas that should get you headed down the right path.
1. Start with body neutrality.
No one goes directly from body dysmorphia to Lizzo-level body positivity. Initially, people have found it helpful to start with “body neutrality.” This involves taking negative thoughts about one’s body and removing the judgement.
Catch judgmental thoughts, write them down, and immediately write down a counter, body neutral thought. For example, if I have the thought “I hate the way my thighs look in jeans,” the body neutrality translation might be “these jeans are the right size for my body at this time.”
2. Look for the ways in which you reinforce hatred of your own shape or size.
Maybe you ritualistically stand in front of the mirror every morning and pick out all of the self-determined “flaws.” Maybe you weigh yourself, even though you know that whether the number is higher or lower than anticipated, weighing yourself feeds into a cycle of disordered habits. Maybe you wear only black or wear large clothing to hide yourself.
A next step in body acceptance will be challenging patterns and breaking cycles of self-sabotaging behavior. Start small, setting measurable behavioral goals like, “I will only look at my reflection one time during my walk,” or “I will take up a little more space today by using a seat on the subway.”
3. There is no such thing as feeling fat.
Caroline Rothstein depicts this point beautifully in her famous buzzfeed video Fat Is Not A Feeling. Feelings are emotions. Fat is a judgment. Caroline shares with us, that when the thought “I feel fat” emerges, she stops and thinks about what actual feelings are underneath the “fat” feeling.
Try to put a name to the emotions and areas in your life that may require more attention. Perhaps you are feeling disconnected from your family, scared about an upcoming transition, or uneasy about how others might see you. “Fat” is often the more accessible word, but leads to solutions that don’t confront the underlying issue. Using “fat” as an umbrella description can box us into a cycle of hating our bodies instead of healing our hearts.
4. Practice gratitude.
Take time at the start of your day to acknowledge what you will need your body to do for you. Let yourself be in awe of our body’s resiliency, strength, and flexibility.
Make a list. What do you need from your body today, and what do you need to give your body to allow it to do so. For example, I might say, “Today, my body needs to walk up stairs to get to the subway. My brain needs to be sharp so that I can show up for clients at work. My arms need to be strong so that I can high five everyone who is challenging the patriarchy." Accepting your body's appearance can be challenging, but accepting your body’s gifts, strengths, or abilities, whether that is physical or mental, can help build a new relationship with your body.
When I was early in recovery from my eating disorder, I understood that if I wanted to recover, I needed to separate my relationship with my body from the rest of the world and the judgments I placed on it. Melissa Fabello, a Body Image Activist, says that “there is a big difference between me feeling bad about my body and the rest of the world feeling bad about my body.”
As I recovered from my eating disorder, I felt I had won. I had won my way to loving my body and eating intuitively. I had won my storytelling stretch marks and the freedom to eat whatever I wanted. I had won feeling empowered and uplifted in my big, brave skin. Instead of believing the narrative that other people might construct about my body, I decided to write my own narrative for my body, and for how I see other people’s bodies and weight.
If you're feeling contemplative today, consider journaling...
What new narrative do you want to write about your body?
Stay Well,
The WW team