Some of the mos beautiful women I know suffer from low self-esteem and poor body image.
While I’d love to blame it all on social constructs and the entertainment industry (this includes the media), it’s not all their fault. We have to take some of the responsibility for what we allow ourselves to believe about beauty and our bodies.
The only reason that they get away with [falsely] portraying beauty and perfection the way they do is because we allow them to.
You are beautiful. Your body is perfect. You don’t have to look like the models on TV or wear a size 2 to be beautiful or to love your body.
If you want to make the shift to a better body image and self-esteem, read the article below. It lays out some great points.
A friend recently asked me how I made the shift towards a more positive body image.
And I froze.
Despite writing about this often and thinking about it even more, an answer didn’t easily spring to mind. I think that’s because it’s a monolithic question in a lot of ways, and I’ve done SO many different things that it’s hard to narrow it down.
Drilling Down
After shaking off my initial brain freeze, I did the next best thing I could think of: spout off some platitudes — therapy, journaling, blah, blah, blah.
Now, those things aren’t blah blah to me — not at all. They’re actually two of my most important tools that I use on a regular basis. But they were blah blah to her at the time because I knew she’d heard it all before, and she was struggling. She wanted to hear something different, and I knew I wasn’t being as real as I wanted to be.
One More Layer
There were a few other friends in the room, so the conversation continued for a bit without me. I listened to them with one ear and to me with the other — asking myself, “what has REALLY made a difference to me?”
And then it hit me.
As soon as I could, I jumped back into the conversation and told my friend, “One of the biggest things I did was completely change my environment.”
That got her attention.
Creating My Life
From there, I went into further detail. I let go of toxic friendships — the ones that drained me of energy because they were all one-sided. But also the ones where all we talked about was how much we hated our bodies and needed to go on a diet.
Now, I didn’t just call up these people and break-up with them in one day; my process wasn’t that quick. But over time, as I saw our relationship more deeply (or, rather, saw its lack of depth), I had less desire to spend time with these people. And we gradually drifted apart — no passive aggressive melodrama necessary.
I also dramatically reduced the amount of media I consume. I used to love subscribing to magazines, but over time I realized that 90% of them were ads designed to make me feel terrible. Even the pages that weren’t actual ads were ads because they were just clever layouts of “best new facial creams” or whatever.
After that, I slowly stopped reading so much news and, eventually, I stopped my old way of watching TV. Now I never flip through the channels and accidentally land on a telemercial for the latest weight loss scheme. Instead, I’m all about Hulu — watching only what I want, when I want.
Finally, I changed my home. I got rid of all the clothes I was hanging onto for the hopes of fitting into one day. I couldn’t believe the shift that created for me energetically. I quite literally felt freer after unburdening myself of the expectations infused in those clothes.
I also hid my scale from myself. Of course, I knew it was still there, but more often than not I didn’t think about it when it wasn’t the first thing I saw every morning. And, again, over time, as I fell out of the routine of weighing myself 2-3x/week, I missed it less and less.
The Myth of Giving Up
As I read through this list, my inner critic thinks — “You didn’t change your environment. You gave up!”
And, my, isn’t that a pervasive myth? We even have jokes about it — how people get older, married, in a busy job, have kids or whatever (it really doesn’t matter the reason, does it?) — and they “give up.” In this scenario, giving up is meant to mean on the way they look.
What a sad social construct.
First of all, I think this is ridiculous, offensive and designed solely to support the diet and beauty industries. Second, you know what looks better on people than a smaller pair of pants?
Not hating themselves.
Truly, don’t we all know those people whose bodies don’t fit the standard beauty norms but who everyone thinks is radiant and gorgeous? I know I do. And it’s not because of their clothes or makeup.
It’s because they have a light within, and they shine it out with confidence.
Change your environment, change your life
I know it can sound like a lot, perhaps even too much, to change your environment. And I can hear the reasons as to why you could never cut that person out of your life. And that’s probably true; it is for me.
I still have people in my life who aren’t 100% supportive of my body lovin’ journey who I choose not to cut out (primarily because they’re family members). So what I do with them is shift the conversation as much as possible, including not participating in fat-talk during family gatherings, which is always a favorite activity.
You’ll also notice that with everything I did, I said “over time” or “slowly.” This didn’t happen overnight — not by a long shot. So if there are things you might like to change in your life, figure out your own pace and method.
And start making the shift.
Click Here To Read This Amazing Article On Curvy Yoga
Put these principles into practice today. I promise, it’s totally worth it. Instead of focusing on the way you look, focus on your health. When your perspective shifts from how you look to how your body feels, happiness and joy can then be unleashed.
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