Healing Your Body Image & Finding Body Acceptance (Featured on The Hope Wellness Podcast - Ep2)

Who here struggles with body image? I would say majority of the women I connect with on a daily basis struggle in this area of our health, happiness and lifestyle. One thing I want you to know though, is that YOU are NOT the problem, and neither is your body. It was never the problem to begin with. Society has programmed and conditioned us to hate our bodies, constantly feel like we're not good enough and keep us insecure so that we continue buying products to 'fix' ourselves, waste our energy and time continuously feeling like we're not good enough and to distract us from actually living our lives and going after what we want...

Unfortunately as women, majority of our lives we spend it at war with ourselves, at war with our body's, constantly chasing unrealistic weight loss and believing if we shrink ourselves down to a small enough size THEN we will be happy and confident and worthy. But the problem is, that this is FALSE. This narrative we've been told since we were young girls, that a smaller body is a better body, is simply not true. We were conditioned with these false narratives to keep us insecure, afraid to take up space, and feeling like we're not good enough so that we never actually gain the confidence or belief in ourselves that we can do anything we set our minds to. A pretty good plan for those in power who want to keep us small and never amounting to anything.

But do you know what I say? FCK THAT NOISE! You were not put on this earth to hate yourself, to shrink yourself down and to be mean to yourself your whole life. You have so much to offer this world and within your own life and it actually has nothing to do with your body or the way you look. Beauty is whatever you want it to be. For me our the last few years of my own body image healing journey, this has actually looked like me wearing less makeup (and recently none at all), I've stopped dying my hair, I've stopped dieting or trying to keep my body 'small', and I've started to focus on feeling good instead of obsess over what I look. Now keep in mind, all of the above is just simply what makes me feel more like me and more connected to my own definitions of beauty or comfort. It will probably look a bit different for you, and that is great! What is important here, isn't what's on your list, it's actually what YOU deem as beauty, because YOU thought of it and don't care what others have to say about it!

YOUR BODY IS THE LEAST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOU.

Freeing yourself from Diet Culture and Negative Body Image...

I want you to remember that your body is not the problem, and that your body is also the least interesting thing about you. Chasing your tail down a rabbit hole just to be your smallest self will never make you happy or confident, those things happen from WITHIN. My dear friend Anna and I unpack a lot within this podcast episode (the link is below to listen to the full episode). We both have struggled with disorder eating patterns, negative self talk and body image, and feeling consumed by all of our imperfections. We both at some point or another felt like this was the only life possible ad like we would never be free or find peace in regards to these areas of our lives...

But ultimately we ended up doing the healing work. We did the work necessary to discover body acceptance and faced the challenges along the way. This journey is never linear, but having helpful and positive tools in your toolbox when a negative body image day or moment arises, can help you confidently move forward in this work towards healing.

Stick around until the end of the episode...

In this episode we thought it was incredibly important to share tips on adopting a more neutral outlook towards your body and how to overcome a negative body image day.

At the end of the day, our minds are incredibly powerful and you deserve to feel confident, empowered and full of life. When we work on our mindsets, our thought patterns and shifting our internal dialogues we can change so much in our lives for the better, don't underestimate how powerful you are, I hope this episode helps you see everything you can do and are capable of in your life!

Full Episode Here: Healing Your Body Image & Body Acceptance