Love Your Body
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Bnny, “Thaw”
How to love your body? It sounds like it should be the simplest thing in the world: to have gratitude and appreciation for the miracle of your physical body. It automatically and without any input or direction from you… keeps your heart beating, keeps breathing while you sleep, makes you sweat when you’re too hot, digests your food, and locomotes you from one place to another. It can even participate in making another human. It is truly a miracle and whether or not it’s in good working order is the undeniable foundation of everything else in your whole life.
When it comes to your body, there is so much to love!
Why Do I Hate My Body??
I’m well aware from many years as a therapist and fellow human that’s not always the way we feel about our bodies, is it? Even though it’s a fantastic engine of life that supports everything you do, it’s easy to get kinda judgy about the way your body looks or whether or not it’s as “good” or worthy of love and respect as someone else’s body, and through this weird emotional logic that tells us that certain bodies are better than other bodies, that the people in possession of enviable bodies are more intrinsically valuable humans.
It sounds so insane when you put it all down on paper like that but… that’s what we are often socialized to do: judge bodies by the ever-changing scoring rubric of the current zeitgeist. (Lisa pauses typing to double check her reflection, and yes, the hair is parted down the center and not to the left. Giving myself a point!)
Hairstyles are one thing, but when it comes to how our bodies actually look — their shape, proportions, fat-to-height ratio, and how these shapes, proportions, and ratios compare to those of a difficult to attain cultural “ideal…” that’s when we can start slipping sideways into something yucky.
Being unhappy with your body because it doesn’t look like one of the “good” ones. Being angry with your body for not responding to your efforts to diet, restrict, or exercise it into physical compliance. Worse yet, you might even start hating your body, and being consumed with worry and thoughts related to what you’re eating or how much you’re exercising.
Sometimes I’ll have online life coaching clients come to me with these kinds of goals for themselves, and it always makes me uncomfortable. When self-worth is tied to body image… that never ends well. [Read: “Advice From a Body Positivity Coach” for more on that subject]
Body Image and Low Self Esteem
When it gets really bad, people can even start to feel really down on themselves, struggling with low self-esteem, and finding it difficult to accept themselves or feel happy — all because their bodies (which work perfectly well, by the way) don’t look a certain way.
This is a trap folks. One that lots of people, particularly women, stumble into. Sometimes even before middle school is over, they’ve been indoctrinated into believing that people with different bodies have different levels of status and respect in this world, and that, in order to have love, happiness or success, they darn well better look like they’re “supposed to” (or kill themselves trying). Let’s not!
Loving Your Body: It Can Start Today
In the words of the late, great Monty Python: “And now for something completely different!”
Enter my guest on today’s episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast: Stephanie O., a Growing Self colleague who specializes in relationships — the ones we have with other people, but also the kind of relationship that you have with yourself. She helps many clients with things like self esteem and how to have healthy partnerships, but she has special insight into helping people with body image and how to love yourself.
Health at Any Size
Stephanie practices “Health at Any Size” ideas in therapy, and walks with her clients step by step through: the process of examining beliefs about bodies; learning how to reject unhelpful cultural ideas about the value of our bodies; and then move towards body image acceptance. Over time, she can help her clients have genuine gratitude and appreciation for their amazing bodies, and even learn how to love their bodies too.
She is joining me on today’s episode of the podcast to share her empowering “how to love your body” ideas with you. If you sometimes feel like you hate your body, I hope that you listen. How to learn to love your body? Grab a pen — Stephanie’s sharing a ton of ideas that I hope you write down and start using today!
You can listen to this episode using the player above (or below) or access it through Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show while you’re there! If you have follow up questions or comments for Stephanie on this topic, please let us know in the comments below so Stephanie or I can respond. Show notes and episode transcript are below.
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Love Your Body Podcast: Show Notes & Episode Highlights
Stephanie’s Journey to Health at Every Size
Many people are obsessed with their body weight and size. Some obsessive tendencies can manifest in extreme diets or passive thoughts. But some might even bleed into other aspects of their lives, such as low self-esteem and sexuality.
When she was a college freshman, Stephanie learned about eating disorders in her Psych 101 class. She was shocked to find that signs of anorexia applied to her and almost all the women she knew. That’s why she thought it would be interesting to work with people with eating disorders in grad school.
During that time, she was introduced to the concept of Health at Every Size. Since then, Stephanie has sought to incorporate this in her work as a therapist and life coach.
Why Do I Hate My Body?
The truth is, you can’t be happy in the future if you aren’t happy now.
Most of us now know that it’s no longer cool to hate our bodies. Body acceptance is in! However, we still tend to think negatively about our bodies, often in overt ways. It starts off with seemingly benign thoughts like, “I should eat healthier.”
But then, this may turn into an obsession with cutting down on calories. Stephanie explains: “Underneath it, the goal underneath is really to actually be thinner because we equate so much of health and size together.” In addition, we tend to conflate health and morality.
Because of the sneaky way we obsessively think of our bodies, many of us also treat our ideal bodies as the prerequisite to happiness. You’ve probably had these beliefs at one point in your life:
- When I hit my ideal weight, I can finally get my crush to notice me.
- If I become thinner, then I can wear the clothes I want.
- Once I get my body goals, I’ll finally be happier.
We become so engrossed in “that day.” But Cheri Huber reminds us: “That day does not exist, and it only exists in your mind. Its reason is to torture you.”
The misconception that you’ll be happy in the future when you achieve the “perfect body” holds you back from living the life you want. The truth is, you can’t be happy in the future if you aren’t happy now. So, learn how to love yourself now.
The Path to Radical Self-Acceptance
If you are struggling with loving your body, practice self-compassion. It’s not a “you” problem. Rather, it’s a larger societal problem.
Society has perpetuated unrealistic beauty standards through the media and beauty industry. It has become so pervasive that it’s rare for someone to be completely satisfied with their body. In our society, we are conditioned to think we’re doing bad when we aren’t a “normal” weight. Thus, we should constantly try to work toward that unattainable standard.
Stephanie usually starts the process of body acceptance by encouraging them to consume more size-inclusive media. These can come in the form of:
- Instagram accounts to follow,
- podcasts to listen to, and
- television shows to watch.
She shares, “Because if we do this work, and we continue to just see all the same input all the time, it’s almost impossible to challenge that.”
From there, they would work on challenging societal norms and standards by paying attention to how much value we put on size and weight.
It’s also important to deconstruct the messages we’ve been given. For so long, we’ve been led to believe that being fat is unhealthy and being thin is good. However, there is no significant correlation between health and size. Learning to question these beliefs is crucial to radical self-acceptance.
How to Accept Your Body
Finding the reason why you want to change your mindset and body perceptions is an important part of loving your body. Whether you want to stop counting your calorie intake or you just want to feel better in your skin, determining this gives you a purpose.
Another good way to start your journey is to get rid of your scale. Thinking rationally, it serves no real purpose. It’s just there. But it doesn’t need to be.
Body neutrality can also be a powerful thing. Stephanie describes it as:
- Not loving or hating your body.
- Not valuing your body using terms such as “fat” or “thin.”
- Simply acknowledging what you look like.
Some people are resistant to this idea because they feel like they’ll let themselves go. If you ever feel that nagging fear about getting fat, then ask yourself, “What does getting fat mean to me?”
Perhaps, you’re unconsciously linking being fat to lovability and worthiness. In that case, you have to remember that fat ≠ bad. Many people have harmed their bodies by trying to fight their natural state.
Health at Every Size
Society tends to attribute health and wellness as a personal responsibility. In reality, it’s widespread problems, such as marginalization and racism, that are huge health hazards. By sweeping these under the rug and blaming it on people’s laziness, we allow the unjust components of our society to proliferate.
Thus, the best way to improve our population’s health is to create a fair world without inequity. Just as Stephanie says, “We know that different cultures and ethnicities have different sizes. People come in all different shapes and sizes.”
Yet, research on obesity in white people is being applied as a worldwide standard. Moreover, most of this research does not factor in fitness, further spreading misinformation that weight and health are intricately linked.
Love Your Body Now
Remember that your body is worth loving and taking care of. Always was, always will be.
If you’re struggling to love your body, the key is not losing weight. It’s appreciating your body for the things it does for you. Try saying these phrases to yourself and see what comes up:
- I love my legs because they take me to new places.
- I love my ears because they allow me to hear beautiful music.
- I love my tummy because it protects my vital organs.
For Stephanie, loving your body simply means taking care of it. Alongside body acceptance, some other ways to love your body are intuitive eating and joyful movement.
“So that’s the home run message. How can you live the life you want right now in the body you have right now, given your current situation, not that invisible finish, not that imaginary future day. But how can I be the healthiest I can right now in the body that I have right now?”
Remember that your body is worth loving and taking care of. Always was, always will be.
Resources
- Walking on Eggshells
- Advice From A Body Positivity Coach: Love Yourself
- The music in this episode is Thaw by Bnny from their debut album “Everything”. You can support them and their work by visiting their website. Each portion of the music used in this episode fits under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. Please refer to copyright.gov for more information.
Enjoy the Podcast?
Did you enjoy the podcast? What did you learn about body image and acceptance? How do you think these insights can help you love your body and give it the care it deserves? Tell us by commenting on this episode. Subscribe to us now to discover more episodes on living a life full of love, happiness, and success.
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Love Your Body
The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Music Credits: Bnny, “Thaw”
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Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self. She is a licensed psychologist, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a board-certified coach, as well as the author of “Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love,” and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.
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