When it comes to our bodies, we women are self-critics extraordinaire.
Don’t We All Do It?
Adolescent women. Young women. Mature women (you’d think we’d know better by now!). “Ordinary” women. Supermodels. Movie stars.
All are dissatisfied with and sometimes even hate their bodies or some body part(s).
More often than not, that judgment is distorted. Women focus on what they consider “bad” about their bodies, no matter what the reality might be. How many women have you known who are fixated on some “problem” with their appearance – weight, thighs, tummy, nose, the list is endless — when they look fine to you?
Judging and hating our bodies is a form of self- hatred. It doesn’t serve us and it perpetuates these issues for the generations following us.
How to Make Friends with Your Body
You can change your perceptions and judgments of your body. It’s not easy and it’s possible. One step at a time, you can improve your relationship with your body.
My friend and colleague, Jackie Foskett, has a post on this on her Healing Hypnotherapy site. She lists some excellent ways to begin making friends with your body. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Find at least one thing you like about your body. Write it down. Tomorrow, find another.
- Tell your body how much you appreciate its wondrous abilities.
- Nourish your body with a healthy diet, regular meals, and lots of water.
- Pamper yourself with soothing beauty rituals.
For more suggestions, check out the article, Body Image – It’s Not What You See but How You Feel.
However you choose to do it, be kinder to your body. It’s the only one you have and where would you be without it!
I’d love to hear what you think of this. Write away in Comments below.
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I read an article yesterday in the LA Times about surprising rates of anorexia among women in the 50s, so your post is timely.
Thanks, Lorie!
I have struggled with this for a long time. It wasn’t until I hit my fifties that I started coming to terms with the fact that I would never be tall and slender! I can laugh about the wrinkles, the chin hairs, and everything else that comes with growing older because the alternative would be to not be alive.
Ruth, thanks for sharing your experience wih this. Glad you’ve found your way to laughter and a good perspective on growing older vs. the alternative.
Making friends with my body would be very liberating.Have heard alot of negative words over the years,some of them coming out of my own mouth. Interesting article.
It would be liberating, wouldn’t it, Phyllis? As they say, it’s never too late to start.