How do I heal my body image?
What IS Body Image, Anyway?
Your body image is the thoughts and feelings that you have about your body. When someone has a negative body image, they are unhappy with how they look and have a lot of negative feelings when they think about their appearance. Someone with a more positive body image, on the other hand, is satisfied with their appearance and generally feels neutral or positive about how they look.
Take a moment and think about your body. What is your dialogue with your body like when you look in the mirror? Are you content, or do you feel upset or sad? If it’s the latter, you are probably struggling with some body image issues.
Why Do I Have a Negative Body Image?
The answer to that question is complex and going to vary for each individual. Some people think that social influences are to blame for body image issues. This means that people in our lives, like parents, friends, and even the media give us messages about our bodies that can change how we feel about our appearance.
Other people think that cognitive influences play a role. That means that different people think about their bodies in different ways, and that some people develop a negative body image because of those thoughts.
The reality? It’s probably a little bit of both. We’re constantly bombarded with messages about what we’re supposed to look like from all around us, and we also bombard ourselves with those messages all the time.
So, What Can I Do To Improve My Body Image?
Unfortunately, we probably can’t do much to change the way society talks about bodies. What we can do is work on how we talk about bodies with ourselves and with the people in our lives. Here are some steps that you can take if you’re interested in improving your body image.
Understand Your Body Beliefs
No matter where the messages about your body came from, you’ve learned certain beliefs about the role of your appearance in your life. These beliefs can even influence how you interpret the world around you. In fact, you might not even recognize that these beliefs are just assumptions and not truths about the world!
Let’s look at some common appearance assumptions:
I should always do whatever I can to look my best.
If I could be more attractive, my life would be better.
I only have worth if I look a certain way.
If people knew how I really look, they would like me less.
Attractive people have it all.
Sounds familiar? Do any of these assumptions resonate with you? Or maybe you have some others that you’ve developed over time. Take a little bit of time to unpack the assumptions that you have about your appearance and even write them down.
Challenge Your Body Beliefs
Now that you understand your body beliefs, you can start to challenge them. Chances are when you wrote them down, you started to see how silly some of your beliefs are. But maybe some of them still feel true, and that’s okay too. Try to unpack where these beliefs came from and if you really believe they’re true.
For example, let’s challenge belief 1 together: “I should always do whatever I can to look my best.” Should and always are pretty strong words! They imply that looking your best is your duty and that by not looking your best, you’ve failed. That’s pretty intense. Why have you given yourself such an unobtainable expectation? Looking your best is totally subjective, so how will you even know you’ve done it? Do you expect other people to look their best all the time, too? Chances are, you’re much harder on yourself than you are on other people. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good, but it’s unrealistic and harmful to your self-esteem to expect that you should always look good.
Take a look at your body beliefs and see if you can challenge any of them in this way. Is your appearance really the most important thing in the world to you? Why? Is that a fair expectation to place on yourself? Do you place it on others?
Create New Body Beliefs
So, you’ve realized that your body beliefs are unfair. But what do you do when you still hear those beliefs come up? Well, you need to create some new body beliefs that you can remember in times of distress.
Try to unpack what’s valuable to you in your life. Sure, you might enjoy looking good, but is that more important than your sense of humor, your love for friends or family, or intellect, or any of the amazing aspects of yourself that make up who you are?
It feels safe to strive towards perfectionism, and in times of distress, it might feel like the only thing we can control. But if you can create new beliefs that allow you to be more gentle with yourself and let go of some of that pressure, you’ll find that there are so many more incredible things to be than perfect. You don’t have to be perfect - you can just be you.
