Struggling with how your body looks can have big impacts on not only how you view yourself but also how you view life overall.
When you cannot accept your body the way that it is, it makes everything else in your life harder to deal with. A lot of the time, we like to blame our bodies for our mistakes and failures, when in fact that has nothing to do with it.
Being able to see your body for what it is and appreciating it for what it can do in this moment is hard, I won't deny that, but when you can do this, it's amazing how much better you feel and your life feels.
Watch Yourself.
Do you notice your thoughts towards yourself throughout the day? What are you telling yourself? Your body?
Begin by being aware of the things you tell yourself. They are most likely negative and those kinds of thoughts can have a real impact on your mind and your body.
When you notice yourself speaking to yourself this way, take a moment to stop and correct your words. Replace the negative with a positive.
So instead of telling yourself that you're ugly, replace that thought with telling yourself that you're beautiful.
Every time I get a thought in my head that is negative towards my body I make a conscious effort to turn it around into a positive one.
One of the most common thoughts I get is "My legs are so big and fat." And every time I continue to replace this thought with a positive one like this, "My legs are strong and muscular and they are beautiful."
It doesn't always work on the first try so it's something you have to practice, just like everything in life. Practice makes perfect.
Stop Criticizing.
I still fall prey to this daily. Instead of saying negative things to myself in my head, I feel the need to point out all of my flaws to others in hopes that they can make me feel better.
My fiance usually gets the brunt of these thoughts. I say things like "Oh my gosh, look at how huge my stomach is", and "Ugh my arms are so wide" and then I wait for his reassurance that my stomach is not in fact big, and my arms are perfect.
But does this really help me with my image? No. Because I am still bashing my body and the way that it looks. Sure it makes me feel good to hear people say I look fine, but what I really need is for ME to think I look fine without others approval.
This could also be called 'fat talking''. Have you seen those images that say, "friends don't let friends fat talk"? It's similar to that because it's all the same. We are so used to talking about our bodies in this negative way that it comes natural now.
And that is so sad.
We should be proud of our bodies and talk about them with positive words. Strong, healthy beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, etc.
Our bodies are so amazing that it's hard for me to understand why we don't see this, even for me and my own body. I still get caught in the same traps.
But we can get ourselves out of them. We can free ourselves from the media, from the images, from the negativities.
We don't have to live our lives constantly bashing our bodies like this.
We don't deserve that type of treatment. Our bodies don't deserve that.
Today I challenge us to be nice to our bodies. I challenge us to caring and loving towards ourselves and retrain from harsh words and criticisms.
Can we do this for ourselves?
Tell me how it goes for you!
xoxo
Tayla