5 Action Steps for Body Image Healing

The relationship you have with your body is one of the most important relationships you’ll have throughout your lifetime. If you think about it, body perception is a driving force for so many aspects of whole health: eating behaviors, social life, intimacy with partners, confidence level, stress state and overall happiness. Body image is powerful and can have great impacts on health and well-being.

The truth is, body image is just that – an “image” issue. Thoughts are not truths, but rather cognitive distortions created by the mind put in place from our society’s unrealistic beauty standards and weight-centric value system.

So, how can you work on developing a healthier body image while living in a society that constantly tells you your body is wrong? I’ll be honest, body image work is hard, takes time and is not a perfect science. A positive body image does not look the same for everyone, but I can promise, that it is absolutely possible.

Step 1: Detox Your Social Influence

Why This Helps:
Important action step number 1: clean up your social media! This one step can be hugely impactful on how you feel about yourself on a day-to-day basis. Millennials, on average, spend approximately 3 hours per day on social media. That’s 3 hours every day of consuming potentially harmful and conflicting messages around dieting and weight loss. It shapes your internal value system to believe that social likeness and approval is determined by your appearance.

Action Step:
1. Delete or unfollow accounts that:

• make you feel more judgmental towards your appearance

• promote dieting or restrictive eating behaviors

• glorify the thin ideal, “perfect” looking bodies or before and after weight loss pictures

Remember that the Instagram algorithm is such that your feed is personalized based on what you repeatedly consume. Therefore, if you replace these accounts with ones that influence body positivity or healthy food relationships your feed will gradually transform.

Body Positive IG Accounts I Love:
@thebodylovesociety
@thewellful
@beautyredefined
@redefining_wellness
@bodyimagewithbri
@bodyimagetherapist
@selfloveclubblog

2. If you have an iPhone (Android’s may have this feature as well), you can set a daily time limit for your social media usage. I recently did this for myself!

Step 2: Have a “Self-Care Emergency Kit”

Why This Helps:
There are just going to be days where we don’t feel great in our bodies (I use “we” here, because I include myself in this conversation - I have these days too). Bloat happens, and whether we like it or not, it is completely NORMAL. For women especially, abdominal bloat, feeling “heavy” or “sluggish” occurs more frequently because of hormonal changes, which sets off a cascade of fluid shifts, mood fluctuations, lethargy and even skin changes (yay). So, if all of this is normal, why not prepare for it?

Action Steps:
1. Avoid wearing clothes that draw your mind’s attention to certain areas of your body. Make sure you have some “911” clothes in your closet that you can wear comfortably on these days.

2. Call a supportive friend or family member. Talk out your feelings, laugh, share stories, catch up!

3. Watch something funny or read a good book.

4. Pamper yourself – do a face mask, paint your nails, make some tea.

5. Go for a walk or sit outside – get some fresh air!

6. Step away from the mirror. (see action step #6)

7. *Do not avoid eating, try to eat less or skip meals on days that you aren’t happy with your body. Your body always deserves nourishment. What foods will feel good to eat in your here and now body?

Step 3: Drop the Story Line

Why This Helps:
A brain scientist named Jill Bolt Taylor proposed the theory that physiologically, an emotion lasts just 90 seconds from the moment it is triggered until it runs its course. However, what gets in the way is our tendency to fuel an emotion with our thoughts and attach a story line which we repeat in our minds over and over again until we believe it to be true. That story line stirs up a lot of mental activity and, in turn, leaves us feeling quite badly about ourselves.
Example:
Emotion: “I hate my thighs.”
Story Line: “No pretty girl has thighs this big. I am so unattractive, no wonder I’m still single. How could anyone be attracted to legs that look like this? I guess I’m just meant to be alone. Maybe I’ll never even have children.”

See how powerful your thoughts can be? The emotion “I hate my thighs” quickly sprialled into “I’m going to be alone forever”. Can you relate to this? I know I can.

Action Step:
1. Do the “90 Second Thing”. Acknowledge what you’re feeling. Lay down, sit comfortably, close your eyes. Give your emotion your full, complete, compassionate attention without judgement for a full 90 seconds. Drop the story line you have narrated in your mind. Try not to label the emotion you’re having as good or bad. When you attach morality to your thoughts and feelings that’s when you open the door for self judgement and criticism. Remind yourself that this is a cognitive distortion. Your thoughts are not truths.

Step 4: Reframe Thoughts with Positive Affirmations

Why This Helps:
Another mental exercise you can do is to simply acknowledge how you’re speaking to yourself. Is your self-talk hurtful? Hateful? Mean? Critical? Could you imagine speaking that way to a friend, family member or someone you love? If the answer is no, and I assume it might be, how can you reframe the message you’re sending to yourself to be more positive, more compassionate, more gentle?

Action Step:
1. Write down reasons you appreciate the body parts you are most critical towards. Maybe right now, you don’t like the way your arms look, but our bodies don’t exist for the viewing pleasure of others.

What is the functionality of your arms? Maybe they help you pick up your child, cook for your family, lift things up, swim, eat and hug your loved ones. When you begin to appreciate all of the ways your body takes care of you, it becomes less easy to have such hatred towards it.

2. Replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations. Some of my favorites include:
I am more than just a body.
I don’t need validation from others to know I’m worthy.
I don’t have to hold myself to unrealistic standards.
I am enough.
Even though I don’t like how this part of my body looks, I am still going to take care of it.
My body deserves kindness and respect.
My body always deserves nourishment.
I will not let my mind bully my body.
Thank you, body. (for______)

Step 5: Step Away From the Mirror

Why This Helps:
Of course you can’t go through life avoiding mirrors to feel better about yourself, but it is an active choice you can make on days when you’re really struggling. If you notice that every time you look in the mirror you’re picking apart your body, step away from the mirror. Do something else.

Action Step:
1. Cover your mirror with pretty wrapping paper, with pictures or patterns that make you feel happy.

2. Write positive, uplifting notes to yourself on your mirror (see above affirmations). This will get you in the habit of having more compassion for yourself and appreciating inner qualities that have nothing to do with your appearance.

3. Take your workout outside. You’d be surprised how much you ENJOY movement when you’re not surrounded by mirrors. Fresh air is also therapeutic and uplifting.

4. If you are shopping or getting dressed, first try on your clothes away from the mirror. Do you feel comfortable in those pants, in that shirt? Does it feel too tight or restricting? Visit the mirror only when you feel comfortable in what you’re wearing.

I encourage you to try some of these steps. What works for you? What doesn’t? What other steps have you taken to heal your body image that you’d like to share? Let’s talk about it - comment below!