For today’s newsletter I wanted to discuss a very important topic, which is also a new category of affirmations that was recently launched in the Selfpause app: body appreciation.
Your personal body goals should be completely subjective to you and should be made with optimal health as your motivation. You cannot tell by looking at someone’s appearance or at their weight whether they are metabolically healthy, so you are the best judge of your own health. Do not let societal standards tell you what your body should or shouldn’t look like. Mainstream media does not care about your health and does not know what being healthy looks like for you.
Whatever your fitness or diet goals may be, please make self-acceptance and body appreciation the priority. Your physical health will never ask you to compromise your mental health. If you’re forcing yourself to go to the gym even though you hate it or are unhappy with your restrictive diet, please stop and take a step back. You cannot hate yourself healthy. What is truly good for you is sustainable. Be kind to yourself, be grateful for everything your body does for you, and appreciate the home it has given you.
Choose to develop healthy, sustainable habits that are good for your long-term health, not just to reach an aesthetic goal. Find an activity that you actually enjoy doing to get your daily movement in. Find some recipes that are nutritious that actually taste good and that you like to eat. Move your body and feed it well because you love it, not because you hate and want to change it.
In a case study done on fluid body image concept, presented at the 11th International Scientific Conference in 2020, it was concluded that the narrative around body image continues to change, and also stressed the importance of self-acceptance and self-satisfaction when considering the sense of self-attractiveness.
We have accepted, for far too long, a mainstream ideal of body image which is presented by social standards. Reject what the media teaches you about what you should want your body to look like. The ideal body should be a normal, healthy body – a body that changes as we through throughout the different seasons of our lives. Your body at age 60 will not be the same as your body was at 20, and that is a normal and beautiful thing.
A normal body is a body with flaws. No body is perfect. The ideal body is the body you have been blessed with.
Your body is your home. Nurture it, respect it, appreciate it, love it. You are capable of loving and appreciating your body exactly as it is now. All bodies are worthy of love. The only thing stopping you from loving yourself as you are, is you. You can accept yourself without the need to retouch or conform to societal standards.
True liberation comes from nothing less than acceptance. Acceptance must start from within and, as shown in the mentioned case study, it happens through the increasing of self worth.
Self-worth was increased, in this study, through the repetition of positive affirmations. It was also concluded in the study that self-worth proved to be something highly influenced by internal sources as opposed to by external sources.
So one thing you can do now to start to change your attitude toward your body is to develop a more positive inner dialogue. Prioritize self-love. Find freedom from detaching from the societal ideals of what is “right” and “wrong” in regards to body type and appearance.
The concept of body image is always changing. What society deems as the “ideal body” today will not still be the “ideal body” in the future. Stop chasing what you’ve been taught you should look like in order to accept and love your appearance. Accept yourself as you are. Seek health and wellness over societal ideals.
Appreciate the home your body is to you. Be kind to your body and do what is good for it because you love and respect it, not because you hate and want to change it.
Find affirmations to inspire good habits, appreciate your body, and so much more on the Selfpause app, or use the app to write and record your own affirmations.
