You’re feeling like shit in your body. What do you do?
You spiral? Eat to compensate for feeling rubbish? Don’t leave the house because you feel insecure?
I know, I’ve been there before. I’ve coached hundreds of women who have felt this way too. So I thought I’d share 5 things you can do to help.
Body Functionality
This is understanding that body image goes beyond how it appears. It’s about recognising the value of your body, irrespective of how it looks.
Shifting your perspective from what your body looks like to focusing on appreciating what your body enables you to do is practising body functionality. So think, what are all of the activities your body allows you to engage in day to day? It might be walking with friends, lifting weights, running, going for a hike to enjoy nature, hugging your parents, grandparents. Appreciating body functionality is essential for living a fulfilled life; see how these things your body does enrich and enhance your life experiences more than how your body actually looks.
Label the thoughts
We have all been there, looking at ourselves in the mirror and then the negative thoughts start. So when that happens, I want you to stop and notice what was said. Noticing it gives your brain enough time to realise that it was a thought and stop it in its tracks before it spirals. Then you’re going to label it as a thought. Not a fact, not a truth, just a thought, which is neither true nor false; it just exists. By doing this, you are creating psychological distance, giving yourself time to recognise it is a thought, process it and move on without attaching emotion. A bonus tip here is to reframe: whatever thought appears, you notice and label the thought, then reframe it into something that actually is a fact. Like “My legs helped me squat 80kg yesterday, and that is strong”.
Re-Anchor tool
This is great to use to ground yourself. Maybe you have feelings of being anxious or overwhelmed; maybe a thought has spiralled. The re-anchor tool stops the brain from hyper-focusing on what is happening inside your head and brings attention to your physical reality. It’s a quick and easy tool, which is why it is perfect for those times you feel negative about your body. Because we all know this can happen when we are out on a night out, or even sitting on a train going to meet friends.
So what you do is:
Focus on finding
3 things you can see
2 things you can hear
1 thing you can touch
This creates enough time to focus on your physical reality and brings you to focus on your senses, so that your thoughts are paused and forgotten.
Wear clothes you feel confident in
It is quite normal to choose clothes to hide your body when you don’t feel confident in it, but what happens when this is a constant and when feelings of negativity increase, or we start to ignore our bodies altogether, is body avoidance. Avoiding your body is a problem that makes your negative body image even worse, because you ignore it and just continue with the thoughts of your perceived body in your head without actually finding out if your body appears that way. For example, you might choose baggy clothes because you hate your stomach rolls, so you ignore that part of your body and never give it a chance to see if that part has changed or you feel differently about it. So instead of covering up in clothes you may not necessarily feel confident in but instead just “does the job of covering yourself up”, choose something that actually makes you feel comfortable and confident.
I say this with the knowledge (because I have had this conversation with hundreds of women) that this is not as easy as it seems. When you dislike your body or parts of it, finding something you feel confident in isn’t easy. So I challenge you: go out shopping and find a top that you LOVE! When you put it on, it makes you feel like THAT BITCH. Like you could take on the world. Ignore anything you reach for that you think would “suit your body better” or “be more me”. We are saying FU to diet culture, trends, and socially acceptable norms because THAT is why we all feel less than. How you can overcome that is by one small step of making yourself feel like the baddest bitch ever.
I am aware this might seem far-fetched, but I’m being deadly serious. Why shouldn’t we as women, the most amazing creatures on planet Earth (even if you don’t feel like it, we truly are), be made to feel like we are not good enough? Be put into a box and made to feel small. Be told we can’t do this or wear that or act like that. Ok, my feminist rant is over now, but seriously, you do deserve to feel confident in your clothing, whatever that looks like to you!
FINALLY, tip 5 is to apply for my coaching.
Why?
A good coach, I, will help you understand that there is nothing wrong with you. How you feel about your body doesn’t mean you need to fix anything, if you want to change that great; I can help you.
But we will also work on the why- why you want to change your body. Why you dislike it, why you like it, why you think certain things and challenge you on this. We will figure out together what tools are the right fit for you to help when you experience a bad body image day, learn how to implement these tools into your life and how to use them way beyond our coaching together.
