Hello lovely,
I wanted to talk to you today about the part of you that criticizes your body and doesn’t give you that body confidence.
This is something that is widespread among a lot of women in society. We’re told we should look a certain way and we also have this voice internally.
What can we do about that?
How can we get to a place where we feel body confidence and closer to loving ourselves?
We have to look at it differently.
Usually what I see and what people try to do is put a positive affirmation onto their body. “I love my body”, “I love myself”. They are saying this and consciously think they love themselves but that might not be the case.
For example
I had a client that had body positivity and loved herself, consciously. But when we dove deeper she realized subconsciously that she didn’t love her body. The subconscious governs 90-95% of our actions and thoughts. She was still running the “I don’t love myself” thought and that was running the show.
We can control 5% of our actions consciously and 95% is automatic, or subconscious. The subconscious has a lot more control than the conscious mind. It doesn’t mean we can’t influence and change it but if we think saying “I love my body” is the solution we’re not getting to the core of what’s going on.
Start with acceptance…
If we look at the subconscious and we want body love, we start with body acceptance and seeing where you are at as that is more believable. Seeing what our body does gives us more power and a base for appreciation.
This exercise is layer one.
If we meet resistance as part of the exercise this is a part of us that battling.
Resistance
When we feel internal resistance there are 2 parts of us battling. One part might be saying
“I love myself I’m moving forward”
and the other part is saying
“No I don’t”
And when we have this resistance pulling us back it is just trying to protect us and trying to meet our needs but not in a beneficial way at this point. Maybe when we were younger it met that need and kept us safe. Or this is the voice of a parent or society telling us we can’t move forward.
What we have to do is start talking to these parts and showing them compassion, empathy and understand why it believes what it does.
Why does it think our body isn’t great as it is? Is it trying to protect us?
When we listen we can transform it. It’s no longer isolated and out of our awareness.
When we understand resistance on a deeper level we can start shifting into having a more loving relationship with our body.
For example:
If your child came home upset and said they aren’t beautiful, as a parent you would listen, and try to understand them.
You’d say I understand how they feel. This would allow them to feel their sadness fully.
Once they felt better then then you could ask what they needed. Maybe they needed a hug or to be reminded they are beautiful.
At the end of the day we all need to be seen, heard and loved as we are.
Reparenting…
That takes away the need to strive. We are trying to do this internally, reparent ourselves. and to see our bodies accurately because this is coming from an old way of thinking.
I hope this has helped you and clarified how you can get to body confidence. It’s not as simple as slapping an affirmation on. And of course life comes in and is stressful and you might need to do this exercise again but it does become effortless and engrained.
If you have any questions leave a comment below 🙂
To body confidence,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist.
