Body Image

We live in a world where fat shaming and weight stigma are more prevalent than ever.

“Fudge Pockets”
“Thunder Thighs”
“Muffin Top”
“Spare Tire”
“Back Fat”

Cute words, aren’t they?

Surely, labeling ourselves and our body parts in such a way will make ourselves feel better? Right?

Surely, harsh judgments motivate you to diet harder, exercise longer in order to feel accepted by the current diet-culture-thin-idealization-world in which we live?

Not really? You’re not alone. Who hasn’t had one of the following thoughts:

“If my inner thighs would stop jiggling, I would feel more confident.”

“If I just lost enough weight to fit into my skinny jeans, I would go to my class reunion.”

“I need to lose this gut to feel good about myself.”

“If I could just lose these last 30lbs, my life would be great!”

Obsessing about how we look…

… about how we believe OTHERS are looking at us and judging us based on what our bodies look like creates a personal world that is shrinking.

Ironic, right? The only thing steadily and consistently shrinking is your life, not your body.

Think of it this way: There is no win in Comparison. And the constant checking of our bodies against the standards set up by the culture in which we live (a.k.a the billion dollar diet industry leveraging your emotions to make a profit off of you feeling bad about your body and the millions of posted images bombarding us on social media that leave us feeling horrible about our lives and our bodies) will leave no room for finding and nurturing your authentic self. The parts of you that have real value.

It’s time to re-educate ourselves on what truly matters in this life.

Time to take a genuine look at ourselves with our soul’s eyes, not just our body’s eyes, and ask, “How did I arrive at this place where my body disgusts me?”

“But I weigh 300 lbs., and my body DOES disgust me – and I don’t want to love this body.”

I hear this regularly in session with my clients. And I respect the dread, fear, and lack of self-trust oozing from this yearning cry for relief.

These precious people have been taught that the only reason they are the size they are is because they have failed at sticking to all the ‘diet rules’ experts have conned them into believing they must follow in order to achieve an unrealistic, idealized version of themselves.

They have been taught that they are somehow unacceptable in their current body. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Would it surprise you to know that the best-known environmental contributor to developing eating disorders and body image issues is our sociocultural idealization of thinness? By age 6 (six!), girls especially begin to voice concerns about their own weight or shape. And 40-60% of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) are concerned about their weight or becoming fat. And this takes hold through their life.*

This madness must stop.

What if there was another way?

What if you could find a path through this diet culture chatter that trailblazes a healthier, more authentic way of living? A more self-accepting mindset?

I believe it’s really important to become a student of discovering the detrimental teachings from decades of blatant messages outright telling you it’s time to change your body through dieting to ‘fit in to be accepted’ (Atkins, SouthBeach, Keto anyone?) or subtly letting you know through magazine, Facebook, Instagram, images that your body, by comparison, is flawed by not looking like the images you see.

I believe there is a ‘part of you that knows’ that this way of living is not healthy. It isn’t right. That there is more to life than just your body.

Therapy can teach you this.

Therapy will help you explore the vulnerable parts of yourself that fell captive to the lies and will strengthen your core beliefs about yourself.

Therapy will teach you how to become a student of the world in which we live and take a stand for yourself. To push back on this culture.

It IS possible to become a Diet Culture Drop Out. In fact, that is my dream for all of us. To create and build lives with purpose, meaning, and significance so that our image of ourselves reflects all the parts of who we are: our minds, our emotions, our spirit, and YES even our bodies.

Our walk together healing your body image takes guts on your part.

I get that. It is like the salmon swimming upstream. But like that salmon, with effort you do become stronger at it.

As we begin the re-education and therapeutic process, you will find a growing community of other ‘Diet Culture Drop Outs’ that are courageously starting to drop the need to comply with the pressures of our thin-idealized society and instead nurture and nourish their bodies, minds, emotions, and souls.

And the result?

Freedom from food obsessions. Freedom from self-comparisons that shrink your world. Instead, you develop a life that grows bigger!

Sound crazy? Sound impossible? It’s not. Call me: (713) 269-3972. We can talk about it.