From Body Loathing to Body Love

Are you preoccupied with mirrors, scales, or calories?

Are you frequently self-conscious about your appearance?

Do certain body parts tend to dominate your thoughts?

Do you often compare your looks to those of other women or to media models?

Do some of your body parts seem dramatically different from one day to the next?

Do people say you look better than you think you do?

A “yes” answer to any of these questions suggests that your body image may be distorted in a negative direction and that you could benefit from re-evaluating your body image and learning to care for it in a healthier way. If you would you like to free yourself from expectations about how you “should” look, then it’s time to transition from Body Loathing to Body Love! You can learn to like your looks and yourself by improving your body image. Rita Freedman, a licensed psychologist and a noted expert on topics related to physical appearance, gives us an inside scoop on what this entails.

Body image is how you see yourself when you look in the mirror or when you picture yourself in your mind. It encompasses Visual—what you see when you look at yourself Mental—how you think about your appearance Emotional—how you feel about your body, including height, shape, and weight Kinesthetic—how you sense and control your body parts, and your lifetime of experiences (pleasure, pain, praise & criticism).

Body loathing is a feeling of preoccupation and dissatisfaction with appearance. It creates anxiety about body parts, causes guilt and shame over flaws that are real or imagined, and arouses self-consciousness and envy. Most women are familiar with it in one way or another—for example, two out of three women have mixed feelings or feel depressed when they look at their nude body in a mirror.

Body love is a mixture of emotions, attitudes, and actions that allow you to enjoy the way your body looks and the way it feels. Body love enhances self-confidence and heightens physical pleasure. It involves caring and concern (like a loving relationship), and tolerance of flaws. We are all capable of loving our bodies, but it takes workto realize our potential.

What do you love? Yourself?

The people and things we love, we treat well. This is true for our friends and family members, our homes and cars, and even our smaller belongings that we love—we stay in touch with friends and family and make sure they’re doing well, we clean our apartments, and we may even dry clean our clothes! If we are willing to love and show our love for other people and things, shouldn’t we also do the same for ourselves? Yes!!!! If you’re not doing this already, it’s time to stop hating on yourself, and to give yourself the love, respect, and positive attention you deserve. One important way to start doing this is by changing how you think about, use, and interact with your body. Here are some tips for doing this, and for transitioning from Body Loathing to Body Love.

Pay attention to your physical needs (pain, pleasure, hunger, fatigue) & your body will tell you how to nurture it (e.g. how much to eat, exercise, and sleep)
Appreciate the pleasures your body can inherently provide (aesthetic, athletic, sensory & sexual)
Accept your flaws and limitations, so you can freely enjoy the lovely parts of your body, and even find beauty or purpose in your flaws
Set goals, not about how you want to look, but how you want to feel about your looks
Admit that you need to change your relationship with your body and deal with resistance (delay, denial, blame, rationalizing, fear & avoidance)

In large part, you are what you think you are. Make over your mind about the new nature of your body, and start a romance with yourself!

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