The last few weeks have been going great for me. I have been trying to heal the hatred I have for my body. It pains me to write that word: hate. It’s very painful to admit that you hate something beautiful that was given to you to meet your needs in this world.
Anyway, I figured out a few ways to try to appreciate my body the way it is. Even though I may be a far cry from actually loving my body, I have reached a stage where I don’t completely hate it. I am thoroughly enjoying my life right now. Who knew how much peace and calm could come from positive thoughts quieting down the negativity? I hope you will have a few takeaways from this piece on how I’m Healing my body dysmorphia.
What is body dysmorphia?
Dysmorphia sounds like some alien species, doesn’t it? It certainly sounds like the title of an alien movie. Body dysmorphia is when your view of your body is extremely distorted, mostly in a bad way. Your body image morphs, so to speak. You think you look like a hyperbolic exaggeration of what you actually are. It causes you extreme mental agony and pain. You just want it to end. You hate yourself. You wish you weren’t like this. It causes extreme self-distortion and hate.
I’ve been conscious of my body since I was a child. I started loathing my body at the age of 12. Before that, I hated that I was growing breasts. I pleaded with every inch of my soul to God that my breasts would stop growing. Somehow, my prayers went through. But I wish I didn’t fuel that much energy into begging for smaller breasts. (I’m going to try not to highlight all the flaws I see in my body today, but I have really disproportionate boobs. I came to terms with it, don’t worry)
I wished I was a boy. If I could swap my gender, I would have done it. I turned into a tomboy and rebelled against being a girl. I wrote “rebel against your destiny” in my journal. I felt tortured in every way. It doesn’t help that my family wasn’t supportive of me and made me feel like I was hated and despised.
I have never been the perfect size zero since I can remember. I think I was skinny as a child, but when I hit puberty, I began to grow hips. I just wanted to be skinny. Even now, in my 20’s, I want to be skinny. This body hatred and lack of acceptance is incredibly toxic and perpetuated by social media like Instagram.
Now that I’ve given a rough background of where I’m coming from, I’ll take you through how I’m healing my body dysmorphia. It’s not easy, changing how you’ve been thinking for your entire life. However, please know that you don’t have to continue living out the mindsets that were cultivated in you in childhood.
How I’m Healing My Body Dysmorphia
I hope I can get through this without crying. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow for a lot of us out there. Without beating around the bush, let’s get into the different mindset shifts, thoughts and activities I’m doing to heal my body dysmorphia.
My body is OKAY.
We all want to look like supermodels. I mean, why not? You can wear anything you want and look good. In fact, you can wear NOTHING and look good. A lot of stores only cater for skinny and medium sized people. These are just some of the reasons why we want to be smaller. This kind of stuff causes you to get warped about how you see your body. It starts seeming ugly.
What I realized is that my body has served me well for MY LIFE. It’s brought me through so much. I managed to blaze through my life despite not being size zero. I got great opportunities in life in spite of my weight and body shape. I found good friends and people were nice to me.
I don’t need to be size zero because I’m not a model, social media personality or an actress. I don’t make money out of my body. I’m not a fitness trainer who needs to use their body as a walking advert or campaign. I’m not an Instagram model who needs to look their absolute best in order to entertain the masses. I’m not an actress on a TV show or a news anchor. (Although I did show up on local TV for my university, haha.)
I’m extremely private and I don’t have a personal social media. I’m not interested in fame at all. I don’t even see a lot of people on a daily basis. I have a few friends and close ones. I almost never run into old classmates. I’m a private and introverted individual.
A perfectly me-shaped body for a perfect me
This is my current affirmation that I am obsessed with. Any time I get a glimpse of my body in a mirror, I infuse that moment with positivity. A perfectly Aza-shaped body for a perfect Aza. I bet that’s what God/Source said when I was being created. I was given all these faculties to get me through life. I was made cute so that I could live life to the fullest. I hope this can resonate with you as much it did for me. I feel so much more happiness when I affirm to myself that I was given a special body, tailored specially for my purpose in this world. It is unique to me and it was made just for me. It is perfect, like I am. The combination of my intellect and my physical attributes makes me a person that so many people love and adore the stuffing out of!
Check out: How to Make Good Affirmations
I am not just a body
I’m a brain in a body. I’m a soul. I didn’t choose a lot of my physical attributes. I’m more of a consciousness than a body. If I were to rate my intellect and my mind, I’d give myself a 10/10 in a heart-beat. I don’t hate my mind. I don’t hate the part of me that makes decisions and works on bettering myself day by day. When I realized this, I felt so much peace and happiness. For once in my life, I truly agreed that I was amazing. I affirmed that I was a 10/10. Anyone would be glad to know me. I don’t need to judge myself based on only my body. I have a perfectly capable cognitive system that assists me perfectly every day.
Being positive
Ah, yes. The two most hated words on the planet. Be positive. I grew up with an extremely negative perspective of life. I was an incredibly pessimistic person. It wasn’t until I hit my all-time low in my early 20’s that I decided to give this a try. After years of suicidal thoughts, I decided it was time to actually try out this whole positivity thing. It’s hard to reprogram yourself after having a negative mindset for long, but it can be done.
I’ve read so many books on positivity, and every time I find a new way to be positive. Being grateful is one way to start. I have a post on how to be more grateful + a free gratitude worksheet. Here’s the thing: gratitude is about noticing what’s going right in your life. When you train yourself to notice what’s right, things will begin to pop up, always going right.
Instead of thinking about how things go wrong, I say things like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if *this* happens?”. What’s the harm in shifting our negativity to positivity? Florence Scovel Shinn in her book The Game of Life and How to Play it, talks about how these tiny unimportant musings of your mind make the biggest impact on our lives.
The right mindset when using social media
Giving yourself a social media break is very important. Seeing all the perfect (and edited) people on social media can bring body hate. That’s why it’s important to shift your mindset when viewing content on apps like Instagram. Learn to appreciate pictures of people. Don’t get jealous and want to be like them. If you do indeed want to look like them, word your desires differently. An example is: Wow, she has a great body. I’m inspired to work on my body.
You can’t be thinking stuff like, Man I wish I had her body. You can’t have her body. Asking for things like this is very counterproductive. You should only want things in your own divine right. What is yours by right. In fact, infusing your affirmations with jealousy can lead to karmic deficits.
Check out: Why I Quit Social Media and What I Do Instead
Meditation
Meditation is a real thing, people! You have to maintain your mind. Meditation is a very powerful tool because it can help you to boost your cognitive levels. It can help you to manage your anger and control your emotions. Meditation lets you to explore your mind and understand how you work as a being. It makes you get familiar to the inner workings of your mind. Meditation just helps you to focus more on who you are as a person. It uplifts you and improves your life in general. You can read more about meditation in the posts below.
- How Meditation Helps You
- What are The Benefits of Meditation?
- 8 Ways to Focus Better During Meditation
Working out
Moving around, firing up your heart, warming your muscles and shaking up your chakras is extremely important for the machine that is your body. I exercise, and not just to lose weight. I do it because it’s part of my routine in life. I do it to get stronger, healthier, and more flexible. I don’t even think about getting skinnier. I don’t look at my stomach in the mirror to see if it’s thinner.
Part of getting some physical exercise in for my day is doing yoga. Yoga is such a wonderful process because it helps you to appreciate the ways in which your body moves. Imagine the people who just sleep, walk, sit all day. They are missing out on all the ways the body can bend and stretch. Moving the body is important to get rid of the stale energies hanging around in your chakras. Yoga has helped me to heal my body dysmorphia.
- 10 Easy Yoga Poses for Any Level of Practice
- Top 10 Yoga Poses for Beginners
- 5 Yoga Poses to Get Rid of Headaches
- 8 Yoga Poses for Back Pain and Sciatica Relief
The Takeaway
We have it all wrong. We shouldn’t want to hate and change ourselves. We must appreciate what we have. (And not just because we could have had it worse.) Part of life is looking for more happiness and positivity. We all look forward to enjoying things in life. Being grateful and positive helps us to find the beauty in the life we live. Our bodies are here to help us find some of that happiness. It’s not wrong to want to lose weight. What’s wrong is hating how you look. I hope this post can help you to heal your own body dysmorphia.
Peace, love and light,
Aza.
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