The 7 Essential Ways to Respect Your Body

I stand in awe of my body.

Henry David Thoreau

Respecting your body in today's world can feel like an impossible task.

Every day we're bombarded with messages telling us that our body needs to look differently, needs to be changed in this way or that.

You need to have thinner thighs, a bigger but, waaay bigger boobs, leaner arms and a six pack. If you don't wear a size XYZ, you are not worthy. If your hair isn't as shiny as the one in the shampoo commercial, you definitely have to change that ASAP.

No matter who you are, what you do, it's never ever enough - according to the diet industry that makes a bucketload of money from you extreme insecurity.

However, body respect is possible and it's essential on the way you to healing your relationship with food and having a better understanding of who you are and want you truly desire. 

Respecting your body - or at least learning to do so - is a super intimate practice and one that should only be done for yourself.. Pretending to love your body, but actually loathing her won't help anyone. The surrendering to body-respect is not for them, it's not for a movement, it's not a feminist statement (although in the end it is), it's a beginning of a beautiful relationship with the partner you'll have for life.

Body respect starts with the small practices, the way you show up for your body in everyday life.

It's about re-imagining the way you feel about her, without trying to change her all day every day in ways she can’t be changed.

Body respect means feeding your body and knowing (deeply) that your body deserves to be fed. It means dressing your body in comfortable clothes and not squeezing her into fabric she doesn’t fit in. It means touching your body with affection and moving your body in comfortable and life-affirming ways. 

In other words:

“Respecting your body means treating it with dignity, and meeting its basic needs.”

Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works

So how can begin to respect your body? Here are the essential ways to live in true body-respect:

Find compassion for your body and your (dieting) self

Many of my clients feel like their body is trying to betray them by not getting smaller, by continuing to gain weight, by experiencing appetite and lack of motivation. They are in a constant battle with their bodies and experience massive pain. I've certainly done the same throughout my years of disordered eating and exercise addiction.

However, the more we fight against our natural shape, the more we fight against our survival instinct and the more we try to make our body fit into a shape and form it doesn't belong, the more we remove ourselves from ourselves.

Instead of hating on your body, treat her with the utmost kindness in everyday situations. Have compassion for what your body has been through. Show her love like you would a little child. 

Don't forget to love your dieting self up too as she is a victim of our culture that has destroyed her true sense of self.

No, your body doesn't want to betray you, she wants to have a beautiful relationship with you. Make the first step and treat her well.

Smash the fantasy you still believe in when it comes to changing your body

Why do you want to change your body? What's in it for you?

You probably know the answer already, but dig deeper. Which lies have you bought into when it comes to losing weight, to being thin, to not give your body what she asks for?

The more you begin to unravel the complete BS that is out there around weight loss and the ultimate happiness of life in a thin body, the more you can embrace the unique body you were given.

Take your power back

Do you know that your body is yours? And yours alone?