Now, I have written MANY posts about learning to love yourself. So many posts you may be sick of them by now, but since this is a concept that I continue to struggle with, I have faith that this still applies to some of you. Often when I write about this topic, I try my hardest to come at gaining a better relationship with your body and mind from a POSITIVE outlook. This is, in part, due to my ultimate favorite stance – faking it ’til you make it. Now, this is a good overall strategy, I do believe, but I have also written about: learning to be the most amazing person in the room, learning to have sexual confidence, and learning to love your body regardless of it’s size.
The problem that I’ve been facing lately is that it is much easier to love yourself when you are feeling good, when it’s nice and warm out, when you are active, when you are newly in love, when you are making a concerted effort, or when you are making good food choices. When you are doing any of those myriad of things, or often several in conjunction with one another, you are guaranteed to have an advantage in the “I feel unstoppably fantastic” department.
The question is: How can you force help yourself feel good about your body when you are really struggling?
I have been really struggling. I mean struggling like I haven’t struggled since my freshman and sophomore years of college. AND still I’m on here every week telling you that you shouldn’t submit to your negativity and should take the high road in your mind/body relationship, loving your body regardless of its flaws. And that is still true. But, sometimes it is harder than others.
There are days when you wake up and your skin feels tight, your body swollen and out of bounds, your limbs are plump and lethargic from lack of use, your skin is dull and your image distorted. And when you have days like that, if you are me, you do not want to be touched or held, or looked at, certainly not photographed, or – on the worst days – loved, because surely that means the lover in question has lost their minds and are either a) lying to make you feel better or b) mentally unstable and must be dumped immediately.
We all have our triggers. For me, if my underwear feels tight or uncomfortable enough for me to be conscious of it, my mind hinges to it throughout the day as a constant reminder of how worthless I feel, and even the best intention or most conscious thought re-patterning will not sway my negative thinking.
The downside of this negative space is that I feel really really mean, and isolated. I feel as though I alone am struggling and I alone am condemned to live this awful life that I somehow deserve.
The point of this post, however, is to remind you that if you are feeling this way (today, tomorrow, next year, or in your post-holiday-cookie-coma) that you are not alone. I think that often I come at body image from a stand point of pulling yourself up by your boot straps. This stems from my personal ability to dwell for an ALARMINGLY long periods of time, so it is essential for me to reign this type of negativity in. What I wanted to put to you, dear readers, is the reality that, while I often write about loving yourself regardless of everything else, I – like all of you – am completely human, and the reason that I even have a blog is to both portray the day to day of learning to love yourself more (we all have to start somewhere), and also to create a community feeling to alleviate the isolation that often comes hand in hand with impaired body image.
The reality is that you cannot force yourself to love your body. But you CAN take certain steps, some different for every person and some universal, to help pull your body back together. I do not mean that in a weight loss kind of way, but instead as tools that you use to make your body recognizable to yours brain again. I find that this is the biggest problem in my struggle with my body image, that when I am in a negative rut, my body is unrecognizable to me, it seems to have a mind of its own and thus, I despair and think that there is nothing I can do, or that I am condemned to feel badly forever.
So I reiterate the question to you, how do you help yourself feel good about your body when you are really struggling? I’m working on compiling a list of my own personal tricks for wednesday and I would like to add in some tricks that have helped you!
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I’ll kick things off by saying that usually even simple things like drinking 8-10 glasses of water a day or taking a multivitamin take small steps to make my body feel a little better. More on Wednesday!
I loooooove your blog. Lately, I’ve been in a list making mood so I challenge myself to do an act of self care to match every other task on the list. Body brushing, self massage, swimming, stretching, positive journaling, things like that. You rock and whenever I feel asthough I’m drowning in self loathing your messages always pull me up. Not many things at all have that power in my life. (I also read when I’m amazingly comfortable, and it’s still informative and loving.) I am grateful for you Marzipan! Love D
Thanks Daisy!! I’m so so glad to hear that you’ve found your way here and are liking it. I totally needed a message like this today myself! So thanks for that. I like thinking about those different activities as “acts of self care”, I think i’m going to start making lists like that for myself as well because they really can make an impact.. Happy Holidays!
i really needed this today, thank you so much
I write down three things that made me happy during the day. It’s the basis of my blog although I post on random other topics too. I need to do more of it on particularly bad days rather than hide out. Interestingly, I’m finding it easier to find the good things in life the more I practice. One can do it about one’s body as well.
- I love that my hands can manipulate the tools that make hot glass (relevant today).
- My freckles make me giggle. I have always loved my freckles (timeless and easy).
Hrm. this is hard. Ooh, now that I’m fatter than I want to be, my boobs finally got with the program and I look better in a tight t-shirt than I used to. no one notices the bulge if I wear a shirt that flatters my chest!
I got a rather more permanent boost in self confidence when I spent a year getting fit and rewarded myself with a trip to a fitness camp. Had an online group of women all with the same goal and we had great fun meeting each other in person at the end. I’ve since developed tendinitis of the everything, and am fatter than I’m happy with, but I know now that I can do something about it, if I want to whereas before I had always considered myself incapable of being athletic. I have bad days (is that really my gut? yikes!), but mostly I know that beating myself up doesn’t help so I try not to.
Clearing out all clothes in the closet that don’t fit TODAY helps. I keep one box of bigger clothes and one box of smaller clothes and one box of sentimental clothes (and have separate storage for specialty clothes like snow pants). Then when I get out of bed, my first thought isn’t about how I have to lose weight to get into my clothes and I can put on just anything. I also try hard not to bring home any clothes that don’t flatter me. Every so often I get something soft but ugly and wear it around the condo or as pjs, but mostly I just don’t bring it home.
And a tip I got from Tim Gunn – have a flattering “sweat suit alternative” for when you don’t want to wear anything and want to be comfortable – to walk a dog or bake cookies, or take the trash out. I wound up buying a sundress in a very flattering cut that is tie-dyed in classic rainbow swirl style (Harmonytie-dyes.com) and wear my flattering, funky, spot tolerant “hippie house dress” when I need to be comfortable and it always makes me smile. Always.
(found blog through Already Pretty link )
Oooh CrankyOtter, I LOVE the Tim Gunn sweat suit alternative. Mine is one of those stretchy black skirts that is very forgiving and can be paired with everything. Also, I like the idea of writing down three things a day, often I find that being disciplined about a conscious activity like that really helps me pay attention to and stay present in my body. I just woke up, but my list for the moment would be:
-my waist, which after three days of not eating wheat feels thin and long
-my skin, which is glowing and healthy looking due to the copious amount of water I’ve been chugging
-my hair, even though I had a recent debacle with a shampoo that did not agree with me, leaving me with VERY oily roots, luckily the sweetheart was kind enough not to make fun and the situation was soon remedied.
Thanks for coming by : )
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