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?

The diet industry doesn’t own your body. Your doctor that wants you to lose weight doesn’t own your body. No fashion brand owns your body. Nobody but YOU.

So, stop giving others power over your happiness and joy, over your hunger and appetite, over your self-image and body-confidence. They do not own your light or your life.

Stop putting off activities until you have lost the weight and instead go out and live your life NOW. Seriously, do it.

Begin to challenge cultural beliefs and scientific assumptions and learn to look beyond the propaganda. Health is way more complex than what it’s made out to be and the conventional wisdom around weight loss and hating on your body is anything but correct.

You know your body best, listen and trust.

Find the real source, the root of your emotional pain

What is actually holding you back from tuning in to your body, from living in your body, from loving on your body? What is the real source of pain and fear?

You can journal in many different ways to get to your root, or you may meditate on it, work with a coach or a therapist to figure out what is actually going on. What are you hiding from yourself and the world? Where are you closing yourself off and what wound are you trying to close by losing weight?

Learn to respect other bodies

When you see other women who do not conform to the current beauty ideal, what do you feel? How do you respond to bodies that are different? Do you even see them or are you only looking at the thin, young girls you see all around?

Begin to observe bigger bodies and see the beauty in fat, rolls, cellulite, hanging skin and so on. Look for bodies that are similar to yours instead of solely comparing yourself with the models on magazine covers.

The more you learn to respect other bodies, the more you will respect yours.

Define body respect for yourself

What would respecting your body mean to you?

Take some time to journal/think about the concept of body respect.

How will it feel, how will you walk, talk, think, behave when you respect your body from the inside out? How will you respond to outside sources and how will your internal dialogue adapt?

Would you throw out your scale? Feed your body when she’s hungry and eat with respect for her needs? Would you move her with love and choose activities you actually like?

Would you stop buying diet books and maybe even look for a new doctor?

What would body-respect mean for you?

Reconnect with touch

One of the best ways to reconnect with your body, your soul, your self is through touch.

When we live in dietland and have been loathing our body for a loooong time, we often don’t even know where we begin and where we end. By touching your body, from head to toe, you can begin to feel into your body again, to ground yourself in yourself and to actually come back home.

Make this a beautiful daily ritual that helps you to remember that your body is not a thing to hate but the vessel that holds all of your dreams.