Please Stop Hating Yourself

We are inundated with external messages about how we are “supposed” to look. Our culture has an insane obsession with thinness being the ideal. We congratulate individuals for losing weight, yet have no idea what is actually occurring in their lives. Perhaps they are having difficulty keeping weight on, perhaps they are sick, perhaps they are restricting their intake and over-exercising so much that any compliment around their body only fuels an inside voice to keep going and continue the self-harm they are engaging in. Our society as a whole needs to move away from talking, focusing on, and obsessing over what we look like. You are so so so much more. I get it though. It can be hard to experience how much more we are when potentially all anyone has ever complimented or discussed with us is our body and how we look. I’ve experienced this myself from a young age. It has been a journey to remind myself constantly of who I am beyond my physical form and cultivate consciousness around the kinds of conversations and media I surround myself with to ensure everything coming in feels satiating and grounding. So today, I would like to discuss three tips that can support on this self-love adventure. 

1. Stop looking at magazine photos or celebrity photos online. These are most likely photoshopped and will not give you the opportunity to embrace your body just the way it is. When we compare, we despair. Comparison automatically takes us out of our body and its uniqueness and decreases the likelihood of connecting with what makes us amazing and unique just as we are. Every single person on this planet is beautiful and powerful in their own unique way. Now I’m not saying that you can never look at a magazine again. First, give yourself time to take a break. That may mean unsubscribing from certain emails, unfollowing certain individuals on social media, and throwing out magazines lying around the house. In that space, get curious about what images would feel nourishing to take in. What would you like to read and look at that would feed your soul? If and when you decide to let more social media images back into your life, we can experience them simply as pieces of art. The photographer, lighting, and editing all came together to create the image in front of you. We can appreciate it for what it is and return to what we appreciate about ourselves. Which brings me to number 2.

2. Name one thing each day you appreciate about you just the way you are. On the days that seem harder to be alright with you just the way you are, you can practice saying something you appreciate about yourself that feels easy to compliment. For example, this could be on how you handled a situation, a quality about you like your ability to offer empathy and compassion to others or your ability to make others laugh, or something about your body that has less intense emotions around it that you appreciate like your hair or your nails or your eyes. Where our attention goes energy flows. As we guide our minds to the things we appreciate about ourselves, the feelings of self-acceptance can grow as we do not feed the voices that want to tell us differently. 

3. Be alright with not feeling love for yourself. Some days it can just be difficult to feel that love and appreciation for who we are just as we are. We get to make those moments alright and that they can simply be a part of life. Whenever we embrace and accept whatever is present, the intensity of our emotions can decrease where it can be easier to sit with discomfort. This also means infusing those moments with tons of trust that the feelings of love will return again and again at some other point in time. In that space of accepting and trusting, you can begin to get curious about who is this part of you having trouble loving you? If they had an age how old would they be? What are the beliefs showing up that need to be challenged and what new beliefs would you like to cultivate?

Our relationship with our body and food is often a doorway to where else in our life is needing our loving attention and affection. Any insecurities we may ever have around our body can be an opportunity to slow down and explore where else in our life is needing our loving attention? Whenever any fears arise for me now around my physical form, I know that old wounds around being picked on as a child, around my family, around the beliefs of what I thought I deserved that was cultivated as a teenager are coming up for me and in those moments I can move away from the focus on my body and begin to foster new beliefs around who I am today and what I deserve in this world here and now. Be so very gentle with yourself on this path and I’m here for you! If you’re ever desiring more support, reach out at support@stephaniemara.com.