I couldn't believe it.
How could someone dislike themselves so much?
I posted a question in our community's private Mindset First Club Facebook group:
Do you have a negative label that you use about yourself? How can you reframe this label?
Someone responded by saying:
“Fat”
And this shocked me. This woman has so many positive things to say in our group and here she was beating herself up over her view of her body.
I wanted to yell, “Stop it! Why are you talking to yourself like this?”
Of course this wouldn’t help.
I struggle with my own body issues. I’m only 5’9” and 140 pounds. I’m fit, but I don’t have big muscles. I catch myself wishing that I had bigger muscles every now and again. I remember how big my father's forearms were. I wanted to be as strong as he was when I was a kid. Then I remember how lucky I am to have a healthy body.
This is why we must practice at mastering our inner dialog. If we can do this then it makes our careers and relationship much easier to navigate.
I suggested that this woman keep a Self Beauty Gratitude Journal to help her build up her confidence in her body.
It got a good reaction from the group. I received a few private messages that said that they really thought this was a good idea and would try this on their own.
I’ve talked to a few clients about keeping a self beauty gratitude journal and they’ve had good success. It’s helped them see all sides of their beautiful body and not to focus on the parts that they struggle to enjoy. There are probably 1000 things you can like about your body if you take the time to really reflect on it.
Body Issues
We all struggle with body issues. It’s part of being human. Maybe we feel our ears are too big or our hair isn’t the right color or we are too short or too tall or our eyes are too far apart or our teeth are crooked or our legs are too fat or too skinny.
You get the point.
We all struggle.
No one is perfect. Some of the most beautiful people in the word struggle with seeing themselves as beautiful.
We know this, but it doesn’t help because we are still stuck in our own heads. We need to change these stories that we keep telling ourselves.
The best way to do that is to create positive habits that help us rewire our synapses. This is where journaling can help.
Start Small
It’s important that we start by focusing on the positive aspects of our body and build on these. You can begin by keeping a Self-beauty Journal. I suggest you keep this at the end of each day. When you write down things that are beautiful about your body every single night you will build stronger neural pathways to make this easier for you to do the next day and the next day after that.
Your journal entries might look something like this:
- My eyes are beautiful because they remind me of a fawn.
- My legs are beautiful because they help me walk.
- My lips are beautiful because I can kiss my son every night at bedtime.
Try to write your “what” and your “why” for each entry. Your why is important because it helps strengthen the belief in what you wrote.
When you do this every single day, after some time it will get harder to find new things. This is where you’ll have to dig deep and look for little details to love on. As you get deeper into these details you’ll start to see a small shift in your self image.
It’s this shift that takes time.
How grateful are you? Take the Gratitude Quiz and get some insight into how you can use gratitude to build a more resilient mindset.
