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I stepped out of the shower and there I was, naked, in the mirror.
The mean thoughts started up, a chainsaw ready to cut.
Looking a little thick through the thighs. Where are your triceps? Buried beneath that dough under your arms?
These thoughts had serious mean girl vibes.
Then something new happened. Other thoughts showed up. They fidgeted shyly at the edges – middle-schoolers-at-a-dance type vibe.
This body does so much for me. There’s a lot to love about it.
I dried off and returned my gaze to the mirror. I saw scars and cellulite, muscle and bone. I saw bumpy skin, smooth skin, wrinkled, loose and firm skin. I saw a halter tan line hugging my freckled chest. I saw my belly where my baby grew.
My mouth stretched into a smile. Because I stood there dumbstruck to see something that I had been out of my reach for far too long: the absolute perfection of my imperfect body.
The Trap of Body Acceptance
So much of the current talk about improving body image, body positivity and body acceptance feels like yet another set-up for women.
While well-meaning, the rhetoric is still so externally focused, so objectifying of the female body. It’s all about convincing ourselves that are bodies are actually not that bad, not that far off the ideal.
You look better than you think!
Strong is the new skinny!
You hot, Girl!
Healthy eating is the best path to weight loss!
Accept your big butt! Butts are in!
The packaging is different, but the message is the same: your physical appearance and how your body looks is of paramount importance to who you are.
It’s weird because we do live in physical bodies and that is how others see us and how we see them.
But what if this hyper focus on our appearance thwarts the deeper expression of us?
It’s like designing a house to be Architectural Digest-worthy on the outside but giving no thought (or budget) to the inside, where you actually live. People drive by and admire the artful roofline, the picture window and the wrap-around porch while inside you’re sitting on a cement floor eating Pop Tarts by flashlight and peeing in a bucket.
I have misunderstood my journey to body love.
I don’t need to make peace with body. I don’t need to accept my body. I don’t need to put a positive spin on the size of my hips.
I’m not striving for body acceptance or body neutrality. Because it’s not good enough. I want to be in center of my body where I belong.
I want to unapologetically adore my body.
I want to own the perfection of my very own body, inside and out. Not perfect as in flawless; perfect as in designed for me, an expression of my unique genetic code. Perfect as in one-of-a-kind.
How can it be anything but perfect when it’s the only one? There is literally nothing to compare it to. It’s a rare gem. So is yours and so is everyone’s.
An ideal body? How absurd!
It would be like walking in the forest and picking one pine tree from a thousand and declaring that the only way to be a pine tree.
It’s not just rude; it’s completely irrational and inaccurate.
I don’t know about you, but I’m unwilling to spend one more second rejecting the incredible gift of my unique and brilliant body.
Examining Our Body Beliefs
How, after decades of rejecting my body, was I suddenly laughing at the idea that anyone could have convinced me that my body was anything other than perfect?
To be clear, my body didn’t change. My perspective did.
It’s like I’ve taken off a broken pair of glasses and can finally see the truth about my body.
But how?
By changing my thoughts and consciously choosing my beliefs about my body.
How we feel about ourselves – our bodies, our gifts, our personality, our life path, our past – is a CHOICE.
Even though it often doesn’t feel like it.
Even though we may be racked with doubt.
Even though we look around and think other people are killing it in the deep end while we are slogging through the muddy shallows.
Though it often feels like our minds are runaway trains, we have choice about where we focus, what we give attention to.
“Sure,” some will say, “but my body is objectively overweight.”
But by whose standards? The BMI chart? Your doctor’s? Instagram influencers? The fitness industry? Your mother? Your ex?
It is our compliance with these standards that makes them true.
But what if we didn’t comply?
We don’t have any say in the body we are born into. Sure, we can affect some aspects of our bodies with our behavior (diet and exercise) but largely we are in a you-get-what-you-get-and-you-don’t-get-upset kind of situation.
Except an artificial system was created to get us very upset indeed. The body ideal is perhaps one of the most profitable social constructs of all time. The beauty industry generated $579 billion worldwide in 2023 and is expected to reach $716 billion in 2025.
That’s a few billion reasons to keep women unhappy with their bodies.
I would argue the single largest threat to our physical health is body hatred. Instead of losing weight, let's lose shame.
Choosing Body Love For Ourselves
The kind of body love I want has required me to create an entirely new framework about female bodies (mine or others). One that is not focused only on appearance but on function, feeling, embodiment and freedom. It's an inside out kind of love.
So out with the fat/thin, attractive/ unattractive, ideal/deficient dichotomies.
My new paradigm: All bodies are beautiful and sacred. We mostly share common components but how they are arranged, proportioned and expressed is pure art. All bodies are part of nature and the ecosystem of this planet. Our bodies are our most personal belongings, our home, our portal to the world. They are our playgrounds, our vehicle for movement, expression and experience.
What if we are simply souls wearing flesh suits of various kinds?
What if some of us have genetic blueprints that align with social standards and some do not? And that such a standard is no reflection on the worth of anyone's body but of fickle social opinion and the current trend?
What if we have some regions of our body that are dense with cells and other that are sparse and that is just as it should be?
What if, like height variances, some bodies are naturally small and some bigger? What if the variety of body types is not just natural but necessary, ideal even?
Body ideals are stupid because they create a narrow standardization of something that cannot be standardized. We simply aren’t all built the same and were not meant to be.
“Greater biodiversity in ecosystems, species, and individuals leads to greater stability. For example, species with high genetic diversity and many populations that are adapted to a wide variety of conditions are more likely to be able to weather disturbances, disease, and climate change.”
What would it be like to look at women’s bodies without competition, rivalry, judgment and comparison and to instead look with appreciation, respect and even neutrality?
What if every woman decided there was absolutely nothing wrong with her body or the body of any woman on this planet?
Body ideals are very hurtful but they are not personal. Your body is your magnificent body and that does not change because of anyone's opinion of it. Even your own.
Love Your Body (Even When You Don’t)
I still catch my reflection sometimes and think “I would look better if I lost 20 pounds.”
Nothing is going wrong here. This deeply ingrained thinking doesn’t just go away. Instead of feeling guilty or judging ourselves, we appreciate the awareness and this moment of choice.
Do we want to agree with this thought or no?
The choice is ours.
We are allowed to break our allegiance to the collective “reality.” This is our power and our freedom. This is how we create the reality we want for ourselves.
Sometimes I talk back to it. “Who says?” I ask and watch the thought slink away.
And that’s when the new thoughts start to show up, the ones you hoped would someday grow strong enough to flower and bloom. The ones that are full of love for yourself.
The ones that say there is no such thing as an ideal body. That if we have a body, it is ideal. End of story. Let’s get on with living. Let's use our energy on our passions and purpose.
We watch as those thoughts grow stronger and stronger and soon we are all standing before our bathroom mirrors smiling because we finally took the broken glasses off.
This is how we shrug off the heavy, ugly, mothball-smelling coat society made for us and stepping out into the dazzling sun of our own brilliance.
This is how we finally know the utter perfection of our one-of-a-kind, work-of-art bodies.
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