First Step Towards Body Acceptance: Mourn The Loss of Your Ideal Body

SummerBody Image, Self-Love

Last week was insane. My website crashed multiple times from this post that will now be referred to as “the one that broke the internet without a greased up ass.” I call that a feminist milestone.

Sure, it was really cool to see that amount of traffic hitting my site. But, what made me really pumped was the fact that it spoke to SO MANY WOMEN (and men). It’s like I heard this giant sigh of relief from around the world.

But after that giant sigh of relief, apprehension, sadness and fear often rise to the surface. What are you supposed to do now? That’s why I wanted to give you the first step towards body acceptance.

Letting go of your desire to have this ‘ideal body’, giving up your strict rules and settling into the body that you have can feel terrifying. You just peeled a woolly-mammoth layer off your onion, so it’s no surprise to feel a medley of emotions.

When women start working with me, it’s common for them to go through a period of mourning.

It’s not the ‘ideal body’ that you’re grieving… it’s that promise of a better life that you intertwined it with.

Read here for my post on why we get hooked on wanting a better body>>>

Your ‘ideal body’ had given you a lot of hopes and dreams: being able to post a full-body picture on IG without 85 retakes and 46 filters, going to the beach without a hint of self-consciousness, fitting back into those jeans that fit you 3 years ago, being the envy of all your classmates at the highschool reunion and getting your mom/sister/aunt off your back about the food you put on your plate…and the list goes on.

When you remove the bullshit assumptions that your body dictates your happiness in life, you can start to see that your ‘ideal body’ was really just a Freedom Assassinator.

It’s likely been the reason you’ve spent hours upon hours thinking or saying negative things to yourself, obsessing over whether you ate too much sunbutter or dragging yourself to the gym instead of enjoying a luxurious sleep-in day.

So as you make this transition, I want you to ask yourself this one question: How has your Freedom Assassinator been serving you?

Make a list of reasons why it has or hasn’t been serving you (the ‘hasn’t’ side should be the long list, BTW). Then burn it.

Once you can see that it’s prevented you from living in the moment and enjoying the little things in life, you can have closure and bury your Freedom Assassinator for good.

Finally, be patient with it… the road to self-love can take time and will have many ups and downs. Stay the course and you will be richly rewarded.

 body_acceptance_image