How to Improve Your Relationship with Your Body

If I invited you to describe your relationship with your body, what comes up for you?

One spiritual practice I utilize is the practice of free association writing. It was created by Sigmund Freud. During free association writing you are invited to let your mind roam and to observe any feelings or thoughts that come up. It is a practice that can illuminate your unconscious mind. During this practice, for 5-10 minutes you simply write whatever surfaces inside of you without worrying about grammar or spelling. Sometimes when I practice free association writing I have a particular question I am contemplating and other times I simply journal whatever comes to my heart and mind. One day when I did this exercise I was responding to the question, “What negative stories do you have currently, or have you had in the past about your body?”

It feels important to say that in many ways I feel like I have a healthy body image. I usually have a positive view of my body and feel comfortable and happy in my body, even when my weight fluctuates up and down at various seasons in my life. But despite having loved ones who seem to struggle more with body image than I do, it was clear following this exercise of writing memories and feelings that I too have struggled and continue to wrestle with loving and accepting my body. These are just a few of the thoughts that surfaced:

-My Body Mass Index (BMI) is higher than my doctor would like it to be.

-The shame I felt about my body when my husband and I went through infertility.

-I repressed and numbed the pain in my body through eating too much during COVID/my dad’s death.

-My relative telling me my “Butt was the beginning of the end.”

-Negative stories I have told myself in the past like, “I’m clumsy,” “I am not athletic,” or “I can’t dance.”

The ruminations above are only one-third of the ideas that surfaced when did this free association exercise. What is your own unique experience in your body? Perhaps you too might spend 5-10 minutes to consider the negative stories you have or have had about your own body.

I strongly believe therapy and exercises like this one help will deepen your self-awareness of your own feelings about your body, expectations of your body, and even generationally passed down ideas you have inherited about the body. In Bessel Von Kolk’s important book, The Body Keeps the Score, he says, “…the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.” Therapy, yoga, and writing exercises can help you notice your body and then the spiritual and emotional work is to respond to whatever you have noticed. As I start to notice and own my unique stories about my body, only then can I start to respond to this story and move towards a more positive view of my body.

These are 6 practices in my life that help me respond to negative feelings and stories I have about my body.

1. Gratitude- I love when a yoga teacher reminds me to find gratitude for the ways I can move in my body. So often you might find that you focus on the perceived shortcomings you have about your body instead of seeing the many ways it supports you daily.
2. A Body Scan- You hold pain and trauma in the body and until you learn how to befriend the feelings and sensations in your body, you will continue to hold tightly to your wounds. In a body scan you can notice each part of the body from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. Often when you practice a body scan, yoga and meditation teachers will invite you to notice physical and emotional pain and to breathe into these places. They often also invite you to soften in your body. For example, if you are clenching your jaw, they ask you to notice this and find space between your teeth. Body scans are not just an opportunity to calm your body, but also to know your body and to move pain out of it.
3. Mantras- Sometimes mantras can be paired with breathing, such as saying “I am” during your inhalation and saying during your exhalation, “seeking to accept and love my body.” But other times you might simply just say a mantra that is close to your heart that your body needs to hear. For example, you might say, “I release the need to compare my body to others.” I know one mantra I often need to hear is, “I commit to listening to my body’s needs.”
4. The thought I am having about my body is… – If you Google the question, how many thoughts do we have in one day, the answer will vary, but most researchers conclude humans have at least 6,000 thoughts every day. On top of these thoughts, you also have a multitude of feelings daily. One way to create some detachment from your feelings and thoughts, is by saying to yourself, “The thought or feeling I am having about my body is…” This simple technique is a subtle way to remind yourself that you are having a thought or feeling that will pass. You are reminding yourself that you are more than your body and the thought you are having is not necessarily true.
5. Embodiment- If you are moving in your body, it will help you to feel more confident about your body. When I practice yoga, walk, breathe intentionally, dance, and sing, I am more connected to my body. A new embodied practice in my life is body tapping. Body tapping is a practice utilized in the therapeutic technique EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) where you tap the right side of your body and then your left. This practice is often called bilateral stimulation and helps the left and right hemispheres of your brain to connect and find greater synchronicity. What embodied practices do you need to practice so you can live more fully in your body?
6. Reframing Negative Stories- You must find ways to notice the negative thoughts you have about your body and then challenge these negative thoughts. Sometimes you are not just responding to your own negative thoughts, but also to painful comments loved ones have made about your body. When my family member told me that my “butt was the beginning of the end,” it was hurtful. However, I have reframed this comment by saying to myself, “They said this to me because of their own body insecurities, but I embrace my curves and desire to accept my body just as it is.” Or when the old negative story, “I can’t dance” surfaces, I remind myself that I enjoy rhythmically moving in body. The reality is that when you tell yourself a negative story about the body, your mind keeps reinforcing this story and then your brain starts to believe it, and this leads to further disassociation from the body. Reframing our stories always involves self-compassion. It is a practice of learning to talk to your body the way you would talk to a friend about their body.

Research says approximately 90 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies. I have had many female and male clients who have struggled to love their body as it is. I have known too many people who don’t see the beauty of their body. And sadly, eating disorders are among the deadliest of mental illnesses, second only to opioid addiction. But the antidote to body shame is to understand your own history and relationship with your body, to give thanks for your body, to notice your body, to move in your body, to affirm your body, and to reframe your negative body stories. The journey towards feeling confident and comfortable in your body involves intentionality. Will you join me in the mindful commitment to accept, affirm, and know your own unique and beautiful body?

A version of this article was originally published in the http://mountainmirror.com