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This article is all about how to feel good in your body.
Despite the numerous advertisements, shows, and displays made to make us hate our bodies, I will explain how you can still feel good in your body.
We are all well acquainted with the issues surrounding body image in this day and age. Since the rise of social media, we have been bombarded by different people with different body types doing all sorts of things.
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Subconsciously has become more and more aware of what we look like and concerned with how we may be perceived.
Media, but social media specifically has consistently displayed a limited spectrum of body types. Which contributes to what ordinary people may internalize as being attractive.
Knowing this information will give your power back to not only see social media for what it is but to feel good in your body again.
Why do you feel terrible about your body?
The body is such a commodity in our culture. People always comment on your weight. It’s a very shameful thing to take more than your share or take up more space. But now I realize that you’re entitled to that space. You can take up as much space as you want. ~ Margaret Cho
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I can’t speak for men, but I do know that women are targeted in several ways that can negatively impact their body and self-image.
1. Family
We can debate whether or not your family may mean well or not, but some people, especially older people, feel compelled to share their opinions on your body.
Whether you are underweight, overweight, or average weight, people always seem to find something to comment on. You may not realize it at the time but these comments can stick with you, especially the negative ones.
Your body as well as your mind are still developing during adolescence and your views are greatly influenced by those who surround you the most. Therefore, it makes sense that many issues with body image can be attributed to childhood
This time period also impacts your capacity to comment on other people’s bodies, as you may have witnessed the same for your family.
2. Friends or people that you interact frequently with
Friends have the capacity to influence you as well. Similar to family, how they were raised can impact their views about body image as well as their capacity to make comments about other people’s bodies.
Social capital in adolescence is so real and it is not popular to go away from the crowd. If it is deemed as cool to bully others, then you may likely follow suit.
This extends to making comments about others that stay with them for life, thus increasing the difficulty in learning to feel good in your body.
3. Social Media
I will dive deeper into this later, but social media is essentially middle-school identity politics multiplied by billions.
Trends determine what kind of bodies are cool and what people should look like.
We all witness the number of likes on posts just because someone is conventionally attractive even though their content is not extraordinary.
It is essential to take the good and filter out the bad in our minds. This is a key to learning how to feel good in your body.
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Let’s Discuss Body Neutrality
Body neutrality is one solution that people have found to be helpful in combatting body image issues.
Body Neutrality is essentially viewing your body as a vessel and developing an appreciation for what it can do.
It is not focused on loving your body as it is, like the body positivity movement, but getting away from the notion that you should love your body.
There are multiple ways to slice an onion and I have no preference for the way that you choose to accept your body.
The whole goal is to begin the journey of feeling good in your skin.
Achieving the fundamentals of feeling good in your skin can change how you go into the world and how you feel about yourself, which influences the impact that you will make.
How to Feel Good in Your Body
Focus on Your Health
People tend to disregard their own health or how they feel in their body to morph into the beauty standard.
The impacts of these transformations can be life-long and dangerous to your health. By changing your mindset to focusing on how you feel in your body, you can do a better job at listening to it and taking care of it.
You know what supersedes all beauty standards in attractiveness?
Healthy people.
People can be healthy in many different shapes and sizes, but focusing on your physical and mental health will give you more longevity.
Remember that trends come and go and that you will look different as you go through the stages in your life.
Your health can be a consistent priority throughout your whole life. This is how you feel good in your body.
Talk to People (that you care about)
Having issues with body image is a common nuisance in our society. You are definitely not alone and the people around you have likely had similar issues and traumas related to body image too.
Knowing that you are not the only one struggling can provide a great sense of comfort and give you the confidence to address the issue.
If you find that going to the gym is the solution to how to feel good in your body, then a friend can be an accountability partner.
Repairing our relationships with our bodies is a journey and learning and showing others how to feel good in your body can have a great impact.
Go to the Beach
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It think that going to the beach, preferably one that many people frequent, is one of the best ways to learn how to feel good in your body.
At the beach, you will see many people with many different body types.
The beach has a way of bringing you back to reality when you have been immersed in the artificialness of social media. Seeing real people with real bodies move around and exist at the beach can make you feel like less of a stranger in this world.
You should not use this as an opportunity to judge people because it will ultimately make you feel worse about yourself as you project your insecurities.
Rather, observe the confidence that people with different body types have to present themselves at the beach. You may leave feeling much more confident that you have a normal-looking body as you may find others with similar body types to you.
Negative Self-Talk
This is the more pressing issue with body image.
Our own inner critic.
Subconsciously, we may have decided the body type that we should have. When we try and fail to morph into that body shape, we can feel even worse about ourselves.
The truth is that genetics have a huge part to play in how people look, are shaped, and their capacity to gain and lose weight, etc. You have NO CONTROL over this.
There is some amount of self-acceptance necessary to begin to feel good in your body. Many people are given a body shape that they would not have chosen for themselves.
We are often harsher on ourselves than anyone else that we know. What you say about yourself molds you into the person that you become.
Changing your words will help you begin to feel good in your body.
You can’t hate yourself happy. You can’t criticize yourself thin. You can’t shame yourself worthy. Real change begins with self-love and self-care. ~ Jessica Ortner
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Appreciate the Little Things
Sometimes, you just need to start small.
You didn’t build this trauma overnight and it sure won’t be resolved overnight either.
It takes repetition and consistent work to see improvement in your body image.
When you begin to express gratitude for the little things that your body can do, you spend less time amplifying what you perceive as flaws. Appreciating your ability to breathe without thinking or how you regulate your internal temperature will remove your focus from the purely cosmetic things that we harp on.
Reconize that other people’s bodies have issues doing the things that you don’t even consider about your own.
By focusing on these things, you will understand that how your body looks does not really matter at all.
If you are in an industry where your looks are essential to your livelihood, you will need to do extra work to maintain peace about your body.
You will need to decide whether your physical or mental health is a worthy exchange for the career that you may build. What you choose to do is your business, but understand that some sacrifices will be made.
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Social Media
Social media is definitely a major contributor to the issues that young people today have about their bodies (that are not fully developed yet, mind you).
It reinforces that desirability is based on the way you look and what you can sell.
The next time that you go on TikTok, pay attention to the advertisements that you receive.
Just for fun, ask yourself these questions:
- What do advertisers want you to believe?
- Are they selling the product or the lifestyle that comes with the product?
- Who are advertisers choosing to sell these products?
By asking these questions, you may start to learn where your problems are coming from.
There is a whole lot that goes on behind the scenes of what we see on Instagram. We don’t know the journeys that people have gone through to make themselves appear as they do on social media.
Some people have no limits in what they would do to achieve a certain look. Diet culture and plastic surgery have only become more common.
Please keep this in mind the next time that you catch yourself envying someone else’s body on social media.
Conclusion
It is essential to learn how to feel good in your body. How you treat your body when you are young will absolutely impact the quality of life that you have when you are old.
Make sure the decisions you make will be suitable for the long term.
We are projected to live longer lives and that requires us to take care of the only bodies that we have.
This article is all about how to feel good in your body.
Let’s Keep the Party Going!
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This post contains affiliate links. By making a purchase, we at ThrivingIndependently receive a commission. To learn more, here is our disclaimer and disclosure. Thank you for your support! ❤︎