Beauty Is In Your Head!

Attempting to break out of cycles and headspaces that we have created for ourselves and that have been created by those around us is incredibly difficult, but today I am specifically referring to positive body image and the way we see ourselves. I will only be speaking from the perspective of a woman, because I cannot speak for anyone else. I find it a daunting task to unlearn my negative self talk, but one I am determined to accomplish.  Not perfectly, because striving for perfection is what landed me in this position in the first place, but enough where I am proud to be myself so that my daughter can see that loving ourselves is possible.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard women in my life talk about themselves negatively and compare themselves to others, especially those in the fashion and beauty world, people whose literal job is to be the “standard of beauty”. There were literal measurements that women thought they needed to be in order to be beautiful. Even Sir Mixalot made it impossible, and while his song was trying to promote the fact that if “Baby got Back” she was still beautiful, but why did 36”, 24”, 36” have to be tossed in the ring? Those numbers are ingrained in my brain because I fought for so long to fit that mold, only to find out that bones couldn’t lose fat, so my hips were the size they were. These numbers were still implying that even if you have a booty, you had to have this impossibly narrow waist to still be considered beautiful.  

So where do we start? 

I found a great place to start was by learning about self-talk and weight=neutral language.  After listening to a podcast called “The Podclass” which was developed through Ever Active Schools and University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education program, there are some incredible episodes that awakened a fire for loving myself that I hadn’t had in a long time.  They also shed light onto some of the ways in which we promote negative body image even when we don’t think we are.  If you have a chance, you should definitely give it a listen on Spotify, specifically episodes 4 and 7 that discuss positive nutrition messages and weight-neutral health.  No this isn’t a plug, I don’t work for them. I just think learning is imperative to understanding how we talk about ourselves and how we talk to our children. 

So while the positive body-image movement is one of the best things that social media has ever promoted, let’s be realistic when we say that we are going to love ourselves, because it takes time. It’s like training your brain muscle and you are at the bottom of the weight class, because baby, those heavy hitters up top have been loving themselves unconditionally and it’s going to take some dedication to get up there.  Yes I am amazing, and my body can do the most incredible things, and I am loved no matter what, but retraining my brain to actually believe that will be my second greatest accomplishment. The first will be helping my daughter realize this about herself before the negative self talk sets in, and while I cannot prevent that completely, I wonder what a difference it will make when she has a mother who loves herself for who she is, and not what she is expected to be.