20 Aug Hello, Body It’s Me

When was the last time you had a real conversation? Beyond the surface level, day-to-day, casual monotony that encompasses all of us? Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve had that deeper interaction, or maybe you’re fluent in soulful lingo. Regardless of where you’re at now, when was the last time you had an intimate conversation with yourself about your body?

Self-acceptance and body positivity are buzz words in the world right now — “Love yourself!” — “All bodies are beautiful!” — “Be kind to yourself!” Among other phrases. But do you know what that looks like in realistic practice in your life and not just on a Tik Tok reel? Self-exploration and acknowledgement are not easy practices, nor practices we’ve been taught, nor practices with simple follow-a-long steps. Discovering and acknowledging the present state of where you are in your beliefs, self-limiting talk, and body awareness are essential to growing.

If you don’t know where you are now — authentically and honestly where you are now — then how do you expect yourself to reach the next step? The next level?

Instead of bashing yourself with the comparison game (“I’m not as skinny as Jennifer,” “I’m not talented like Bey,” “I’m not flexible like Adrienne”), get familiar with rephrasing into current tense facts. Example: when thoughts like “I’m not ________ as ________,” show up, try: “I am ________ and am working on/learning ________.” Sounds minuscule, right? Not for our brain’s obsession with patterns. The beliefs you hold about yourself are just that — a pattern. A heavily repeated pattern you have conditioned your brain to for most likely years, even decades. And as we know, the brain is the engine. The creative life force. The memory of the universe. Realigning the brain to a new pattern is a slow, intentional, gritty, and sometimes maddening process that forces an individual into new trains of thought, intention, and action.

Try practicing rewriting your beliefs on your body — maybe it’s a T-Chart where you can compare side by side what automatic thoughts you have vs. new thoughts you’d like to install. Or maybe you start by just word-vomiting what’s on your mind in relation to your body onto a blank page. Writing and manifesting thoughts into tangible words gives them power, gives them material weight. Having an intimate session with yourself may be uncomfortable, unnerving, or downright overstimulating. But tell me something — what’s worse? Choosing when to be uncomfortable in a journey of self-exploration, or forever being caged into a body you hate with thoughts that “define” you?

Choose you. And not just you now, choose your ideal you that’s waiting to blossom.