Given that I’ve only ever written about food and/or exercise, I realized it was time to introduce a new topic that has affected me on a personal level and continues to do so on a daily basis. I recently had an enlightening conversation with a very close friend of mine as she broadened my perspective in regards to dealing with body image issues.
It’s a way of thinking or approaching the issue rather than a solution, but a very interesting one to say the least. This is not a permanent solution, this is not a fix for any eating disorders or mental health issues. It’s simply food for thought to broaden your perspective for the better.
Let’s say you’re having a bad body image day (which we all do let’s be honest, some worse than others), and you don’t like the way you look in the mirror and you just can’t seem to feel good about yourself regardless of the angle in which you stand or the lighting you’re in. Instead of allowing yourself to go down a deep dark hole of negativity and allowing this feeling to ruin your day or put you in a bad mood, just acknowledge it.
Acknowledge the negative feeling you have towards yourself as you would a physical injury. If you had a paper cut, would you allow it to ruin your day? No. You would notice it, acknowledge the sliver in your finger, wrap it up in a band aid and move on, business as usual. What if we treated our body perception the same way? Acknowledge that you’re feeling negatively about yourself and accept that perhaps this is not your most “self confident day” and instead of putting a band aid on it, do something that makes you happy or feel good about yourself. Perhaps you like to bake, go for a bike ride or listen to happy music, whatever it is find your “band-aid” for your “paper-cut”.
If we think of it this way, and treat both a paper cut and a negative feeling the same way (with minor modifications of course) we set physical and mental health issues as equals, attributing them with the importance they both deserve. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there but this also doesn’t mean it can’t be treated with a similar approach. Unfortunately, mental health concerns have been suppressed for way too long, but modern thinking, a change of attitude and comfortability with this topic are leading to continuous positive change.
Leah