Body-shaming: The act or practice of subjecting someone to criticism or mockery for supposed bodily faults or imperfections.
Regardless of whether you are female or male, humanly, each of us can admit that our body has some fault or imperfection. While yes, body-shaming happens in our society by others around us, honestly, a lot of the time the person doing the body shaming is ourselves.
As humans it has become such an instinct to want what you can’t have. A lot of the time in wanting this it’s after we look at magazines, watch TV, go shopping, or look at social media. We forget that the way people are portrayed through the eyes of the media are not real. We forget that the pictures are distorted through air brushing or filters. Nothing is honestly what it seems.
Sadly, we even a lot of times body shame ourselves when we look in the mirror. We become so mean to ourselves! We say, ‘my hair looks terrible’, ‘I’m fat’, ‘I’m so short’, and we go on and on. I have watched so many people get consumed by the things that they cannot change about themselves.
When you look in the mirror, if you can’t say nice things about yourself, how do you expect anyone else to say nice things to you? How do you expect others to give you a true compliment when you don’t believe the compliments being given?
Compliments are things people give as an expression of admiration, a gift in a sense. These are usually not forced but instead something someone does because they want to make you feel good. If your response is not a genuine thank you, but instead a response of putting yourself down, you are taking away the regard of that compliment. Think about it, why do YOU give compliments? It’s not typically to make yourself feel good, but because you genuinely want to make someone else feel good. When that compliment is minimized by the receiver, it takes away the gift being given.
Sit back and think about the phrase you are you. I mean really think about that! There is not another single being out there that is exactly you… God made one of you with all the body parts you have for a reason… to be you! Instead of accepting that and being happy with ourselves we wish we were something else. That’s not really giving ourselves a fair experience in life.
In my personal experience I have never been verbal about the ways I have been unhappy with my body, but I have internal thoughts and, in the past, have probably not had very nice thoughts about my body. I think the thing that sparked my change in thought process was, when I saw a picture of myself. For the sake of things, we will say the picture was from 20 years ago. I darn right know at the time the picture was taken, I had the same complaints or unhappiness about my body that I had when I looked at the picture in that present moment. However, in that present moment, I thought to myself- “Wow… I looked pretty good”. I guess my point is, that when that picture was taken, I had convinced myself that I shouldn’t love certain things about my body. I had allowed myself to endure moments of being critical which took away from my confidence and happiness. Yet, here I was looking back on that picture saying “Wow… I looked pretty good”? If that’s the case, what was I being critical about? Why wasn’t I confident and satisfied with myself?
As everyone ages things change, things sag, and wrinkle… I am far away from my 21-year-old self that I saw in that picture. However, I also now realize those changes I want my body to have either need to be made by me making healthy improvements or by becoming at peace with the way my body is with or without the improvements. My body has been this way since I can remember, because, after all- we were given ONE body and no matter how many improvements I make, there will always be something that isn’t just perfect… Let’s come to terms with it people, stop letting your body dictate your life! The more we body shame ourselves, the less we are loving ourselves, and the less you are allowing yourself to fully live and be happy. You are amazing, all parts of you!
Here’s another thought- think about buying a pair of pants. Have you ever sat back and thought about how a pair of pants changes in size from store to store? At one store a size 10 is a size 12 at another a size 10 is a size 8, but here we are… we still try to fit our butts in that size 10 because that’s the size we think we should be. Now, when you move up to that size 12, we feel body shame because we didn’t fit into a 10. That process is insanity!
Do you realize that there are at least 10 different body types that could fit into a size 10. I can promise you that the person making those size 10 pants is not making 10 different types of size 10 pants to fit every body type! Stop letting clothes define you. Stop letting social media or TV shape your desire!
Be you! All the time we body-shame ourselves is a moment that is being passed by and that you can’t get back. Learn to love yourself for who you are! I’m not implying don’t be healthy or try to stay fit, because all self-care is important, but self-love is important. If you want to modify your looks at least do it with the intent that if your change isn’t permanent, you will love who you are!
I don’t want to be in the last days of my life, only then to realize that what I think of my hair, my body, my height… whatever it is I have been unhappy with for so long, doesn’t really matter. We spend so much time agonizing over things that we can’t change about our bodies. We worry about how we are going to change ourselves more than we love ourselves. At what point are we just going to learn to love what we have?
Love yourself, there’s only one of you! You are enough! You are beautiful!
