Why Can ’t I Just Love My Body? 

Clients frequently come to me with negative thoughts and feelings around their body and want to work on their body image issues. They want to get to a place of loving their body and feeling good in their body. Or at the very least, they want less of the self-critical noise in their heads and more body acceptance.  Many of these folks have had eating disorders or disordered eating and have made huge progress away from restrictive eating and toward fully honoring their desires and needs to eat. They have also already tried the classic “body image builders” like trying to be grateful for what their body can do, finding one or more things about their body that they do like, focusing on self-care, and avoiding certain media images while seeking out body affirming online sources. They have tried and tried with these things, and yet they still have chronic or cyclical disgust with their bodies and within their bodies. So naturally they feel frustrated and hopeless. They feel like failures. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just love or accept my body?  I know it is so easy to think that your body image issues are your fault. But actually your body image struggles are not on you. Not at all. You didn’t cause yourself to have body hate and loathing. You didn’t choose it, and it’s not your responsibility to fix it.  Maybe you’ve been told, directly or indirectly, that your body is not okay. Your body is not valuable. Your body is not your own. Your body is un...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anorexia Binge Eating Bulimia Eating Disorders body acceptance Body Image dieting Self-Esteem Source Type: blogs