I hate my body.

We have been so conditioned by our environments, which in turn have led us to have certain beliefs about what is seen as good and what is seen as bad. Growing up in a body obsessed world, with such a strong influence from media, so many individuals are often left feeling this sense of dislike for their bodies, and so often I hear people saying, ‘I hate my body'. This post shows you where these beliefs come from and how you can begin to love your body.

I hate my body

Do you know how many times I have heard this? I hate my body. I am fat. I hate how I look. Do you know that at one time in my life, even I said this. Looking back now, knowing how I felt about myself, and being so unkind to myself makes me feel sad, but having this experience is what makes me different, as I have not just studied how to help someone who feels this way about themselves, but have actually been there myself, and know how to live a life where I feel good about my body, and guess what, love it!

Why do we hate our bodies?

Have you ever looked at a baby, and seen that it has these chunky little thighs, this pot belly, these chubby arms, and it moves and smiles with all the happiness in the world. It drools and poops everywhere and yet it is so happy, and so content just playing with its own hands, and feet. Does it say I have a pot belly, my thighs are so chunky, or gosh I just can’t stop drooling everywhere. No. It totally loves and embraces itself, it knows it is cute, and beautiful and is a bundle of self-love.

So the question is, why do we hate our bodies? Well once, you have the capacity to start processing language, and you start to hear, and see people talking, conversations being had and are able to process pictures you start to form thoughts, thoughts based on other people’s insecurities, other people’s egos, other people’s needs or lack of, and then those thoughts become our own.

You may have had teenage years filled with gossip magazines, pictures of very thin models, articles and ads about diets to follow, and friends and family talking about fat, fat, fat, and how we are so not ok the way we are, and that we must change. Well if this is what you grow up hearing, how hard would it be as a child to form your own thoughts, ideas and beliefs. Nearly impossible. We are so conditioned by our environments, and all our beliefs come from our past conditioning.

How can I love my body?

Although we may have had years of thinking in one particular way, and hating our bodies, criticising ourselves and being really negative, all of this is happening because of our mind. The good news is that all of this has the capacity to change. We can change our mindset, we can change the way we think and we can learn to love our bodies. For more detail about this you can head to mind or NHS websites.

Check out my top tips to loving your body:

1. The first step in beginning to love your body is to start to bring awareness to what you are saying about yourself. What do you say when you look in the mirror. Are you being kind or are you being critical? You don’t even need to change these thoughts, just notice you are doing it, and noticing gives you the space to see how you are treating yourself.

2. The second step would be to begin thinking about what you do like about your body. There must be at least one thing you like. You could even ask your friends or family to tell you what they like about your body; you may be surprised how many compliments you end up getting. Begin to focus on these areas, and the things you do like.

3. Start seeing yourself as just a body. Not a body with all these judgments. When you see your reflection just see it as a body. As you would a tree, without making judgement on that tree, just see your body as a body, not as something that needs to be judged.

4. Mirror work can be really powerful. Looking in the mirror and telling yourself you love yourself. Saying ‘I love you’, ‘you are gorgeous’, ‘wow look at you hot stuff’, is so so powerful and this may be a challenge at first.

5. Ask yourself, ‘If I did love my body, what would I say about it’. I know you may not love your body but if you did love your body what would you say about it?

Learning to embrace your body, and actually feel good with it is a process. It takes time to change the way you think and this is why coaching can be so helpful. To show you what it is that you want to feel, what you are currently doing to cause this feeling, and what you need to do to begin feeling so much better about your body. Coaching gives you the space, tools and techniques to begin building a really positive body image. You can check out some of my programmes that really focus on loving yourself, loving your body and feeling good from the inside out.

I hope you have found this post helpful. Be sure to follow me @theworldofwonderful on Instagram or send me an email at info@worldofwonderful.co.uk to see how I can help you build a loving & happy relationship with you and your body,

Let me know your thoughts and comments below.

Your coach,

Sirin xxx