Four ways to be more confident in your skin
One of the most consistent frustrations and fears that I hear from new clients is that they are not confident with their body. It's not that they want to hate their body, they just can't find peace with it. Even at the lowest weight, they were unhappy in their skin.
This is essential because your relationship with your body taints every other relationship in your life.
Every experience is muddied because of the white noise of your body image playing in your head.
Not to strike a cord, but if you can't love yourself, you will struggle loving others.
Here are a few things you can do to start healing this relationship:
1 Understand your systems.
Your health is a mirror of your habits.
An insecurity with your body is more often just an insecurity with your habits.
There is this notion in the #bodypositivity movement that if you are uncomfortable in your skin, just look away. This mindlessness further exacerbates the issue.
You are malleable. You are always changing, growing, adapting. Your health is no different. If you look at your habits right now from an aerial view, what kind of outcome do you think they would bring?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
If you want a different result, make sure you are confident and consistent with your approach.
If you struggle to be confident in your systems, change them.
If you struggle to be consistent in your systems, change them.
A perfect plan never executed helps noone.
A crappy plan well executed helps noone.
You need both. Create both.
2 Identify self sabotaging behaviors.
When you are uncomfortable with something in your life, the easiest thing to do is to look away.
Also, the WORST thing you can do is look away. Self sabotage is a super easy and incredibly devastating form of avoidance.
Starving yourself during the day and bingeing at night.
Eating (an entire meal) mindlessly while cooking.
Sneaking food.
Doing juice cleanses and finding yourself more fixated with food.
Deciding today isn't a good day for a run.
Breaking trust with yourself.
What is the internal dialogue that keeps you shackled to those habits that keep you small?
Some clients say that when they decide they are not worth it/not capable/never going to get there/never going to change...etc they self sabotage.
you will not take care of someone you do not love.
you will sabotage someone you decided is not worth it.
If this resonates with you, start acknowledging your personal forms of self sabotage and start creating a plan to address them.
3 Address your relationship with the mirror.
What you consume is what consumes you. This goes beyond the mirror, anything you use as a reflection of your value: the mirror, the scale, social media, other people.
At all times, you are determining the content you allow to fill your brain. Spending hours in front of the mirror means that you have plenty of content to fixate on your body. You are setting yourself up for failure.
There are a few specific behaviors that kill your relationship with your body:
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Shirt lifting: lifting up your shirt in front of the mirror.
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Pinching: most women report pinching or pushing on their stomach or thighs in front of the mirror.
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Picking apart: speaking words to yourself that you would never say to another human being.
These behaviors do not exist with a healthy relationship to your body. When you pinch on your leg and tell yourself about your flaws and then step away from the mirror, you can not expect to love that person you just ridiculed.
If you want to break this cycle, pay attention to where it starts.
If you want to be kinder, start here. If you want to be more loving, start here.
4 Stop fixing, start building.
Most of my clients are real go getters. Type 3 enneagrams, people who feel purposed when they are growing, achieving, fixing. This works great in almost every area of your life, EXCEPT your health.
Because this idea that you always have to fix yourself is just a reminder that you are chronically broken.
You aren't.
Focus on building, not fixing.
When you build something, the foundation is already great. You get to become bigger, stronger, whatever-er. Building is exciting, full of promise. Fixing is never satisfied, never enough, something else will always broken.
You are worthy of growth, not debilitated without it.
So change that mentality right off the bat, it will make a huge difference.
These steps are not all inclusive, they are not the end all be all. Your health is wildly personal, and your approach to it should be as well.
If you want to talk more about this or start this journey with me, let's do it.
