It’s a new month, which means a new theme for the blog! This month, I’ll be exploring the theme of Self-Love through a variety of posts centred on wellness, creativity, and witchcraft.

To start the month rolling, I want to explore some of my favourite tips for getting comfortable in your own skin and loving your body. You may also enjoy last month’s body post about balancing messages about our bodies.

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1. Accept Your Body as it Exists

One of the first things you need to do is accept yourself – and your body – as it currently exists. You may want to change certain things about your appearance, and that’s okay. However, you don’t have to do it out of a place of hatred, sheer dislike, or from an overly negative place.

From my own experiences in getting healthier, I’ve found it much easier to enjoy living in my skin – despite any of my insecurities – by accepting my body the way it is. It may not be perfect, but it is mine. I can speak factually about my flaws, the things I would like to change, but I have accepted the way I am for now. That doesn’t mean I won’t change things about it, but I’ve accepted that this is the shell in which I will exist for the time being.

I find that neutralising my feelings about my body has helped me embrace the things I can’t readily change, whilst giving me the energy to change the things I am able to.

2. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

It’s easily done, and it’s something that’s constantly written about in the media. Much of our negative self-talk comes from comparing how we look to others.

I’ll not beat you over the head with messaging about how many people utilise poses, filtering, surgery, special angles, and facial filters to improve appearance. We all know that at this point.

What I do want to spend some time on, however, is reminding you that everyone does have different body shapes. Whether that’s down to our bone structure, our genetics, our disabilities – anything else – we’ve all got slightly different canvases to work with.

I think that once you recognise that you probably won’t emulate another person’s look exactly without altering these things, you can start dismantling negative comparisons to other people.

3. Practice Gratitude for Your Body

One of the best things I’ve ever done for changing my self-image was expressing gratitude for things my body could do for me.

You could start with something simple, like just thanking your body for keeping you alive. Perhaps it allows you to enjoy spectacular views; maybe you’re able to listen to beautiful music because of it; your skin allows you to feel different sensations.

I think there’s sometimes a misconception that you should only be grateful for the huge things – like running marathons, hiking mountains, or even being a model. But I think it’s incredibly important to remember the significance of little moments that make people happy.

4. Change the Way You Talk About Your Body

Once you’ve got the more abstract steps above out of the way, you can start changing some of the more tangible ways you approach your body.

I don’t necessarily think it’s helpful to pretend that you have no physical ‘flaws’ or things you’d never want to see change. But it is important to reframe how you discuss these flaws or think about them. One of the greatest small changes I’ve made to my own self-talk is acknowledging a flaw and adding “…and that’s okay” to the end of it. For example, “I don’t love how my arms look… and that’s okay.”

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to health-scare situations, but I think it can be a nice way of reframing how you think about your perceived flaws. Acknowledging and accepting that they’re there can, in my experience, help you view your body with a bit more neutrality and evaluate whether the changes you think you want to make are changes that you actually want to make.

5. Embrace Exercise to Show Your Body Some Love

It’s trite but true: exercise can make you appreciate your body more. One study showed that when you’re approaching exercise from an appearance-based perspective, it has a negative impact on your body image [https://recreation.duke.edu/story/relationship-between-exercise-and-positive-body-image/]. However, this study also showed that exercise can encourage us to appreciate what our body is capable of if we do it from a place of health and enjoyment.

Exercise doesn’t need to be strenuous, either. I spent a long time trying to engage with absolutely punishing fitness regimes and I just couldn’t keep up with them. Now, I spend more time going out dancing, going off on walks in nature, and try to do a little bit of strength training in the gym. I don’t push myself to extremes I can’t keep up with any more, and I’m much fitter because of it.

Start off with something small that you can combine with something else you enjoy, and soon you’ll be appreciating all of the neat things you can do with your body.

If you’re looking for structured writing prompts to support your self-discovery and body acceptance, I have several reflective eBooks available via Ko-Fi and Etsy for digital download 🙂

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Focus on Functionality, Not Appearance

I think one of the key strands through these tips is to stop centring you body positivity on the appearance of your body, and rather focus on the functionality of your body. Start with little things – even if they’re generic – and, with time, the rest will fall into place.

How will you be showing your body some love this month? Share your tips and tricks in the comments, or find me on social media to join in the discussion!