You get home at night and peel off your clothing layer by layer. First, you strip off that comfy t-shirt that feels like silk gliding against your skin. You love the fit because it’s breathable. Next, you do away with the jeans that so carefully hug your waistline, making you feel secure. You begin to look in the mirror and examine your body carefully; its dimples, its marks, every scar. Now for the truly frightening part, your undergarments are the last layer covering your body before revealing its wholeness.
You have done this undressing a million times before yet every time there are dreadful realities you seem to awake when you are truly naked with yourself.
You begin to shame your body because she is not your idea of perfection. Your belly isn’t flat enough, your boobs aren’t as perky as you’d like, and your butt isn’t big enough. If you have the perfect frame you find issues with the surface of your skin because she isn’t smooth enough, she’s uneven, she carries scars that remind you of the places you’ve been, and it’s sickening.
STOP.
Body shaming is a real issue amongst women. It’s something I realized significantly post-cancer when I had to stare at the scar where my mediport had been or when I looked at the mark the biopsy had decided to brand my right breast with.
I had to unlearn the criticism I so often fed myself when I looked in the mirror, because if I didn’t love my body then who else would?
We play a role in how we appear to the world and perspective is everything. The more we speak positively about our bodies, the better they will treat us. Comparison is the thief of joy and I say this passionately. We only shame our bodies because the world has given us a point of reference for a universal standard of what we should carve and botch ourselves to look like.
The crazy part is if we had no point of reference and if our own body became the standard then we would gleefully embrace it. Today, I want you to help women overcome the evils of body-shaming by embracing more loving language about your body.
Let’s speak to our bodies differently and I am almost positive we will begin to love what we see in the mirror. If you or someone you love has a habit of body-shaming, let’s break that habit with these 10 affirmations.
- #1 My body was created to be the standard of perfection. No one has her shape, frame, scars, curves, or marks and that makes her a Picasso. She is a rare work of art that can not be duplicated.
- #2 My body has no limits whatever I say it can do, it CAN do.
- #3 Today, I understand that if I want others to accept me as I am, I must accept my body as she is. I am accepting what my body is authentically and in love with the fact that no one can trace its exactness.
- #4 I have a dope set of boobs, and a banging body all packaged nicely with love, self-care, and courage.
- #5 I will not allow the culture to overtake the freewill of my body to grow, move, minimize, tighten, sit, bloat, or fill out as it desires. Instead, I will influence the culture to realize that the standard doesn’t have to be nipped, tucked, chopped, or replaced to be beautiful. I understand it cannot be authentic if it is not attached to something real. I only want my real body in her purest form.
- #6 I am not ashamed of my body marks. They remind me that my body is strong and so am I.
- #7 My body is the complete essence of what I decide it will be. Whatever I say it is, it is.
- #8 I understand that how I take care of my body says a lot about how I feel about myself.
- #9 My body is the epicenter of greatness and it will only be appreciated by the best. I will not allow toxic people or places to damage it because my outer body is the guarding station of my inner peace.
- #10 My body is well, healthy, whole and completely free from and illness, deformities, or diseases.
Recent Comments