How to accept yourself and your body with all the peculiarities? 4 tips from a psychologist

Recently, there has been a trend towards self-acceptance. We learn to be in harmony with ourselves, listening to the inner voice of our bodies. And if earlier we could train every day, exhaust ourselves with diets and do plastic surgery, then today we realize what negative consequences it leads to.

Together with a psychologist we will try to understand how to accept your body with its shortcomings and peculiarities.

cognitive-behavioral therapist

Not to go along with the generally recognized standards – a really difficult task.

Where do complexes come from?

Watching in social networks for a picture of a beautiful life, where everyone has perfect skin and a tight body, we unwittingly try to achieve similar results and do not think about the true needs and features of our body. Because of this, complexes arise, complicating our lives.

According to the expert, this leads to the emergence of “bad habits”. For example, the habit of comparing ourselves with others and in general to evaluate ourselves. A child is not born complexed. Throughout life, a person is influenced by both his immediate environment and society as a whole. If in childhood a person could get approval, attention and love of parents/teachers only for something (for a good grade, for the first place at competitions), then his self-esteem becomes dependent on achievements.

He acquires an inner conviction “I am worth something only if I have achieved high results”. And then every failure becomes a serious blow: “I failed, I am worse than others, I am nothing”. Self-esteem should not depend on achievements, because then it is extremely unstable.

Self-esteem in principle should be avoided. You are valuable in your own right, you already deserve respect, you don’t need to prove it. From the literature on this topic we can recommend the book “Flow” by Mihai Csikszentmihai, which helps you find your way in many ways, as well as “Freedom from anxiety” and “The subtle art of pofigism”.

Explore the concept of bodypositivity

The fundamental idea of bodypositivity is really about accepting your body at your current weight and condition. However, this doesn’t mean that you should forget about your desired figure and stop working on yourself.

Rather, bodypositive encourages us to study the structure of our bodies, understand what is going on with the body, and love ourselves regardless of what is currently considered beautiful in the world and in a particular country. Everyone should be comfortable in the body they live in, and this doesn’t just apply to weight, but to everything physical and physiological in general.

“Not going along with universally accepted standards is a really difficult task. Especially in the era of social media filled to the top with successful success. What helped me in my day was a reminder that I repeated regularly: ‘This is my path, my choice, and it is what it is.’ Ask yourself what you really need, not what those around you need. What makes you happy? What is the goal you are pursuing? Will you arrive at your goal if you go along with commonly accepted standards?” – says the expert.

Be mindful of what you like about your body

Every body has many characteristics and you don’t have to focus solely on the flaws. Try to unfocus your gaze and see how many different parameters yours has, apart from the ones you don’t like. Every person is unique, take a closer look at yourself and find that trait that you are happy with.

Maybe you have a beautiful eye color, you smile openly or you like your hair color. When you start thinking about your flaws, shift your attention to those details. Change an overly critical way of thinking to a tolerant and aware way of thinking. This requires an alternative to the negative background that is in your head every day.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapist

To have a healthy assessment of yourself and your capabilities, set realistic goals for yourself. One of the major ills of the modern world is perfectionism. People tend to place too high demands and unattainable goals on themselves. Striving for the ideal, a person is never satisfied, satisfied with himself. At first he sets the bar very high. Then, reaching it, he immediately devalues the result and raises the bar even higher. Take small steps and appreciate even the smallest victory. This way you will get much further than if you burn out from your own perfectionism.

Surround yourself with accepting people

In our psyche, everything is directly proportional: the more time you spend in the company of people who are happy with their bodies, the better off you will be. This process is poorly understood scientifically. Perhaps there is an unconscious exchange and the result is inner harmony.

When a person is in the receiving society, he has less anxiety and shame, he thinks less about his shortcomings and does not get distracted from the dialog to cover the flaw of his body. With such people are comfortable, as they are loyal to any peculiarities.

Select affirmations

Affirmations are self-convincing phrases with a positive meaning. Pronouncing “I accept myself”, “I am the way I am” and others, you are engaging in autogenic training. Its meaning is to manage your behavior, state and muscle relaxation with the help of such phrases (formulas of self-hypnosis).

Affirmations are said aloud to yourself or written in order to gradually get used to these thoughts, consciously believe in them and feel better. Affirmations are only ineffective if you write or say obvious untruths to yourself.