Body Neutrality + What That Even Means
No one ever told me this so I’m here to tell you what I have learned!
It’s okay to not love all of your body, physical features and the things that your body does or feels.
We have been thrown into a culture where so many are telling us to love our bodies. They’re telling us no matter what you think, your body is beautiful! Or they say “Use these affirmations until you love your body and really believe it!”.
Well that’s just not realistic for many of us, is it?
I can’t sit there and say an affirmation over and over till I believe it if I look in the mirror and feel like I’m lying to myself. Even if the outside world sees me differently, I can’t acquire a belief if my eyes show me something different.
If my personal idea of beauty is that this thing or that thing should be one way or another, I can’t immediately look at myself and see something as beautiful if it doesn’t fit the image in my brain just because someone else says that I should.
If you’re someone who has an invisible illness, scars from injuries, limited movement, or physical capabilities, it’s hard to love your body sometimes. It can be incredibly difficult to like or love a body that causes you pain that you can’t escape from. I think there are a million ways that a person is justified in not wanting to celebrate the meat sleeve that was handed to them regardless of how they felt about it.
However, I do believe that there are ways we can come to terms with our bodies and be okay with where our bodies are at.
We can choose to not look at our bodies and pick them apart for all of the things we don’t love or all of the things they can’t do. Instead, we take the time to find the ways that our bodies serve us. We find the ways that our bodies give us quality of life and the ability to find purpose beyond what we look like or can’t do. This is where body neutrality starts and a journey to real body positivity begins. Mind you, the keyword here is ‘journey’. Body positivity doesn’t come overnight and it isn’t something that you force yourself into. Just like a romantic relationship with a partner and falling in love with them, body neutrality and eventually positivity happens over time. It happens in the small moments of life and the little things you notice and love
about yourself. Because of this, grace and compassion for yourself are key. Body neutrality is also knowing that your inherent value is not defined by your appearance.Your value and happiness don’t have to be defined by your physical abilities or the days your body seems to internally not want to do what you want it to. Your value lies in who you are as a person, what you offer the world in terms of how you love and what you teach others. A person’s character and their values don’t shine through the swimwear they choose or the crop top they put on in the morning. Finding body neutrality is finding ways to confirm within yourself that you are
worthy of all the good things that you want no matter what your personal feelings toward your body are. Your happiness can come from any source that you choose from family and friends to how you show up in the world every day. I know this is still hard because it’s something I have personally struggled with but I promise you, on the days you choose to practice neutrality, you will start to feel better!
For the sake of attention spans (because I know mine is short) I’m going to wrap this up. For now, I thought it was important for you to have an idea of what body neutrality is. However, because marketing messages define body neutrality and positivity so clearly (insert giant eyeball roll here), I’ll have more about liking yourself, in your own way, on your own terms, in the next couple of posts later this week and over the next couple of weeks.
