Struggling with our body image and taking steps to perfect it has become a normal way of living. The way all of us, women and men speak about our bodies can be cruel. If not all of us, than most of us have looked in the mirror at one point in our lives and told ourselves we aren’t beautiful or handsome; focusing on the parts of our body that need to be improved or are feeling ashamed of having. I am sitting here questioning where the hell did this influence start? Why do we feel we need to perfect bits about ourselves? What is the purpose?
There are about 7 billion people in this world. We all have different tastes, different interests, standards, opinions, desires and so on. We also have different battles within ourselves. The overweight character is longing to be thin, however the thin character is longing to put on weight. We have lived with this perception for so long that if or when we achieve the body image we want, we don’t know how to live in contentment with it. What is considered beautiful differs between cultures, and history.
Our battles with our body image has a big impact on many aspects of our social life and emotions. We are seeking externally for the confidence, whether it’s working to perfect what we don’t like, cracking jokes about ourselves as a defence mechanism,or removing ourselves from situations, social events that may enhance our insecurity within our body.
Contentment comes from within, peace comes from within and love comes from within. The confidence and approval you seek for your body image also comes from within. Where do you start?
Start by honouring your body. Connect to your body, respect it. Understand what is going on inside of it. Move your body to celebrate all the things it can do, not to punish it for what you ate.
Yoga is my choice of honouring my body. The practise has such a positive impact on my life and has brought peace to my own battle with body image. Resonating with the class and the teacher can create a big shift, after just one instruction. This is based off the environment in which you place yourself in. Yoga is non- judgmental, you are encouraged to honour your body. If you feel tired, rest. It’s about discovering the line between challenging yourself but understanding and respecting your limits. You are tuning into how your body feels, how you feel emotionally and bringing awareness to how you react to various challenges. Acceptance of where you are at in your life, and who you are. The return to the present moment versus getting caught up in who you long to be or how you long to look.
Yoga is accepting, it is not about what you can do stretch into. There is a practise out there for you, you just need to find which resonates with you.
If you are struggling with your body image and are looking to bring peace to this battle, my little seed of wisdom for you is to find something that will encourage you to honour your body. Start from creating peace, contentment and self-love from within, than allow this to expand outward.
Reach out to me if you would like to connect and learn more about my Yoga classes or my holistic therapies.
Jadine
Yoga Instructor & Holistic Therapist
