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Psychotherapist, specialist in eating disorders Svetlana Bronnikova talks about how to overcome bodily shame, which prevents many of us from normalizing weight and increasing self-esteem.
Feelings about an insufficiently perfect body or “wrong” weight always hide other, deeper problems of relationships with the world. Try to decipher what lies behind the experiences like “I have a terrible saggy stomach” or “I’m so loose and fat.” What does it really mean that other people will see or think you are “fat”?
Pass the tests
- How do you feel in a swimsuit?
- How You Eat: What Your Diet Says About You
Does this mean that you are afraid of the idea of drawing attention to yourself, and therefore you do not dare to wear bright clothes and be photographed? Or are you afraid of rejection and therefore avoid intimacy, and your extra weight is a good excuse not to date? You can’t bear to have everyone staring at you in a red dress because the thought “I’m too fat” masks the idea that being noticed by other people is unbearable and makes you feel very anxious. Will this feeling disappear if you lose weight? No, it will stay with you because it has nothing to do with weight. The weight is just a cover here.
Read more:
- “Why do some people eat everything and don’t get fat, while others go on diets, go in for sports, but are still fat?”
Exercise “Transformation”
Write down a few negative thoughts about your body—the most frequent and bothersome ones. It can be about a part (“I hate my fat thighs”) or about the whole (“I look like a disgusting cow”). Choose one thought to transform. Say your chosen negative thought about the body: in the mirror to yourself, as if you were talking to someone, not talking about yourself. For example, “I hate your fat thighs”, “I’m sick of your blurry figure.”
Pause and then, also out loud, apologize for what you said. Note your feelings. Ask yourself the question: why do you think that thin hips are better than full ones? Where did this idea come to you personally when it first appeared in your head? Who told you that this is so, and not otherwise? Ask yourself this question every time it comes to your mind. Changing internal beliefs does not happen overnight, but regular questions to yourself on this topic successfully “undermine their authority.”
Whether or not to have negative thoughts about the body in one’s own mind is a matter of personal choice. If you have them, then you allow them to appear. The flow of negative thoughts about the body can be stopped, the negative image of the body can be changed for the better. This is not easy for anyone, but the result is worth the effort.
Read more:
- How to lose weight without noticing
Exercise “Mirror”
You will need a mirror in which you can see yourself in full growth. Describe aloud in detail, in detail, everything that you see in the mirror, any small details. It’s like having a blind person next to you who needs to introduce you, or like you need to describe yourself to an actor who is supposed to play you in a movie but has never seen you. Be objective. Don’t judge, don’t judge. Include details such as color, texture, size, shape, symmetry, proportions in the description. Do not use subjective ratings (“thick hips”). When you catch yourself on them, pause and return to an objective description. Try to describe yourself from all sides and from all angles. At the end, try to silently look at your reflection for 1-2 minutes, concentrating on the whole, and not on the parts. Try to see yourself as a whole for a moment. Note how you feel when you describe a particular body part. Say them out loud: “I feel anxious when I talk about my stomach.”
Your negative thoughts about your body carry an important encrypted message about the issues that really concern you and largely determine your lifestyle and behavior.
“If I were skinny, I would go on dates and have sex more often” means there may be problems with establishing intimacy. We tie this problem to excess weight (perhaps mythical), because we are afraid of meeting our “inner monster” – the fear of intimacy – eye to eye. “If I were thin, I would respect and appreciate myself more” – most often refers us to our relationships with significant Others – parents or partners, in which we chronically lack respect and acceptance.
Read more:
- The palm method: how to control weight without counting calories
Exercise “Collage”
Go through your photos from different years and choose 3-5 photos in which you really like yourself, and 3-5 photos in which you don’t like yourself. It is desirable that you be alone in these photos. Make color copies and paste randomly, mixed up, on a large sheet of paper. Ask those you trust (friends, loved ones) to look at the collage as if they don’t know anything about this person and describe him in terms of his personality. How does he seem to them in character, what interests him in life, what values uXNUMXbuXNUMXbhe can have, would you like to get to know and make friends with him better? Your task is only to listen, absorb, realize what impression you make on others, if we ignore the parameters of appearance, weight and body size. You can record what you heard on a tape recorder and listen to it later – collect at least five descriptions. Compare how your feelings have changed from your own photos before and after the exercise.
For more details, see the book by S. Bronnikova “Intuitive Eating” (Eksmo, 2015).