Most of us know that self-care is wonderful and necessary. It's an opportunity to take care of our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs so we can feel recharged and renewed even if only for a little while. However, what if self-care served a greater purpose?
In terms of healing from negative body image, which is often coupled with a strong lack of self-worth, self-care plays a significant role that I'd not considered until I did a mentorship with Summer Innanen this past summer.
Has it occurred to you that every time you engage in some kind of self-care, you are sending a message to your brain that you matter? It can be the cushy kind of self-care like a mani/pedi or it can be the not so cushy kind like setting a boundary with a family member or saying "no" to an invitation that just doesn't safe for you right now.
Self-care is important for all the reasons already mentioned. However, in terms of uncoupling the way we look from our self-worth, it’s very useful. That’s because every time we engage in self-care, we are also making a deposit in our Bank of Self-Worth. Sadly, because our culture is so obsessed with smaller, younger, fit, able, white, bodies, it's important that we consciously make these deposits in our Bank of Self-Worth because they help to counter these persistent and invasive messages. This isn’t an invitation to stress ourselves out when we're not able to engage in as much self-care as possible, but the idea is to be more conscious that our bodies usually perform and feel better when we’re more intentional about it.
Although they are helpful, listening to podcasts, repeating mantras, and belonging to anti-diet groups, etc. promotes a sense of belonging, being very intentional about making these self-worth deposits is what will really make the difference in healing negative body image and healing from dieting/restriction. Why? Because engaging in self-care is saying that you're good enough through your actions.
Making these deposits begins to dilute the toxic messaging that the way we look determines our value because most know intellectually that it doesn't. Now we just need to keep reinforcing this belief in our bodies because that's where the feelings reside. After all, getting out of our heads and leaning into these feelings in our bodies is how we heal.
Although I've been successfully helping my clients navigate negative body image for nearly ten years, this mentorship gave me new step-by-step frameworks and tools that I'm loving sharing with my clients because their shifts have been significant!
Ready to fast-track your body image recovery? Tap the Let’s Connect button below to schedule your free 20-minute connection call.
You don't have to do this alone.