Summer is around the corner, and the hot weather is approaching fast. If you’re feeling overwhelmed in spite of your best efforts at self-love, you’re not alone. It can be hard to mute the voices in your head screaming “you’re not enough” when you’re standing in line at a grocery store and seeing bikini body headlines on magazines. I know it’s hard to learn to love the body you have. But, you have to remember, we are all shaped differently. If you follow the same workout routine, or diet plan, as your favourite celebrity your results will look different because every single body is unique. If you want to have your best summer yet and start loving your very own summer body here’s some tips.
Ban Body Bashing
It’s time to rewire your thoughts from negative to positive. If we don’t like our bodies, we aren’t going to treat them well. Start focusing on all the great things our bodies do for us, like keeping us alive. Write a love letter to yourself. Write positive things about your personality, a freckle you like, your long eyelashes, your hair, or your work habits. Just start from somewhere! Another good idea is to put self-love notes where you get ready to feel less body shame.
Your body is your vehicle through life.
Your Body Does Wonderful Things
It walks. It dances. It laughs and it cries. Your body is made up of organs, cells, bones, muscles, veins, and nerves (and all that other stuff) and you need to take care of them the way they take care of you. Your body doesn’t care if you look pretty, fit, or skinny. It cares about giving you the ability to think, move, breathe, love, and laugh. Your body loves you enough to keep you alive, you need to give it the same love back.
Choose What Information You Consume
Every day we hear irrelevant, and unnecessary information that affects our mental and emotional health. You can fix this by opting out of magazines or blogs that advocate dieting. Go through your Instagram feed and unfollow every account that makes you body shame yourself. Only follow those who make you feel inspired! Also, stop watching TV shows that promote weight loss products or any other services like that. Choosing the information you consume will help you with your overall health!
Treat Yourself The Way You Treat Your Best Friend
I tell my friends all the time how beautiful they are, and compliment them. Shouldn’t we treat ourselves the same way? If your best friend is feeling down about herself you would try and pick her up, right? Start treating yourself the same way! Next time you feel down give yourself a compliment, tell yourself how beautiful you are. If you keep giving yourself compliments, somewhere down the line you’ll start to believe them.
Throw Out Your Scale
I stepped off the scale a long time ago because I was obsessed with weighing myself. Since then, I am a lot happier with who I am. Once you get rid of it, you’ll be a lot happier with what you see in the mirror because the scale won’t be a gauge of your self-worth anymore.
Something that has helped me along this journey of self-love is thinking about when I was young. How would the five-year-old version of me feel about the thoughts that come across my mind sometimes? She would be devastated and wouldn’t understand. I don’t want to let her down!
Learning to love your body and be accepting of everything is a process. But, it’s a journey you should take because it’s worth it.
Featured image via @rsanchescarvalho from Unsplash
