How to Stop Body-Shaming Yourself (and gain confidence)

Body shaming: the practice of humiliating someone, including yourself, by making mocking or critical comments about your body shape, size, ability, and other personal qualities. Unfortunately, it’s all too normal to put others, and ourselves down on a daily basis. It’s time to recognize it and stop self body-shaming in it’s tracks.

It has become completely normal in society, and in our own personal lives, to criticize all aspects of our bodies. It’s a vicious cycle of judgement that brings down the person being criticized, the criticizer, and anyone close enough to hear it. And it’s not okay.

Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

I’ve been working out for years and I still can’t squat my body weight.

I’ll never be as thin/strong/powerful as her.

I’m so fat.

I can’t wear that, have you seen my [insert body part here]??

No matter how subtle, this kind of thinking leads to shame and discomfort, and it perpetuates the idea that your value should be judged by your appearance.

Why We Body-Shame Ourselves

If body-shaming ourselves and engaging in negative self-talk feels so awful, why do we do it?

For starters, we do it because we don’t even realize that we are.

We do it because it’s easier to make a joke about something that’s uncomfortable than it is to face that thing head on.

And we are inundated with the idea that we need to look more like something/someone else, and that somehow are value as a human is connected to our ability to comply. Given the constant stream of toxic, “skinny-everything” messaging in the weight loss, diet and modeling industries, it’s quite easy to internalize the message that we aren’t enough.

Well excuse my French but, eff that.

Self-shaming is unproductive and destructive.

It’s time to embrace your body.

It’s time to recognize that wanting change is fine. Working towards goals that are healthier and fitter is fantastic. And leaving the body-shaming behind in order to adopt some self-compassion and love?

That’s where it’s at.

How to Put a Stop To Body-Shaming Yourself

The focus: stop body-shaming yourself. The process: build awareness and compassion. The destination: increased self-love and confidence. Here we go.

Build awareness

My clients will tell you that no matter what, the first thing that we work on no matter the goal, is increasing awareness. If you don’t know that you are body-shaming when you are body-shaming, there’s no way to stop it.

Try keeping a thought diary. Much like a workout log or a food journal, a thought diary will help you build an awareness of what’s happening, when it’s happening. Overtime, you will be able to find patterns in your thought diary that will help you identify triggering situations, emotions and even people.

Reflection is another practice that can increase your awareness of how you treat yourselves.

Most of us are perfectly comfortable and even enjoy complimenting our friends but we’re less able to comfortably receive and believe a compliment in return, never mind compliment ourselves. Ask a trusted friend or family member to gently make you aware when you are being self-deprecating or body-shaming yourself.

Ask why

Once you build an awareness and can recognize when your are body-shaming yourself, ask why. Where does the discomfort come from? Who’s voice is it that you hear when you put yourself down? What place in time do you go back to when you feel most triggered to self-criticize?

This might be really hard to pinpoint. Maybe it’s been so long that you’ve been telling yourself the same story, from the same perspective, that the voice sounds like yours. Or maybe it’s really difficult to admit that the criticism stems from somewhere/something close to you.

Sometimes we believe something for so long that we start to think it’s the only way to think about it. But every moment that we catch ourselves in those thoughts is an opportunity to ask why.

Separate yourself from those thoughts

Warning: the following story is a personal story about my recovery from an eating disorder. I understand that this kind of content can be triggering for some. My intent is to share the lessons I personally learned in the hopes of offering a tool.

In the course of my recovery from anorexia there is one specific tool that I learned that felt like a true turning point. My therapist at the time told me to separate myself from my eating disorder so that I could start to understand the difference between what I knew to be true, and what my eating disorder was telling me.

I named my eating disorder ED. Whenever ED was told me to do (or not do) something that clashed with what I knew (as an intelligent and supported human being) to be actually good for me, I could more readily separate myself from the disordered, unhelpful thought.

At first this was very difficult. I’d lived with ED for long enough that it was hard for me to differentiate. But overtime I got better at recognizing the thoughts that were triggered by my disorder. And as soon as I could tell the difference, I had more power to fight back.

Practice separating yourself from the body-shaming thoughts. Name the energy/vibe/voice that relays the self-deprecating messages to you. And call it out when the negativity starts.

Overtime, you’ll recognize the voice as, or even before, it starts. And you’ll learn to shut it down. You’ll learn to make your own voice louder!

Replace those thoughts with positive affirmations and gratitude

You will start to become more aware of the times and situations in which you’re most susceptible to self body-shaming. You’ll start to separate yourself from the voice that is being hurtful. And when you do that, you gain the opportunity to take back control.

When you experience self body-shaming, hear the though and then flip it on it’s head.

Instead of I hate my thighs…

Remind yourself that you are powerful. That you work hard to build strength. Your legs are powerful and enable you to hike with your dogs, chase after your kids, and get you wherever you need to go without assistance or permission.

Instead of I have tried every diet, maybe I’m not meant to do this…

Be proud at your resilience – at your ability to try again despite hardship in the past. You’re able to continue to push yourself towards a goal that you want, again and again. That is mental and emotional power!

Confidence is a skill

Like any other skill, confidence takes practice and dedication to grow and get comfortable with. A good start is leaving self body-shaming in the past.

The next step? Write yourself an elevator pitch. This is a technique used in sales and marketing that’s basically a tool to “sell yourself” in 3 minutes (or, an elevator ride). But it’s a great way to increase self-awareness and confidence.

The idea behind an elevator pitch is to express who you are, what you have to offer and what you want from a situation as succinctly as possible. You are essentially creating your own personal brand.

The goal? To get better at pinpointing the best aspects of YOU confidently, quickly and to any audience you’re confronted with (including the mirror).

Start by drafting out your 3-minute pitch. Don’t try to be perfect. Try to be real.

• My name is __________.
• I love to __________.
• I am really good at __________.
• I bring value to this situation because I can __________.
• I feel my best when I’m with/doing __________.
• My goal is to __________.

Your pitch will grow and change over time. You’ll get better at reciting it from heart. The more you repeat it, the more you will start to realize the truth of it!