Body Acceptance Requires Knowing One Thing: You’re Safe
What is it that has prevented you from accepting your body up until this point?
Whatever it is, I guarantee it boils down to one thing: fear.
Fearful thoughts about what could happen (or more accurately what feels like will happen) if you stop trying to control your body. Thoughts like:
I’ll gain weight forever
People will judge me
I’ll hate myself
I’ll never be able to find a partner and be alone forever
I’ll get sick and die early
I’ll never feel good again
I’ll be miserable etc.
And what lies underneath all of these thoughts?
The feeling I’m not safe.
It’s why taking control and keeping your body “acceptable” feels so urgent. So important. Like you have to, you must, because it’s not safe to do so otherwise.
Because if you let go of control your mind paints scary pictures of not knowing what to do, of floating aimlessly in a vast ocean without a raft, of being vulnerable to all kinds of bad things.
But the mind only knows what it knows: what’s happened in the past, what it has been taught, what beliefs it has been fed.
Everything else is made up. Literally.
It does not, and cannot know the future. It cannot know the unknown. And that feels unsafe.
But are you actually unsafe?
What does “safe” mean? In my definition it means being physically safe in the here and now. In today’s modern age that is likely to be your actual experience 99.9% of the time. Unless a bus is about to hit you, you are safe.
So what is it that you are actually afraid of? What feels so “unsafe”?
It’s the stories your mind is telling you about yourself, about your life, about other people - and the feelings associated with those stories.
That’s it.
Because if you look around in the moment you feel unsafe, you’re safe. You’re likely sitting in your living room or at your desk at work - perfectly safe.
What feels unsafe are the sensations in your body. The fight or flight response that is activated when a thought goes through your mind that says something like “I’m not good enough”, “I’ll never be loved”. And you listen to it, cause it feels so life-threatening.
But it’s not. You’re safe. It’s a passing thought. It’s a passing sensation.
And when you can really see this, when you can feel the sensations and let them pass (cause they will), you’ll return to a calmer state. A state that doesn’t feel so threatening.
A state where you’re able to make a wiser decision that makes sense for the moment - like eating a sandwich, or going to bed early, as opposed to skipping dinner in hopes that it will prevent some horrible mind-made future.
This is the ground where body acceptance happens - where you can “feel the fear and do it anyways”.
Because you can remind yourself that I’m safe.
Having a better understanding of thoughts and feelings builds a strong foundation for body acceptance work. Check out my webinars Understanding Your Thinking and Understanding Your Feelings at www.kristinabruce.com/webinars for gain that foundation.
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash