Can we love our bodies while still feeling imperfect or dissatisfied? Becca Clegg, a therapist, educator, and coach, tackles this important question in today’s guest post. If you like what you read, go check out more of her insightful musings at Life Beyond the Diet.

This week, I did a talk for a group of mental health clinicians on Eating Disorders.  The talk went great, and I was feeling really pleased with myself for being able to help other therapists learn more about a topic that I am so passionate about.

As I was packing up my stuff to head out, one of the therapists stopped and asked me a question.

“So, you talk about all this stuff, but you are slim.  Do your client’s ever ask you how you can talk about struggling with your body when you don’t look like you do?”

I answered her as honestly as I could, telling her that you can’t look at someone’s body and know what their own struggle is, as the relationship we have with food is truly internal, and doesn’t really have to do with how the body looks anyway.

I left and didn’t really give her question much thought, but later that day, her question came back to me & stated to morph into self-doubt.

I have been at peace with my body for a long time, but how would I feel if my body changed drastically?  Would I still love myself the way I do now if something external shifted?

Does the peace I feel about my body come from within, or is it more related to a judgment that things on the outside are “ok”?

Could I practice what I preach if I lost this sense of peace? 

One thing I know deeply is that every part of me is devoted to the idea of self-love and body acceptance.  I have a deep knowing that to help women learn to find acceptance is my passion.  So to be in this space of questioning was extremely unnerving, and I’ll admit that it hit me between the eyes.

As I started to think about how I relate to my own body, it dawned on me that I don’t actually think everything about my body is ok.  In fact, I still judge plenty of things that I see in my body as “wrong” or “not good enough”.

I break out.  I have awful hair days that even a hat can’t fix.  I am aging, and I am starting to see the laws of gravity demonstrating themselves.  I have flab here, and wrinkles there, and if I’m looking for it, I can usually find something that is “out of place”.

At first these thoughts jumped out at me as evidence that I must be an imposter. “Oh crap!”, I thought,  “How can I think those things and have the nerve to write blog articles about loving your body?”

And then I remembered a concept that I have been following for some time.  It’s the basis of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which basically espouses the following:  We are culturally indoctrinated with certain thoughts.  To try and change those thoughts is nearly impossible.  It is much kinder, loving, and quite frankly, easier, to accept those thoughts as what they are, old cultural ideas that have just gotten in your head.  Then you move on to commitment to change.  Commitment to living from a kinder, gentler thought that is more aligned with what you want to believe.

When I realized this, it gave me a sense of peace.  Quite the contrary to feeling like an imposter, it made me realize that of course I still have the judgments about my body that are less than loving.  I am human.

I am also, however, fortunate enough to realize that my judgment about my body is the cultural lie, social conditioning left over from being raised in a society that taught me that there is a boiler plate standard for what it means to be “good enough” as a woman in this world.  I also realized that the deepest part of me absolutely knows that this is a pile of B.S.

I can be committed to loving my body and have wonderful, blissful days where I am 100% full of gratitude for everything about it.

I can still be committed to loving my body and have days where I question and doubt and think thoughts that are less than ideal. Body love, like everything else in life, it isn’t all unicorns and rainbows.

I remind people all the time that they should avoid black and white thinking, and search for the middle ground.  I came out of this realizing that I needed a dose of my own medicine.

The lesson I took away was that trying to be ‘perfect’ at love, be it self-love or body-love, is as unrealistic and as stressful as trying to be ‘perfect’ in our bodies themselves.   I choose to ignore the thoughts that I know aren’t kind, and align with the thoughts that are kind and quite frankly, feel better.  That is my daily commitment.  And the biggest lesson of all is that that is enough.

Rebecca Clegg, LPC (www.rebeccaclegg.com), is a therapist, writer and speaker specializing in helping women overcome unhealthy eating patterns and body image issues.  For the last decade, Rebecca has worked in both hospital and outpatient settings, and has worked extensively with a variety mental health issues. She is the President and founder of Authentic Living, LLC, and creator of the blog, www.lifebeyondthediet.com, both committed to the growth and empowerment of women everywhere. 

These days, a few hours spent at a baby shower, a salon, or another female-dominated locale can start to sound like an episode of Real Housewives. From bemoaning the flab on one’s arms to debating the merits of Botox, groups of women often seem to have an endless supply of topics that share a similar theme — how darn flawed they are.

The fat-talk is almost a given, but what research is now revealing is that “old-talk” is sweeping in, and with similarly detrimental results.

Carolyn Black Becker, a psychologist at Trinity University, and her colleagues recently published an article in the Journal of Eating Disorders about the new wave of “old-talk.” They recognized that as the Baby Boomers have gotten older, the incidence of self-deprecication around age has increased. Not only that, but it’s correlated with body image disturbance and eating disorder pathology. A quick look at the magazine stand reflects this reality as well. Cover stories, ads, and products abound about how to look younger and hide the signs of aging.

While the large population of Baby Boomers might seem to be driving this phenomenon, old-talk is actually, well… old. Women – and men – have been lamenting aging for centuries. Perhaps it’s related to our fears of mortality, but chatting about the losses associated with getting older is one way that we connect.

And therein lies the problem.

My question is this: “Fat” or “old,” why is it that we have to criticize the realities of our physical selves in order to establish connection?

My guess is that these seem like safe topics in mixed company. With politics, religion, and sex usually on the taboo list, most women feel pretty safe talking about diets and their crow’s feet in just about any social situation. We figure that others can relate. Doesn’t everyone want to change themselves?

I suspect it also has to do with a key element in the way that women relate to one another. Ever cautious to come across as conceited or, heaven forbid, powerful, women use fat-talk, old-talk, and other self-deprecating talk in a delicate social dance. The dance says, “Don’t worry. I don’t like myself and I’m flawed. I’m not a threat, so you can trust and connect with me.”

Well, I personally think this dance is a little outdated. I’d like to see women establish connection in other ways, ones that don’t require negative self-evaluation. I don’t think it’s necessary to complain about my thighs or my sagging breasts in order to generate rapport with someone. I know this because I’ve focused on not doing it over the past several years (since learning more about fat-talk) and have managed to find plenty of things to talk about in groups of women.

So my challenge to readers is to do the same. See if you can’t go an entire day – or week – without fat, old, or negative self-talk. When you’re interacting with other women, share what you love about yourself or something that recently made you proud. Can you imagine the revolution that would transpire if we all committed to doing this? We’d feel better about ourselves and promote others in feeling better about themselves as well.

Now that’s the kind of talk I like to hear.

I’m quite sure that over the course of our lives, my son is going to teach me quite a lot. He already had, before he was even a part of this world.

Even with a mother who is a well-trained psychologist with a speciality in eating issues, he’s reminding that it’s he who’s the expert on his own eating.

I’ve been saying for years that we need to get back to our own intuitive sense of what is right for our bodies. That we need to listen to our hunger and fullness cues, the ones that McDonald’s and The Biggest Loser and the rest of our culture have tried to preempt. That once upon a time, as children, we knew what we needed.

And I’m going to be really honest with you here. When my son started having some feeding issues, I let what I know to be true fly out the window for a moment. When the professionals told me that a typical baby only eats about 2-3 oz. of milk at a feeding, and my son wanted more, I assumed something was wrong.

Am I overfeeding him? Do I not know how to read his hunger signals? Am I making him dependent on food to fall asleep? Is he missing his satiety hormones and I’m going to keep giving him milk and he’s going to get ill?

We’ll chock this up to a combination of post-baby hormones, sleep deprivation, and the vulnerability of new motherhood.

Fortunately, I encountered a smart pediatrician who looked at me during one of our many visits and said, “Screw what those other people say. This is your kid. If he’s hungry, feed him.”

Duh, mom.

It unfortunately took that reality check to snap me back into my own truth. We are all born with a natural sense of what our bodies need to flourish. Nature doesn’t want us to eat too much or too little. It wants us to grow into the size and shape that’s right for us – and that takes eating as much as is right for us. Not as much as some “expert” tells us is the right amount. If we can cut through all the static, we are our own experts.

My three-week old son reminded me of that. He’s pretty darn smart in his old age.

Do you trust your body to tell you how much too eat? If not, when did you lose that trust? 

Today, Tayla Anne is tackling a big topic — what happens when you feel guilty for trying to take care of yourself? Read on…

{image via pinterest}

With all that we hear about loving ourselves and doing what is best for ourselves, one question always comes to my mind that can be hard to answer.

“Won’t I be considered selfish or stuck up if I focus on myself?”

Or is other words, it can feel weird to treat yourself and take the time to better yourself; you might even think others will judge you in the wrong way for doing so.

Well first off, it doesn’t matter if people are going to judge you or not. But I went through the exact same thing when I began my journey towards self-love. The people around me just didn’t get it at first. They didn’t understand my reasoning for trying hard to take care of my own needs, and I wound up feeling self-centered and guilty.

As an example, when my boyfriend asked me once to go to a party with him and his friends, I said no for the first time. I said no because I knew I didn’t want to go and it wasn’t the best thing for me at the time. And he got mad at me, asking what was wrong with me and why I’d make that choice. But after I stood up for myself and explained it to him, he realized that what I was doing was good for me.

I was listening to my gut, my heart.

I know it can be hard to stand up for yourself, especially when you are just beginning this journey. You might feel like you don’t deserve even your own love, but trust me; the best gift you can give to not only yourself, but others as well, is self-love.

By loving who you are, you free yourself and are able to give others the best of you, all while at the same time giving them the inspiration to do the same.

Steps to getting over your guilt about loving yourself:

1. Find your reason. What is your reason behind trying to love yourself? Have you been constantly beating yourself up and realize it needs to stop? Or are you just trying to be a better version of yourself? Whatever the reason, find it and own it. When people are able to put reasoning to your logic, they become more accepting.
2. Have faith in your decision. If you are wishy-washy and can’t seem to keep your self-love commitment, other people won’t either. You have to believe in yourself before others can really appreciate this choice. By showing yourself and others that you are serious, you become much stronger in your decision and other people will respect that.
3. Ask yourself these questions. Why am I feeling guilty? What is it that makes me feel this way? Where do these feelings come from? What am I gaining from having these thoughts, feelings? How can I let this guilt go? By asking questions like these and really digging deep, you’ll be able to figure out the root of your guilt – and hopefully move past it.
4. Stop caring. People are always going to judge you or find something wrong with your decisions. There’s simply no way around it. Some will accept you and others won’t, and that is okay. Aim to improve yourself first and foremost instead of aiming to please others. Remember that other people’s thoughts and opinions have nothing to do with you — it’s their problem.
5. Teach to others. If other people are so concerned with you and can’t understand this self -love thing, it could be a major sign that they need it too. And you are the perfect one to teach them and to help them see their worth! When I was progressing in my own self-love journey, I also began sharing my ideas with my mom and boyfriend, giving them advice to love themselves and focus on themselves more. It was subtle but effective; they both began to see where I was coming from.

The most important thing to remember when beginning this adventure is to trust yourself, be true to your heart, and let go of the opinions of others. One day they’ll see how beautiful and amazing you are by just by being yourself and they’ll get it. Just give it time and focus on yourself.

It’s worth it.

Tayla Anne is an inspiring writer, artist and self love activist. After eight years of struggling with anorexia she was able to break the chains and find freedom by learning to fall in love with herself and accepting her body. She continues to share her experience and provide hope to others at her personal blog, She’ll Be Free.