What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “heal a body you hate?”
Uncomfortable with Your Physical Shape
Is it your size? Have you been working to make your body smaller, trimmer, curvier—something other than what it is currently so that others will love and appreciate it more? You have found yourself on a lifelong quest to change the body you’re in.
Frustrated with Your Never-ending Shifting Symptoms
Does betrayal come to mind? Maybe you’re dealing with a myriad of symptoms like anxiety, depression, brain fog, scatteredness, gut bloat and indigestion, inflammation, exhaustion and pain. Why can’t my body behave and let me have a week or two of peace? Why is it always something?
Living in a World of Shame and Regrets
Or is it how you think, act, and speak to yourself? Do you live in a state of regrets and embarrassment? Does rumination come knocking on the door just as you’re about to get to sleep to remind you of something that happened earlier in the day (or even a decade ago)?
You’re Not Alone
Regardless of which way that you’ve learned to struggle in your own skin, you’re not alone. Very few women have a positive relationship with themselves. Much of this is societal and systemic in our marketing and beauty standards, some of it has to do with how we were raised and the messaging we received when we were young and impressionable.
Do you believe you’re worthy? Do you have to work hard, achieve more, be perfect, and be in service to others constantly in order to cover up some imagined flaw or misfortune?
This strained relationship with your body, leading to negative self-talk and feelings of self-doubt.
But the good news is, there are steps you can take to heal this relationship and learn to love your body again. In this blog post, we’ll dive into our RESET process, a series of steps designed to help you regulate, educate, find safety, engage, and transform your relationship with your body.
You Can’t Heal a Body You Hate.
First, it’s impossible to heal a body we hate. It logistically cannot be done. Why?
Our bodies only heal in a state of what’s called “Rest and Digest” — or more formally, the parasympathetic state of the nervous system. It’s the state of the nervous system that monitors your blood pressure, breathing, blinking, internal organs, hair and nail growth, and so much more. This is the state of being we’re meant to live in most of the time (but often don’t!)
In our modern world, we tend to live in the other state of our nervous system, the “Fight or Flight”—or formally, the sympathetic nervous system.
Now, you might be wondering, “Well, I’ve lost weight even when I was super stressed.” But, did that weight come back? (That’s the window of tolerance at work.) And, forcing our bodies to lose weight isn’t health—it’s what’s been marketed to us as health.
The Definition of True Health
True health is understanding your triggers, where they come from, how to deal with them when they come up again (this is real life, you’re going to get triggered again!), along with managing your reactions and getting out of your own way to find happiness. This is your stress tolerance and mindset at work.
True health is also regulated blood sugars, balanced hormones, and a body that heals in short time.
It is possible to have both a positive mental outlook while your body works optimally.
All of these things—healing your mental, physical, and emotional triggers—are part and parcel of the same thing; When you learn how to hear your body for what it’s sharing with you, then how to transform your triggers into glimmers, the relationship you have with your body starts to evolve.
The Your Daily™ RESET Process to Healing a Body You Hate
We’ve been helping with women who are stuck in burnout and with autoimmune conditions who have had a lifetime hating their bodies heal not only their relationship with themselves, but their body and symptoms.
We call it the RESET Process and it’s outlined below to help you resolve a lifetime of hate and frustration with your body.
Regulate:
The first step in the RESET process is to regulate your body through somatic exercises. Somatic exercises are gentle movements that help release tension and stress from your body.
By tuning into your body’s sensations and learning how to move it in a safe and healthy way, you’ll start to feel more in control of your body and less at odds with it.
Educate:
The second step of our RESET process is education. Learning about the nervous system and the mind-body connection can help you understand how your thoughts and emotions affect your physical body. More specifically, where your triggers have come from, and how your childhood and caregivers have shaped your thinking and feeling patterns, and the sensitivity of your nervous system.
With a full 360 view of how your mind and body were shaped, you’ll be better equipped to change and reframe your way of thinking, which has a significant impact on your body’s emotions and sensations.
Safety:
To find safety in your body, you’ll need to learn to be neutral and non-judgmental toward yourself. Notice your triggers and get curious about where they come from. Instead of trying to squash or ignore them, allow yourself to sit with these feelings and investigate them. You’ll learn techniques to move through the uncomfortable sensations of sitting with feelings you’ve come to suppress or mask.
By doing so, you’ll start to create a safer environment within yourself, where you can begin to heal wounds and release old patterns.
Engage:
Once you’ve found safety, it’s time to engage with your body in a positive way. This involves creating new, healthy thoughts, patterns, and behaviors from your triggers. This step is all about cultivating self-love and empathy, creating a new narrative for yourself based on kindness and compassion.
Transformation:
The final step in our RESET process is to transform your relationship with your body. This involves clearing the energy around your triggers and moving through them to release them. By doing so, you’ll be able to move forward with a sense of freedom and empowerment, free from the shackles of negative self-talk and body shaming.
Putting the RESET Process into Practice
By working through each step in the RESET process, you’ll become more in tune with your body and learn to appreciate all that it does for you. You’ll go from bashing your body to marveling at all it does, and has done, for you.
This is a gentle process and is taken one step at a time so that as you’re learning and expanding, you stay within your window of tolerance so you don’t end up right back where you started from, or having a worse dip than where you started.
Learning to heal your relationship with your body is a journey, but by following the RESET process, it is possible to break free from negative thought patterns and find a renewed sense of confidence and self-love.
