Do you Dislike or even Hate your Body? Start Here. Body Hate, Tolerance, and Respect.

Imagine stepping into a space where the battle you wage against your body can finally cease. Picture the freedom of loving and respecting your body, without the need to constantly meet society's impossible standards. This conversation revolves around body respect and the journey from body hate. We discuss the harmful effects of shame, which is often planted in us as children, and the destructive cycle it creates. We delve into guilt, shame, and how they feed addictive behaviors that keep you locked in a downward spiral of self-loathing. But there's hope; empathy is a powerful tool in overcoming body shame.

This conversation isn't about magically flipping a switch from body hate to body respect. We understand the difficulty of breaking free from deeply ingrained negative feelings towards our bodies. Instead, we introduce the concept of neuroplasticity, explaining how you can rewire your brain to foster new pathways of thinking. We discuss how treating the anxious and hateful parts of ourselves with compassion and respect can help us transition towards body respect. It's not about liking your body all the time, but rather accepting, tolerating, and respecting it. This is the first step towards fostering a loving relationship with your body.

We also explore the concept of body tolerance, which involves enduring and accepting our bodies' appearance, size, and perceived imperfections, without self-criticism or harmful behaviors. We discuss the role of societal pressure in cultivating body hate and how it's possible to build relationships based on respect, not shame or disrespect. Through this thought-provoking conversation, we aim to empower you to open doors to body respect for yourself. Join us, and take the first step towards a more confident and loving relationship with yourself.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today we're going to talk about body hate and moving into body respect. Take care of yourself around this episode. Of course, these are tough topics. It's not easy to talk about body hate and I really want you to check in and to take care of yourself. But I want to discuss body hate because I want to raise awareness about it and open up the opportunity for having more body neutrality and moving into body respect.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Okay so, because we wanted to move into body respect and body trust, body hate is just really important to talk about and you can call it body hate, body disgust, body loathing, body shame, body dislike whatever feels like it relates most to you and your relationship with your body. So when you think of body trust or body respect, body acceptance I do want to name that. You might respond with something like how do I respect my body, how do I respect and accept something I hate, that I dislike, that I find gross? Why in the world would I accept this body? And I just want to validate that. I understand that that makes sense and I just want to invite you to listen and have an open mind as we move through this podcast today. So, of course, shame and hate is really promoted for our bodies and it's promoted everywhere. I get that. There's endless examples I can give, from weight stigma at the doctor's office to fat shaming in the movies, to relentless bullying you may have experienced. It's everywhere. We are shown this in diet ads. I mean it's everywhere and it's really ingrained into us. From a very young age we start seeing these ads, these movies, these books, one type of body portrayed as the ideal body. So I want to start by saying it's okay and quite normal, unfortunately, that you wish your body were different and that you don't like your body, and you don't have to feel guilty about this. We really, we really want to give ourselves self compassion throughout this process. You don't have to not want that and it's okay to want a different body. Just let it be there.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Given our culture, which we talk about on other episodes and will continue to talk about, it's very natural to strive for a different body or version of yourself, and all the striving you've done has, of course, created this hatred of your body and this pent up frustration and stuckness, and I want to tell you my heart goes out to you. I am thinking of you and just again, take care of yourself throughout this episode. So, as we move into this conversation, I want to ask you how have you been promoted and showed and have learned that it is something that you should do? Hate your body and shame your body. Where have you seen and heard that body hates and that body shame? Now the second question and the next thing I want you to reflect on is the question when has shame worked for you? When has hate worked for you? You may say it works for you by keeping your body in check, maybe helping you to avoid certain kind of criticism, feeling more safe. There's a lot of reasons why you may feel that shame and hate towards your body has served you in some way, but I want to ask you about the repercussions of this and how long did it work? How was it actually solving the problem underneath? Is there a better way to solve this problem, a more appropriate response or a more, I guess, healthy and compassionate one that serves that need that you have underneath the surface of body image or in disguise of body hate? And as we're discussing this again, I know a lot of emotions may be coming up. It's a really hard pill to swallow, but if hating our bodies into loving our bodies were the answer, many of us would have been able to cultivate a better body image by now. But the thing is, disrespecting or hating our bodies is never going to create a more respectful, accepting and loving relationship with our body, because hate fosters hate, hate begets hate. It's time to try something different, and we really often falsely believe we can cultivate this better body image just through hating our body into change. Reality is that shame is the worst motivator. Research shows it just does not work and that we need another way.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Let's dive into just a bit of the shame research. So first, the difference between shame and guilt. I want to just go over that a little bit. So there tends to be a pretty dramatic difference between guilt and shame, and so, for example, when we feel guilty or we feel regretful, we can move towards problem solving and repairing the harm that was caused. And it's good to have that guilt to say I feel bad about doing that. I don't want to do that again. Next time I'm gonna do this differently. I feel sorry for that. But in contrast, when we, when we feel shame or shamed by our environment, we think I am bad. So instead of guilt, feeling like I maybe did something bad. You are saying I am bad, so that is the difference. And unfortunately, that thought is really followed by I'm bad. So why try to change? Or I'm bad and therefore I can't change, or I'm bad and I need to hide.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Shame causes people to withdraw, go inward and feel hopeless. So research has shown us time and time again is that shame and, you know, our relationship with food and body in an addictive way, with our different behaviors around food and body, are really like a potential lethal combination because they fuel each other. And when it comes to behavior change, we know that shaming someone tends to do the exact opposite of encouraging change it shuts them down. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders and, as Brené Brown has mentioned before, shame really thrives in secrecy, in that judgment, in silence. And if shame were in this petri dish with secrecy, silence and judgment, that shame would grow. So the the answer to shame is going to be empathy and in that way shame would never survive. So we're gonna talk more about that here in a second, when we get to respect.

Speaker 1: 7:14

But going back to shame and how shame is a worst motivator and how shaming your body into change, shaming your body into respect, any kind of just shame, disrespect and hate toward your body. Research shows it is not going to work. But who cares what the research says? I want to ask you what do you think? Do you think shame and hate has worked for you? And again, going back to that activity in those questions in the beginning, if you do say that has worked, I want to ask you to dive more into that and ask yourself how has it worked? Has it worked in the ways that are sustainable, that are compassionate, that are aligned with your values? Get very, very clear on that, because we don't want to be falsely guided by this idea that shame has worked and again, we can acknowledge and show some gratitude for the ways that it may have helped you in your life. But we really want to become aware of where it's bringing us and if it's actually going to bring us to where we want to go and solving the problem. We actually want to solve A great activity and discussion that we're not going to get into right now.

Speaker 1: 8:26

But when it comes to body hate, it's really helpful to do what's called internal family systems and, in parts, work, and you can do this with your therapist. There's some good books on this where you can learn a little bit more. It's really going to be helpful to get familiar with that part of you that feels that hate, that feels that shame and is really holding tightly on to that, and get familiar with that part, to learn more about it, ask it why it's sticking around, what it's trying to do, what it's trying to protect us from, and speak compassionately to it. All parts of us are just trying to take care of us, so we want to reduce any shame around or just any like. We want to allow it to speak. So we can't. We have to invite it in compassionately so we can learn more about it and understand that part of us and how it's trying to protect us. So if you didn't understand that, that's absolutely okay. It is a little bit of a. It's a different topic. And if you don't understand parts work, that might not have made sense, but that is a very, very helpful thing to do and I maybe I'll do an episode here on parts work at some point soon.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Okay, so now that we we spoke about body hates just a bit, I want to introduce the transition of letting body hates or body discuss dislike be there for now, while we practice respect. And I want to start talking about opening up our to a different reality and an alternative solution, because body hates not serving us. We have seen time and time again in the research that shame does not work. So while we can't totally get rid of it and it's still gonna sit there, I want to ask you if you can just let shame be there, let body hate be there, and ask yourself can we still practice some respect? Can we practice some acceptance and respect for our bodies, so that we can open up these opportunities for more acceptance and toleration and respect around food and around our bodies? Okay, let's sit in both places. We can hold both of those things at once.

Speaker 1: 10:43

A few good body talk reframes that I like is when you're saying I hate my body. Can we replace that with I hate my body and I can practice choosing to respect it at the same time. Can you hold those two things at once? Can you change it to hey, I am learning that liking the way I look and respecting it are two different things. Can you open yourself up to that idea? So again, let's let hate, dislike and disgust be there for right now and don't fight it away. Let's let it sit there and understand why it's there so we can understand how to reduce it. They really need to exist at the same time that hate, dislike, disgust and that respect. They need to exist at the same time. You need to bring in respect while those are there, because if you wait for those to be gone, it is you're never going to be able to get there, because it's the respect that opens up the doors for getting rid of hate, dislike and disgust. Okay, so I'm gonna explain that a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Remember neuroplasticity that we have chatted about in previous episodes. Well, we can't simply get rid of the hate, disgust and dislike because those are highways, like, built into our brains and we don't have new pathways that we can take. We don't have those pathways in our brain that are where respect and automatic respect and being able to go down those highways. They're just not in our brain yet. We need to create those new paths in our brain. Okay, that's neuroplasticity, that's the science of changing our brain. We can't wait to rebuild. Once we start quote, unquote liking it, we have to go back to breaking down and building up.

Speaker 1: 12:35

So this metaphor something I use a lot with clients. And this is the idea that at the same time as you're building this like new house, this new relationship with your body, you're also gonna be breaking down the old house at the same time. But if we break down the house and don't wait to build the house until we're done breaking down the house, we're gonna have nowhere to live. We have to do it at the same time. So you're gonna be breaking down your old relationship with food and body while you're building up a new relationship with food and body. So try and sit with this idea that maybe it's not about loving or even liking my body right now. Maybe I can sit with this hate while I build these new neural pathways and this new house. That is my new relationship with food and body. And this is probably the hardest thing to drop. It's the last thing anyone will tell you about body image. If you wanna turn around and I know you might not like that idea and that is okay this can be a seed planted today that you can come back to. You do not have to move forward with this, but and you can always come back when you're ready but talk to that anxious part and that hate part and listen to it when you're in that pre-contemplation stage and you wanna make sure it has to feel a bit comfortable to move into this space, because it's not gonna let go until it feels a little bit comfortable. So let's ask ourselves if you are ready. Maybe can I find a more neutral and respectful place in space. Do I want that? Let's notice, when we ask that question to ourself, all the parts that are speaking to us, the part that wants to listen to this podcast, the part that hates listening to this podcast, the part that's glaring at me through this audio, understandably. So let's just have all parts be there, okay, as we move into this conversation.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Body acceptance, toleration and respect while we don't love our body, is super challenging. It's super challenging for someone to engage in. It's super challenging as a new idea for nearly everyone I work with, because it's threatening. We have been brainwashed daily, really since we were really little, to feel deep shame about our size, our appearance. So even entertaining the mere thought of allowing ourselves to treat our body nicely while we hate it, or let go of the thought of hating it, or speaking or breathing a word of body acceptance and kindness, is gonna feel totally wrong because you've been telling yourself and hearing it for a long time that it is wrong. You've been internalizing those messages and reinforcing those neural pathways and I just wanna give you a little bit of, I guess, community or feeling not alone in it by saying this is super, super common for people to feel this way and kind of be in this tug of war with wanting to go there but being very afraid and feeling like they can't move into body respect. But I want you to choose compassion and respect right now over liking your body, because this is going to open up so many doors.

Speaker 1: 15:41

The reality is that we can both hate our bodies and learn to tolerate it while also practicing body respect. We can't wait to respect our bodies only once we stop having negative thoughts about it. That's going to be forever. When it's going to take forever. The only way to start making these thoughts less prevalent and automatic is to stop feeding them and to start practicing body respect. Even when we don't think kindly of our body, even when we don't think kindly of our body, we are trying to show respect to it. We can begin being kinder to our body, give it the nourishment, the self-care and the kind words it deserves, and you don't have to love or like your body in order to respect it. That's just a fact. You can respect it even though you do not like it. We can be uncomfortable in our bodies and fuel it with food when it's hungry. We can hate the way our bodies look and dress it in clothes that feel comfortable. We can feel resentment and hate towards our bodies and choose not to shame them in the mirror. We can not like our bodies and still wear bathing suits so we can have memories swimming with our friends and family.

Speaker 1: 16:49

You don't have to like your body to have confidence, to feel empowered, to feel safe, to feel in control, to emotionally regulate, to live a full life, to respect and listen to your body, to enjoy the things you love, to grow, to have fulfilling relationships to date, to enjoy things, to cope, to give yourself permission to follow your dreams, to live out your values or any other prerequisite to living your life. You don't have to like your body. The first step is going to be building respect for it. And guess what happens when you start to build respect? It opens up a ton of doors of body acceptance, body like, body love and body confidence. Liking your body is not a prerequisite for anything in your life, and when I say that, I mean you can learn to let go of that idea and start to grow ideas around and about your body that are more neutral, as you hold hope that this could bring acceptance and respect. And I'm not telling you to stop hating your body or to love your body. I'm asking you to respect it and hold hope that respect is the very thing that will bring more acceptance, more trust, even like or love for your body. It's on the other side of respect that these opportunities lie for a new relationship with confidence and love for your body. It's on the other side of respect, but most people don't know that because they don't know how to get there or they're too afraid to get there, and this ultimately really can open up so many doors in our relationship with our body this part that's so scary, which is allowing body hate to be there while we still practice respect, and it closes the door on so much. And I get it. It's very scary. I've met many clients who feel this is very scary, and it was very scary for my own relationship with my body, and I want you to sit with us a bit. Maybe consider closing your eyes and reflecting Body respect helps create more moments of body toleration and body acceptance.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Practicing body respect opens doors to a growing relationship with your body. Many times, practicing body respect is put off and thought of as a practice to be done only once we'd like tolerate or accept our body. We cannot disrespect our body into body tolerance, though we send very strong messages when we treat it with disrespect. Respecting it, despite how we feel about it, can be very uncomfortable. It takes a lot of patience and trust to sit with those feelings of discomfort as we choose respect over disrespect, and that's going to go against the narrow pathways in our brain that we've been really reinforcing. But over time we increase our window of tolerance. By sitting with this discomfort, our minds wire. Practicing respect becomes more natural and respect opens up moments of neutrality and tolerance and so much more.

Speaker 1: 19:33

So how can we choose to both sit with these feelings of dislike toward our body and choose to respect it? We need to start here to make some necessary changes on our brain, and they may be hard to access, and that's why I'm trying to model how we might be changing the conversation with ourselves. So, the idea of body tolerance let's move into this and, of course, we know what tolerance means. It means to be able to sit with and, you know, endure something that we don't like and having some toleration for it. Body tolerance is a crucial step in the journey towards body respect and acceptance, because we want to be able to at least tolerate our body when we're practicing respect. And it does involve this ability to practicing allowing ourselves to tolerate our body as we navigate these challenging emotions and behavior changes associated with body image and food freedom right. So, as mentioned, toleration defined refers to the ability or willingness to accept the existence of these opinions or behaviors that we're not, we can't necessarily agree with at the moment. And similarly, body tolerance entails developing the capacity to endure and accept our body's appearance, size and perceived imperfections, without having adverse reactions or engaging in self-criticism or harmful behaviors.

Speaker 1: 20:59

When we struggle with body dissatisfaction or even feelings of hatred toward our body, cultivating body tolerance becomes essential. It means acknowledging that we don't have to love every aspect right away, but we can work toward developing a more non-judgmental stance, and it allows us to move through this challenging journey with patience and more self-compassion. It really serves as a foundation for body respect and acceptance, and by practicing tolerance, we learn to let go of those harsh judgments and create space for a healthy relationship with our bodies and, as mentioned, it expands that window of tolerance, the range in which we can comfortably navigate body image and the emotions and everything that comes around with it. We're able to sit with it with less distress, the more and more we are able to tolerate and practice respect and we can shift towards a place where more doors are opening for us that allow us to embrace our bodies more, recognize their unique abilities and strength, consider us a whole person and not be hyper-focused on our body, build body confidence and just. It helps us to break free from tearing ourselves down, constantly weighing ourselves, and helps us to foster a more positive and compassionate relationship with ourselves. Ultimately, it just plays a such a crucial role in body image and, as mentioned, it's the first step that you need to take when you're in body hate, because allowing body respect to come in more is the door to open up so many other doors. Body respect really is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth step all the steps in between to continuing to build a more confident and loving relationship with our bodies. We're able to feel accepting of our bodies, we're able to feel trusting of our bodies, we feel confident in our bodies. We're not hiding our bodies. Body respect is where it's at.

Speaker 1: 23:10

So, now that we spoke about body hate, body tolerance, we're gonna end with body respect. So if you're listening to this podcast, it's very likely that you struggle with body disrespect. So you're dieting, you're not listening to it, you're restricting, you're shaming it, you're criticizing it in a mirror, you are watching it. Every move, right. Those are disrespect and that is what is. Keeping those pathways of my body is not good enough. I should hate my body, all those body hates. It keeps it in your brain because you're reinforcing it with your behaviors by disrespecting it, and so that's super, super tough. So we need to start with toleration, as I mentioned. We need to go for that, from that transition of allowing body hate to be there, and start to tolerate, so we can open up body respect and get rid of those disrespectful behaviors that are really really keeping us stuck.

Speaker 1: 24:03

So what does respect mean? Well, the definition. So, as a noun, it's a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievement. Or, as a verb, it means to admire someone or something deeply as a result of their abilities, qualities or achievement. And again, another reminder, when we're starting to talk about body respect, you do not have to like your body to respect it. You can show respect regardless of your view of your appearance, and think of a relationship. I want you to think of a relationship. Okay, this might help you In a relationship. You might not like that other person, you might just not be super fond, can you still respect that person Absolutely, and what might that allow you to do? If you're practicing respect, maybe it will allow you to get closer, to understand each other and maybe even develop more feelings of like and love and appreciation of that person. But you don't have to like that person to get there.

Speaker 1: 25:05

So why is body respect so important? Why is body respect, as I mentioned earlier, the first step, last step and all the steps in between, and why does it have to come first? Well, that is because respect is what is going to get rid of those. It's gonna. First of all, respect is, if you're respecting your body, you're taking care of it so it can better exist in the world. It will be able to take care of itself. It will be getting consistent food. It will be, not be beaten down every day in the mirror so it can allow, we can allow it to exist and feel good, feel nourished enough.

Speaker 1: 25:44

When we stop disrespecting it Also, when we start respecting it, we break out of this vicious cycle of disrespect and distrust that is keeping us in body hate. And let me explain this cycle in an audio way, because you can't see this graphic that I usually share with people. So this vicious cycle of disrespecting and distrusting our body what happens? So we disrespect our body through restriction, diets over exercise, jumping on the scale all the time, just keeping it in check, hiding it, not allowing it to do things that we want to do. So any way of disrespect, just pick one that resonates most with you and this disrespect and this distrust causes us to completely ignore our body. It causes us to question and blame our body.

Speaker 1: 26:40

And then when we do this, when we ignore our body, we're not listening to its cues or how it's feeling. Right, it's hunger cues, or it's cues saying, hey, I don't like to be shamed, whatever the cues might be. Then we're unable to give it what it needs and it wants because we're ignoring what it's telling us. We completely break that line of communication, by ignoring it and by doing that, you're going to feel disconnected and disempowered with your body. You're going to feel totally out of tune and when that happens you don't know how to take care of it. And then you're not feeling good overall and the body starts to react to the body disrespect right, it turns off those cues. It doesn't quote, unquote cooperate with you. You have no means of communication. And so what do you do? You blame your body, you shame your body and you disrespect your body more and you consistently go around in this circle.

Speaker 1: 27:38

And that's because going full circle back to the start of this podcast is that through body hate, with body hate, with body disrespect, what happens is you are trying to get to a better relationship with food and body through disrespect, through shame, and that does not work. You cannot have a healthy, happy relationship with food and body, with that's confident and that feels good if it is built and being built on shame and disrespect and distrust. How do you build a trusting relationship with distrust? How do you build a compassionate relationship with shame? How do you build a respectful relationship with disrespect? You simply can't. It's just going to bring more of what you used to build it.

Speaker 1: 28:29

So, if you're using disrespect and hate and shame, that's the kind of relationship you're going to move toward with it, though, because those are the building blocks you're using, and so that is why respect is the beginning, starter, place, the middle and all the things in between, to start to open that door that you desire so much of body confidence, of liking your body, of not feeling like you have to hide your body, of wanting to celebrate your body. It starts with respect, and this is why it's so difficult in our society, because everywhere it's saying to get that, to achieve that, you need to go on this diet, you need to restrict your calories, you need to look like this ideal body, which is going to take you in the exact opposite direction and bring even more baggage. Okay, that was a lot, and I know it's a lot to listen to, but I'm so proud of you for being here, and I'm so excited for you for being here because you're opening doors by just listening to this podcast, so I'm so proud of you. Alright, with that, I will let you go here. I'm, again, deeply proud of you.

Speaker 1: 29:32

This is a hard conversation. Please take this into maybe the rest of your week and contemplate, relisten journal about it and ask yourself can I start practicing this? Just do the steps that feel the best for you. You can take really small steps, but ask yourself am I willing to do this? Do I want to do this? Check in with that shaming part and just start to open the door to this opportunity for yourself to practice more body respect, because I'm telling you there's lots of awesome stuff on the other side. Okay, super proud of you and we will chat soon in the next podcast.