Is Body Love a Pipe Dream?

I have been actively healing my body image for 10 years. A decade of trial and error, of affirmations and reframing my toxic self-talk, you name it, I’ve tried it. Ten years of trying to take the sting out of my body noise and yet, my brain still spits out that venom way more than I would like.

So if I am still bombarded with these nasty thoughts about myself, all these years down the track, you gotta wonder, is body love simply a fantasy?

The Struggle with Body Love

A few years ago, I would regularly find myself in a shame spiral for still having these thoughts about my body. What a hypocrite I am. If only they knew. Where do I get off charging people their hard-earned cash when I am still on struggle street myself? My noise about my noise just added to the vortex of self-abuse. Let me spoil the ending early, the further I lean into the discomfort of my ongoing struggles, the closer to freedom I become.

Undoubtedly one of the best lessons I have learned on this beautiful, sometimes terrifying, always enlightening body image healing adventure is defining what body love means to me. What it means to be free from my body noise and another spoiler—it’s not about getting rid of it.

Redefining Body Love

For many of my clients, the idea of body love is so far out of reach it IS a fantasy. Love my body? Hell, Kate, I don’t like my body, let alone love it. Which prompts me to dig a little deeper:

• Do you believe body love to be a destination where you love every lump and bump and curve and stretch mark?
• Does body love mean you dance on social media in your bikini, embracing your jiggly, wobbly bits?
• Does body love mean never having a negative thought or a BBID (bad body image day)?
• Does it require you to rate yourself a 10 and feel that you are the most attractive person in the room?

Then I would say no. Body love is not possible for you, and this is why.

The longer I do my own body image work and support others to do the same, the clearer one thing becomes. To loosen the grip of body noise that plays on repeat in our hearts and minds, we need to dig a whole lot deeper than love your imperfections or reframe your challenging thoughts.

The Impact of Societal Messages

Your body isn’t actually what has led to your body dissatisfaction. Wild huh! It’s the messages you (and I) have absorbed as fact alongside the forever evolving ideal of what we’re supposed to look like.

Everywhere we turn, we are told directly and indirectly that our bodies are wrong. We used to take fat from our bum and inject it into our boobs; now we take fat from our belly and inject it into our bum or our lips or whatever else is on trend this month.

The opinions of loved ones remind us our bodies are too fat or too thin. Too muscly or too soft. They are too old or scarred or broken. We get told by health professionals our healthy bodies are unhealthy based on their size or BMI and that if we don’t contort our body to fit the mold, we are destined for life-limiting illness.

We get told or hear others' judgments that we don’t have the figure for that outfit or maybe that we are mutton dressed as lamb. In the world that we live in and the diet culture that we swim in, our bodies have become a problem to be solved.

It actually doesn’t matter who you are or what your body looks like; it’s impossible to love a body that you don’t feel safe in. A body that hasn’t been solved yet. Most definitely, people living in larger bodies are impacted exponentially by weight stigma and bias, but it affects all of us.

The world is built for certain-sized bodies, and if your body happens to fall outside those very narrow ideals, it can be impossibly hard to feel welcome here. It’s no wonder people dedicate their whole lives to fixing their ‘broken’ body, following every fad diet and next best thing, however extreme, to lose the weight… it’ll be for good this time though! My goodness, do I understand why people dedicate their whole life to fixing their flaws.

Is Body Love a Pipedream?

So is body love a pipedream? Is it possible to love a body you have battled with for so long? 100% undoubtedly and completely yes. I know that because if it’s possible for me and my clients, it’s possible for you too. There’s a good chance you will need to redefine your definition of body love though.

For me, body love is in the actions I take to care for myself. It’s asking how I can be kind to my body today. It’s about nourishing with veggies and whole grains and Tim Tams and Pringles. It’s about moving my body joyfully most days in whatever flavor she asks for and lovingly resting when needed. It’s about choosing not to weigh myself every morning after a poo and a shower because of the impact that number can have on my brain space. It’s about knowing that catching up with my girlfriends is just as important for my health as green leafy veg, and that ‘no’ is a complete sentence.

For me, body love is a loud and ongoing acknowledgment of all the things my body facilitates every moment of every day and trusting her (after much repair work) to tell me what she needs. I have always been the expert of me; I just didn’t believe that 10 years ago.

Embracing a New Definition of Body Love

Body love is less about how you think you look and far more about knowing your body is worthy of love, care, and respect, and that she was never broken. You and your body have always been enough. It’s about finding comfort that even in a world that doesn’t always feel safe and accepting of me, I trust I can always come home to myself. I can always choose kindness and respect for my body, even when my brain farts out that well-known body noise.

We don’t have to despise our bodies, even when it feels like the world does. We can choose a different path than the one we have been led down our whole lives.

The systems and structures in place make loving our bodies really, really hard. Never forget that there are racial and patriarchal roots to body dissatisfaction that are so much more powerful than ‘loving the skin you’re in.’ AND, healing our relationship with our body and moving towards a kinder and more loving connection with her is unquestionably available to you.

Fair to say that’s a negatory on the body love pipe dream, friend. The only fantasy here is the idea that you can have the dream body that was never meant for you.

Is it challenging, slow, and uncomfortable to find body love? Absolutely. Is it worth it? Darling, you are worth every single painstaking second. Let me leave you with this little thought seed: If you were to redefine Body Love for yourself, how might that look for you?