When You Can’t Stop Hating Your Body…

I have a rant today about the wedding industry. (I promise this is related to hating your body 🙂 ).

So I’m getting my wedding dress fitted today.

And it’s bringing up a TON of old crap and the “thinner, trimmer, and smaller” body thoughts.

I googled “love yourself in a wedding dress” and I found about 1,000 articles on “do’s and don’ts of buying a dress”, “mistakes not to make when getting your wedding gown”, and “secrets to love your dress”.

I found ONE Pinterest board link with “love yourself in a dress” and it was photos of plus-size wedding dresses.

C’mon google; you can’t give me ONE article that says “screw you” to the body perfection we’re supposed to buy into with a wedding dress?!

Here’s why I’m fired up:

Because I’ve been “working” on my food and body stuff for well over a decade.

And if I’M getting sucked into the “I’ve gotta be thinner, smaller and more perfect” for my wedding day, then what is the average woman thinking?!

Look at any bridal magazine and you’ll see picture perfect images of white, super thin women in dresses.

Where’s the diversity in color, size, and shape?

If the only image we see out there is this image of a “perfect bride”, how do we not succumb to this idea that we’re somehow supposed to look like that? (Even if we know intellectually that it’s photo-shopped).

Here are some of the sneaky little thoughts I’ve had in the past week…

Should I cut out carbs before I get my dress fitted?

My stomach sticks out in my dress. I should “do” something about that.

I need to get a pair of Spanxx to hide the parts that aren’t “perfect”.

And the best one…

I should do a juice and veggie cleanse! (After my friend told me she lost 8 pounds on this cleanse she was doing).

The thing is…I refuse to ever cut anything out again. I spent 13 years of my life restricting and that is enough for many lifetimes 😉

So what’s the alternative?

If I’m not dieting, if I know I won’t cut out carbs, do a juice fast, or try any cleanse to “trim up” for my wedding day, what’s left to do?

(Isn’t that the million dollar question?!) 🙂

When you know dieting isn’t for you and are completely (or almost completely) over it, then what do you do?

Usually we are dieting because of this basic thought/belief:

We hate our bodies and want them to change.

So how do we change that if we aren’t dieting?

Here’s how:

We change FIRST from the inside.

This is counter-intuitive to everything the diet industry tells us.

There will NEVER be a time when we’ve arrived, we look in the mirror and we say “yep, done, my body is perfect and I feel acceptable”.

It will never happen (trust me, I’ve tried 15, 000 times over the years 🙂 )

So instead of banging our heads against the wall, trying the same thing over and over, we do something radically different.

We change the eyes with which we see our bodies.

We understand that we have that critical, judgmental voice within us, but we also have a loving, accepting voice within us.

Slowly, over time, we let that loving voice speak louder and louder.

Yes, of course the old voice will still rear its ugly head from time to time (like mine is doing now!). But we can recognize that, close our eyes, take a deep breath and re-connect with that other voice.

We look at ourselves and our bodies with new eyes. The eyes that we look at a loved one with. The eyes of our soul. The eyes of pure love 🙂 

That’s when magic happens…because our aceeptance is no longer dependent on something external.

We find that a simple shift of our we perceive ourselves completely changes what we see.

We change from the inside first. And then how we see the outer changes on it’s own.

So I’m heading off to my fitting and am reminding myself of this right alongside you 🙂

Can you change the eyes with which you see yourself today?