"Just Love Your Body" is Really Bad Advice

It’s a silly concept to me that one should be completely enamored with every part of their exterior; that they should admire their stretch marks, because they’re “tiger stripes” 🙄.

We can’t slather cheesy, bullshit quotes on deeply rooted issues and expect everything to be resolved. That’s just another way to bypass what’s really going on and remain naive to the problems.

There’s so much involved with body image that it’s insulting to give watered down advice. The idea that healing just means you need to love all of you is destructive and missing multiple parts.

Besides, what happens when you don’t love your stretch marks? When that quote doesn’t fix how you feel? Does it mean you don’t fully love yourself yet? Does it mean your failing at self-love? Does it mean you’re broken?

First and foremost, there’s this powerful space that sits between love and hate: neutrality.

To be neutral about something is to be okay with it, to not have any feelings or stories about it, to accept it for what it is.

But it doesn’t even stop here.

There’s more pieces then just acceptance. It’s also digging to the root of why you feel unworthy for having them...where these conditioned stories comes from.

Through that exploration, you’ll discover how much of it is entrenched in political crisis and cultural scripts designed to make women feel small and inadequate.

It has nothing to do with loving how you look. It’s this notion that your worth and happiness and success is contingent on your appearance.

It has more to do with taking back your autonomy, your rights, your power, your worth, and of course, realizing you’re more than your body.

There’s so much here to unpack and it’s not a simple light switch. Healing takes work, energy, digging, exploring, and time—lots of time, so give yourself plenty.