How To Love Your Body And Nurture Yourself Better

Starting from reading this simple title statement to realizing that most of us are guilty of prioritizing all other aspects of life before we think about taking care of our body in the midst of a pandemic sounds alarming at the very least. Either we beat ourselves up, compare ourselves to others or have very high standards set for ourselves even before we start thinking about showing compassion towards our body. Since this becomes too overwhelming for most of us to face, we go back to living our lives, postponing this for a better time that never arrives.

Imagine defining your relationship with your partner as one where you spend some time with them and do things for them regularly. That can never come close to describing a healthy relationship. In the same way, developing a loving relationship with one’s body does not only include exercising regularly, losing weight, and eating healthy. It sounds mechanical, and one tends to lose interest rather quickly when they are somehow not able to do these things.

Here are some ways to develop a nurturing long-lasting relationship with your body.

Awareness of Barriers

Before starting a new relationship, we always try to deal with our baggage from the past. Exactly the same way, it becomes helpful to know our own landmines and special forms of how we criticize and doubt ourselves. Is our ideal body image coming from a childhood history of bullying, rejection or perhaps a critical parent/relative that left us feeling not good enough? Sometimes that could have led us to develop a habit of criticizing our own selves.

Understanding the source of our own baggage helps us shift these patterns from repeating themselves and brings our attention to what we needed. It could be acceptance, acknowledgment or love.

Practice Self-Compassion

Having an inner critic can be emotionally very exhausting. It becomes important to feel the pain that the critical part of ourselves constantly inflicts onto us, in order to be kinder to ourselves. Taking some time to become aware of this doubting inner voice and offering kindness to the suffering you’re experiencing, eventually helps us move towards a space of acceptance.

Listen to your Bodily-Felt Sense

Take a few minutes every day to bring your attention inwards into your body and notice the physical sensation that is happening in the moment. With a patient and waiting attitude, try to notice what emerges and stay with the whole feeling. If possible, try to find an image/word that accurately fits this feeling. Once you have that, ask yourself what this sensation/feeling wants or what it needs.

Now imagine describing your relationship with your partner as understanding their vulnerabilities, being loving and compassionate towards them, and cultivating a receptive attitude with good listening skills. These practices help develop self-awareness, emotional healing, and a nurturing relationship with one’s body, that will automatically nudge you towards a healthier lifestyle.