How to Change the Way You See Your Body

Your value is not in your body or your appearance.

It’s a statement we hear over and over, right?

Most of us understand this idea intellectually. But it can be hard to accept on an emotional level, especially when our media-driven culture constantly tells us our value is in how we look.  

This was definitely true for my client Sophia. A 21-year-old art student, Sophia was convinced that she was unattractive. Since she didn’t fit into the media-cultural ideal of beauty, she didn’t think anyone would be interested in her romantically. And her negative self-image affected how potential partners responded to her. 

In one of our first sessions together, I asked Sophia what she loved most about her closest friends. Initially, she didn’t understand where my question was coming from.

“Their generosity,” she said finally, “the fact that I can rely on them. And that I can say absolutely anything, and I know they’ll love me no matter what.”

Sophia’s answer had nothing to do with the way her friends looked (Whenever I ask clients this question, they never cite appearance as someone’s most lovable trait).

As I pointed out to her, what she valued most in her relationships was how she connected with people on an emotional level.

“If that’s true,” she said, “then why does appearance feel so important?”

Why we care so much about our appearance

As I explained to Sophia, our concerns around appearance go back to the survival-oriented tendencies of our negative mind.

The better we look, the more likely we are to attract other people, especially people who might want to mate with us. This increases our chances to reproduce and live longer.

In other words, our survival instincts are what drive us to care so much about our appearance. But our instincts often don’t stop there. Sometimes they also push us to judge ourselves for caring about the way we look in the first place. 

So how can we break free from our negative thought patterns and learn to appreciate our bodies as they are? Let’s look at how Sophia did it.

Recognize Your Beauty

To help her change her internal programming, I asked Sophia to do an exercise that sounds simple in theory but can be tricky in practice: I told her to pause when she got out of the shower. Instead of looking in the mirror and picking out all the things she hated about her body (as so many of us do), I wanted her to choose at least one body part she liked and focus on it for a minute.

“If you truly want to change your negative thought patterns around your body,” I said. “You have to put your conscious intention into it. It’s not going to happen automatically.”

Over time, as she taught herself to focus on what she liked about her body, she started to appreciate it for what it was. 

As her perceptions about herself changed, people started to respond to her differently. For the first time in her life, she felt confident. Eventually, that confidence led to a romantic relationship that’s still going strong.

What can we learn from Sophia’s experience? 

When we learn to honor our bodies in their current form, we develop the ability to feel confident, no matter how we look.

On the other hand, if we tell ourselves we need to reach a certain weight or fix a certain feature before we can feel good, we’ll never be satisfied. 

If we lose 10 pounds, for example, we have a window of time where we feel confident about our bodies. But before long, our minds go back to picking out something else we don’t like about the way we look. Why? 

Again, because it’s the mind’s job to look for what’s wrong in any given situation, and to keep us in an anxious state, especially when it comes to our appearance. 

If we truly want to rewrite our negative programming around our bodies, we have to consistently practice appreciating our physical selves—even if it goes against our instincts. 

So the next time you get out of the shower, take some time to focus on your best feature. As you learn to appreciate your own beauty, you’ll probably find that the rest of the world does, too.

Do you want to learn more about how to appreciate your body? In my book, Life Launch, I write about more ways to shift your negative thought patterns around your appearance, along with other practical yet profound ways to feel better. Download a sample here.