How to Accept Your Body Even If You Don't Like It

Stop looking for the impossible and start accepting your body just the way it is. So you don't have model measurements? Your body is perfect just the way it is.

Stop looking for the impossible. It’s time to accept your body just the way it is. So what if you don’t have the measurements and curves of a model? Your body is perfect just the way it is.

We live in a society where every body we see is fake. On TV, on social networks, on the news… We think they’re real, but they are completely artificial.

And what do we find on the internet? Advice and pictures that encourage us to follow ridiculous beauty norms. They even sometimes encourage us to aspire to ridiculous standards.

Remember when you were told that your waist was supposed to be as wide as an A4 piece of paper or that you were supposed to be able to rest a coin on your collar bones?

It’s not a joke. Many people take these sorts of challenges seriously. Many of them are teenagers who later develop disorders like bulimia and anorexia.

You’re not perfect. So what? Accept your body!

We try to avoid being rejected by those around us, and sometimes lose our true selves in the process. Think of everything we give up just to fit into their pigeonhole.

However, look around. Who is actually perfect? Funnily enough, you don’t see the image you have in mind walking the streets very often. You only see it magazines, photos, ads…

Perfection is truly impossible.

When someone has an eating disorder, they try to figure out what they’re seeing. But what they see in the mirror is completely different. Eventually, they stop wanting to be a part of this group of perfect people and choose to be a part of another: individuals that share the same goals.

Have you ever been in a forum or site that promotes anorexia and bulimia? There are many of them, and it’s shocking to see how many followers they have.

Here you see how people encourage each other to go another day without eating, to throw up and not let anything stay in their stomachs, a slow march towards a certain death.

Read this: Every Day I Become More Human, Less Perfect, and Happier

While they do this, they share photos of themselves and pictures of thin famous people. But have they been photo-shopped? Today, trusting that an image hasn’t been altered is like thinking you can trust everyone. Nothing is what it seems.

Acceptance brings healing

We need to understand that human beings weren’t designed to not eat. In fact, if you’re an animal-lover, would you like to see them underfed? What about the children you see on TV dying of hunger. Do you think they’re happy about their bodies?

They’re not healthy and it’s not beautiful to be unhealthy. Your body is different than other people’s and that’s not a bad thing. That makes things interesting.

You want a slim waist, but you don’t have the body type. You want less voluminous hips, but your bones won’t slim by not eating. As much as you want them, some things you can’t change and you have to accept your body as it is.

Focus on what makes you happy

Learn to focus on what really makes you happy and what really is beautiful about your body. You might not have realized it, but worrying so much about having a perfect body has kept you from what you used to like. When you weren’t so blinded by food, you were happier.

You aren’t now because you are obsessed with obtaining the impossible. You manage to lose weight, but you still aren’t happy with your body.

To get out of this vicious cycle, accept it. There are things you do like about your body; however, in your rush to look like others, you forgot about them.

You don’t like your body? That’s OK, it’s not a crime. But not to accept your body is!

Love yourself just as you are, without comparing yourself, without wanting to be what you aren’t. Don’t let your body be the scapegoat for your fears, frustrations, and insecurities.

It’s not your body’s fault if you don’t accept it as it is. We are all perfectly imperfect.