Body Image Burnout Is Real. Here’s How to Avoid It!

Be honest. How often have you looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, “I wish I were skinnier.” “I wish I had bigger boobs.” “I’m so flat.” “I’m too fat.” “I have no curves at all.”

I know I have.

You’re scrolling through Instagram or TikTok and you see this model with the most perfect body, beautiful face, clear skin, tiny waist, stunning height, long legs, curvalicious body, thick butt and that’s when insecurity starts creeping in and then you’re sitting there comparing yourself with every other girl or boy that you see on the gram just hating the skin that you’re in.

I’m just going to go ahead and say it. We are the biggest hypocrites ourselves. Yep, I said it! You might be wondering what? Isn’t this blog supposed to teach us how to love ourselves? Where is this blog going? Don’t worry. The main purpose behind me writing this blog is to help girls, boys or whatever you identify as feel better about yourselves. And me calling all of us out as hypocrites is a part of the process. It is a part of the stage called “awareness”. I call myself a hypocrite because when one of my friends or family members is feeling insecure about themselves and are in need of reassurance, I will drop whatever it is that I’m doing and turn our conversation into a Ted Talk where I will be the one giving the motivation speech and I will bombard them with all these body positivity quotes and compliments and whatever it is in my power to make them believe that they are absolutely beautiful and their body is PERFECT. But when I’m the one on the hot seat feeling insecure and being trampled by low self-esteem, I choose to suffer in silence. My response to me feeling insecure is self-hate talk and refusing to believe when someone tries to convince me that there’s nothing wrong with the way my body looks. The number of times this has happened baffles me.

In today’s day and age of social media, we preach about body positivity, body image, self-worth, loving yourself, and self-esteem but do we really practice what we preach when it comes to ourselves. Now, I don’t solely blame social media for this heightened low self-esteem in women and men. Other influential factors are our own family and friends, our upbringing, our society, the fashion and food industry and the list goes on. Speaking from personal experience, this was when I had just joined college, fresh outta the school, I was going through puberty, and also through my emo phase back then. You know how that goes, black liner, black nail polish, teased hairstyle that covered my left eye, yep been there done that lol (very off topic but if you tell me you didn’t go through your emo phase, you’re lying and we can’t be friends!) I have always been skinny and not in a healthy way. I was underweight, lean and pale. Way smaller than what girls of my age actually looked like so naturally, I was the thinnest in my friend circle. One day when a bunch of me and my friends were walking back home from college, I was walking ahead with one of my friends and the rest of my friends were walking behind us. That’s when one of my friends called out – Sonu, you’re so flat! And I don’t know what it was, but I felt a blanket wrap around me and I froze (now I realize that blanket was called “insecurity”). I suddenly felt every eye on the street watching me and I could feel the anxiety crippling me. That was the first time in my life when I realized I didn’t fit the beauty standards created by our society. Only the universe and I know how many hours I stood in front of the mirror after I got home staring at every part of me questioning why I was built the way I was built. The 15-year-old me questioned my mom if I was too skinny, seeking validation, hoping that she would tell me otherwise but what I forgot was my mom was unknown to the concept of body shaming and how deeply it can impact a growing teen. She didn’t know what self-love or body positivity meant. And how would she? It hasn’t been that long since people started breaking these stereotypes. To my surprise, my mom answered “yes, you’re way too skinny for girls your age”, “you should eat more”, “nothing you wear looks good”, and “don’t wear low-cut dresses or shorts”. And that’s the thing about human psychology, you know something is not true, but you start believing it regardless when you hear it too much. And that is how I started this journey of self-body hate.

But enough of me rambling about myself, enough of being this sad damsel in distress. It’s about time a prince or a princess (whomever you choose to love because love is love) comes and saves you and that prince or princess is nobody but YOU!

Let me share some tips and healthy habits that I have tried to implant in myself over the years of this journey of self-acceptance.

STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS

Psst c’mere! I’m about to let you in on a little secret. Social media is FAKE! It is a SCAM! Now that we have that out of the way, if the apps that you are on, the brands that you are following or the social media pages/profiles that you are following are doing nothing other than making you compare yourself with someone else whose life seems perfect on the app then it’s time to unfollow them. It’s time to uninstall that app. I encourage you to filter such profiles and rather follow posts that put out content related to body positivity. And you know what, the pages you follow don’t have to do anything with body image. Instead of following pages that have to do with body image and sulking around, you should go follow what you are passionate about, what your interests and hobbies are. And if you don’t find anything to follow, go follow some dog pages. Adorable pups always help, trust me! I even suggest taking social media breaks from time to time. Social media can get too noisy so put aside your phone and instead go out for a walk. Want to take a social media break but don't have self-control CLICK HERE for some tips and tricks.

YOU ARE MORE THAN HOW YOUR BODY LOOKS

Do you know what you are not? You are not your body weight, your height, your physique or your curves. You are your beliefs, your dreams, your aspirations and your personality. Let’s say you see this handsome guy in public transportation and he’s occupying the priority seat. Now, nothing wrong with that as long as you give up the seat when an individual for whom the seat is designated gets on the vehicle. This old, feeble granny gets on the vehicle and this guy decides to be a douche and doesn’t let go of the seat. I don’t know about you, but that guy automatically becomes a zero for me. No one is more unattractive to me than this guy on the entire bus. What I’m trying to say here is it’s what’s on the inside that counts. 20-30 years down the line, no one is going to care about the way your face looked or how many abs you had or whether you had a six-pack or whether your butt was big or flat. But people will remember you for your kindness, for your actions and for the type of person that you were. So, the next time you find yourself being hard on yourself and judging your body, re-shift your focus towards what’s on the inside like your personality, your kind nature, who you are as a human, and the love and affection that you pour out into this world, the number of lives you've touched and impacted. 

APPRECIATE YOUR BODY IT’S YOUR ONLY HOME

If you think about it, human bodies are pretty darn awesome! It is our only home, and it is there for us when no one else is. Now, let that sink in! I know, pretty deep, right? From our stomach breaking down food to producing energy so that we can indulge in everyday life to our respiratory tract breathing oxygen so we can live to our taste buds allowing us to taste all these lip-smacking, delicious food to our legs and hangs along with the bones inside them that enable us to move, run, sit, twist and turn, to our immunity system fighting the virus when we are sick to healing us when we get cuts and scratches, the things that our body does for us is limitless. And don’t even get me started on how we females have this divine capacity to grow a whole human inside of us and give birth to a new life form, it’s crazy. It blows my mind that our bodies create existence. All our body does is give, give, give and give so don’t you think it’s unfair how we complain about not looking a certain type of way. Instead of sitting in front of a screen and complaining, develop healthy habits, eat healthy, discipline yourself, set your body goals, get that gym membership, start working out, set your fitness goals, track your progress, be patient with your body and most importantly appreciate your body, appreciate yourself! Want to.get on your fitness journey but confused as to where to start click here for a beginner's guide to a home work out routine.

INCLUDE POSITIVE BODY AFFIRMATIONS IN YOUR SELF-TALK

Words have power. Positive and negative words are like a two-edged sword. You might actually not believe this, but the impact of hate talk is pretty damaging. I read about this experiment where a teacher brought two house plants to her class and asked students to praise and compliment one while berating and insulting the other. The results were so shocking because the plant that was treated with nice words blossomed whereas the one that was bullied withered away. It’s the same thing with your body. Tell me something. Would you ever talk about your friend’s body the way you talk with yours? No, right? Then why be so hard on yourself? Why critique yourself so much and torture yourself with harsh words to the point where you start believing them? Why put yourself in this loop of self-hate talk? I’ve started to include positive body affirmations in my morning routine when I’m brushing my teeth, washing my face and doing my skincare. I either play positive affirmations on YouTube or look at myself and tell myself positive body affirmations before I head out to work or start the day. And I want you to do the same. As a matter of fact, let’s do some affirmations right now. Repeat after me!

• “My body is a gift.”
• “I love my body just as it is.”
• “I feed my mind, body and spirit with self-love.”
• “I am beautiful.”
• “I am smart.”
• “I am wise.”
• “I’m beautiful inside out.”
• “I’m at peace with myself.”
• “I’m grateful for what my body is capable of doing.”
• “I’m comfortable in my own skin.”

Want to start your day with positive body image affirmations? CLICK HERE for your daily dose of body positivity mantras.

Now, I know self-acceptance is tough. It’s easier said than done. Just like you, I am still learning to unlearn a lot of things that my friends, family, society and media have fed me over the years. Healing isn’t always pretty. Healing can be ugly and that's okay. You and your body have been through a lot, a whole lot of experiences, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. Our bodies and us, we survived a whole pandemic and you’re there sulking over the way it looks. We need to do and be better bestie! The change that we want needs to start from us, from within us. Nothing will work unless you do. So, here’s a challenge from me to you – go, give love to your body! Take yourself out on dates, buy that expensive body wash, feed it healthy food and green juice, and tell it how imperfectly perfect it is, thank it. Be grateful for it. You only live once! Don’t waste it complaining about how your body looks or making others feel bad about their bodies.

And if you don’t know how to help a friend who is struggling with their body image? Don’t worry I gotchu’! That will be the topic of my next blog in this series. Make sure you subscribe to the series so you don’t miss out on it!