Body Acceptance Therapy

Three Steps to Unconditional Self Acceptance and Self Love

Body Acceptance Therapy redefines how you view your body. It’s about making a radical change from trying to improve your body esteem to self acceptance; even more so, to turn your self hate into self love. Impossible you say? No, it’s not impossible. In fact, it’s quite simple once you know how your mind works.

The struggle in your mind

So what’s the secret of dealing with the agonizing belief that your body is too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too old, or whatever other judgement you habitually slap on to it? The answer is that at a very simple level, you learn to put those unpleasant thoughts and feelings in their proper place – where they are just a part of life, but not the whole of life. At a deeper level, it’s about learning to free yourself from the constant struggle with your own mind. In short, you don’t let those burning thoughts and feelings stand in the way of doing what you care deeply about.

How can ACT help you?

Your Action Plan below will help you understand how to incorporate the three principles into your daily life.

Body Acceptance Therapy Action Plan:

Step 1:

From Resistance to Acceptance

So how do you give up the struggle with your negative thoughts about your body? You start by observing those unpleasant thoughts without hooking into them emotionally. Here’s the thing: A thought is just a story your mind is telling you. It’s only a string of words. Some stories that your mind comes up with make you feel great; some make you feel awful. But just because your mind tells you a story, doesn’t make those stories true. Even more crucial is to understand that whether the stories your mind tells you are true or not, is not as important as whether they are helpful or not. If they’re not all that helpful, why spend so much time and energy focusing on them if it’s only making you feel miserable?

What if you could take a step back from those stories and just observe them? I like to imagine my thoughts as trains passing by. When I notice an unpleasant thought about my body, I let it come and I let it go. I don’t pretend there is no train. I don’t try to stop it. And most importantly, I don’t jump onto it and let it take me to Station Low Body Esteem. I just notice it and let it go.

I suggest you keep a little notebook with you over the next few days and jot down all the unhelpful stories your mind tells you about your body. Don’t try to stop the thoughts, just notice them and jot them down. Then ask yourself:

- How often do I have these thoughts?

- Are there any common themes?

- How do these thoughts make me feel?

- How do I try and control the thoughts? Do I use avoidance, escapism or addictions to make myself feel better? How well does that work for me?

Once you’ve gathered some information about the stories your mind tells you about your body and what you do to try and control those painful thoughts and feelings, you can start considering other options.

Maybe it feels as if you’ve been fighting a tug-of-war with a team of Negative Thoughts and Feelings Monsters for a very long time, with them pulling at one end of the rope and you pulling on the other end. No matter how hard you’ve pulled to defeat them, they’ve always come back stronger, fighting harder for control of the rope.

You know what? You don’t have to try and win this fight. What if you just let go of the rope? I know it sounds like an odd suggestion, but consider for a moment what would happen if you just decided to surrender and drop it. Notice what would happen to your hands and feet. They’d be free, right? If I’m not mistaken, you could put your hands and feet to use for the things in your life you truly care about. In the process, your life will grow and develop in ways that you could hardly imagine.

Acceptance will help you let go of your painful thoughts, and as you practise this, your suffering will go too.

Step 2:

Making Choices

Here are some questions for you to consider:

- What do I want my life to be about?

- What really matters to me?

- How would I like to treat my body?

- How would I like to treat my partner?

- What kind of a lover would I like to be?

- What types of activities make my relationship with my partner meaningful?

Trust me when I say it is very important that you write your answers down. It's the only way to gain the clarity you need to benefit from this program.

Once you’ve spent some time considering what your values are, it’s time to think about whether you’re spending most of your time doing what matters to you. Are you making choices about how to spend your time that are consistent with what’s most important to you? If not, what is standing in your way?

Step 3:

Taking Valued Action

Start by deciding what your top three goals are when it comes to looking after your body.

For example:

- Create a strong, toned, healthy body;

- Improve my energy levels through changing my diet;

- Get enough sleep.

For each of these goals, there will be small specific changes that you make each day to move in the right direction. Change doesn’t require you to take massive action all the time – you’ll be surprised at just how much you can achieve if you start small.

Beside each goal, write down what actions you are willing to take daily (or weekly) to take you to where you want to be. Using the examples above, your new daily habits list may look like this:

1. Create a strong, toned, healthy body:

- Walk for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings before work

- Do resistance training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings

- Go to a yoga class on Saturday mornings.

2. Improve my energy levels through changing my diet:

- Eat five small meals per day

- Cut out all alcohol during the week and stick to two glasses of red wine over the weekend

- Keep a small tin of almonds with me for times that I need a quick, healthy snack.

3. Get enough rest and sleep:

- In bed by 10.30pm each night, no excuses

- Find a place to lay down and rest for 20 minutes during my lunch break every day.

Putting it All Together

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