I want to dedicate this post strictly to talking about body image. It's something that's been on my mind a lot lately, and I'm not sure how or why it came up, but discussing my feelings about it with regards to yoga seems appropriate.

I never had confidence in my body when I was younger. I was ridiculously tall when I was in elementary school, and too thick (the girls were so thin in junior high), and I just felt plain awkward in my skin. There was no connection between what I felt in my body to what I thought in my head, and I felt incredibly disconnected because of it. The disdain I felt for what I looked like developed into a fear of what I looked like, making me extremely self conscious. When I decided to finally try out for a sport, I would crush myself under the pressure because I was always thinking about "what I looked like" whenever I did anything - including hitting the softball. So needless to say, I stayed away from sports or anything too physical.

What I thought was my appearance was very far removed from what I actually looked like, and when I did finally look in the mirror with objective eyes in my teenage years it was really hard for me to accept what I saw. There was nothing disfigured about me, there was nothing ugly about me, and now when I look back I realize I was completely normal. But I never felt normal, I felt ugly, and that's what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

I realize this is a feeling tons and tons of people of both genders feel. We are all pressured to look and appear and preform to level that society places on us, and we all pick up that pressure at one point or another in our lives. Some of us are better at shaking it than others, and I happen to be one of the people who had a much harder time. It can be so painful for those it really effects because it becomes subconsciously saturated into all of our decisions, reactions, and interactions, and over time it's increasingly difficult to let go.

My negative self image continued all the way through college. As I did in high school, I sought approval through what I wore, how I did my make up and hair, trying to mask the discomfort of everything underneath. But nothing anyone ever said really made me feel better, and no compliments were ever really accepted because I didn't believe them. It continued to eat at me, and I made really poor choices out of the bitterness I felt toward my body. Even after I started my yoga practice I still continued to feel this way.


Only recently did I start feeling sincere love towards my body. It took years of wanting to change, years of wanting to accept myself for just how I was, and finally months of very consistent yoga practice and dedication towards making choices that were good for my body for me to start to feel comfortable in this home of mine. I still struggle with it, but not nearly in the same way as I did before. It took me waking up to the fact that I had to take action, literal and consistent action, because nothing connects you more to your own body than physical exercise.

Yoga practice is a practice of connecting to the energy that moves throughout your body, and no area is seen as more or less advantaged. Each part is as valuable as the next - the toes, the thighs, the abdomen, the skin, the joints, the tendons, the eyes, the tongue, the heart, all of it- and as you begin to feel the importance and interdependence of each part, you begin to enjoy and appreciate each part for exactly what it is and what it gives you.

I have grown to sincerely love my body because I now feel and seek the feelings my body provides for me. When my body is happy, my mind is happy, and there is no way I would have felt this way had I stayed as disconnected as I had been.

I know now that people make such poor decisions for themselves because they don't hear what their body is telling them. I know the reason why people seek bad habits and thoughtless consumption (of all things, not just food) is because they're trying to seek a fulfillment of something that seems to constantly evade them. But that fulfillment is right inside of you, it's RIGHT THERE, it's so close you can't even touch it but you can feel it so deep within you if you find it. And when you find it you know and trust that it has and will always be there. Finding it and holding onto it takes a lot of work, but all great things do. And although the search and discovery is different for everyone, I am convinced that if a person has a negative self image that their search must start with a surrender to the body, exactly how it is.

If there could be any advice that I give to anyone out there who suffers from a negative self image it would be to take time every single day to be in your body and not in your head. To sit and feel all of the things that are moving through you- all of the energy because there is a lot of it, and it's constantly moving and evolving within you. Notice the tension in any little area, whether it be in your jaw, your toes, your neck, your spine, your forehead, anywhere, and relax it. Notice if you feel good in your skin, and if you don't, ask yourself why. And if negative thoughts come up, let them come up, but make sure to let them go and replace them with positive thoughts. That may be the hardest part, because having a loving self image starts by first showing yourself love, and it can be soooo much harder to sincerely give yourself loving thoughts than it seems.

Be with yourself. Remember that this is your home, and just like any standing structure that you live in you have to do your part to organize it, clean it, and keep it up so that it doesn't collapse but can keep you comfortable for as long as you need it to. Be good to yourself, because your body wants you to, it always wants you to.

And always remember that the beauty of you is that you are changing every single second of every single day, and if you sincerely want to change and become more of who you want to be, all it takes is making that dedicated choice to becoming better little by little.

And yoga is always an option :) haha! But seriously- it changed my life, it could change yours too. Even just a few months ago I could have never thought to put a blog post out in the world like this. But today I think I'm pretty okay with it. x

Quick Edit: I realized I have a lot more to say on this subject, so this post may be a part one!