Wonderful that you’re here and interested to learn more about how to create and maintain a healthy or at least healthier relationship with your body. Being at peace with your body can make your life SO much better!! It can positively affect your physical and mental health and increase your overall life satisfaction and happiness.
The downsides? – Wait a minute – Zero.

Before you get started, please note the following:

• Every-body (pun intended) is different and not every tipp – regardless of where you got it from – must work for you. But that doesn’t matter at all! Take your time and find out what makes YOU feel good about YOUR body. Listen to your heart and your gut feeling. Maybe you’ll even come up with your own secret self-loving strategy – Perfect! The only thing that counts is that it helps you!
• Body love and self respect don’t grow overnight. But every way, no matter how long, stony, curvy or steep it may be, starts with a first step. And you being here right now is a GREAT first step! Now your journey can continue. On your way, please be as patient and kind to yourself as possible. Do not blame yourself in case of standstills or setbacks. Try and avoid pressure or stress as good as you can. Heights and depths are part of our life journey and everything happens for a reason. Take a look at my personal body image story if you like. Also, if you try and accept the ups and downs as part of your personal experience, they can only strengthen you.
• Last but not least: Trust your inner strength! EVERYBODY can learn to accept and love their body – Yourself included!

Inspirations for self-love and body positivity

1. Watch Embrace by Taryn Brumfitt (seriously, it’ll open your eyes in many ways and even research has shown that women felt more positively about their bodies after watching it…). It’s available on many video-on-demand platforms such as Amazon Prime or Netflix.
2. Focus on what your body can do instead of how it looks, e.g. how it carries you, how it makes you breathe/ move/ feel things… try and be grateful for each part of your body every day!
3. Reflect: In what situations do you feel good or at least neutral about your body? Where and with whom? As opposed, when do you feel self-conscious, uncertain or shameful about your appearance? Once you’ve understood more about it, you may try and focus more on environments and people where you feel positively about yourself and avoid situations and people that trigger the opposite sensations.
4. Always remember: You’re ENOUGH and you’re PRECIOUS just the way you are. Remind yourself of that, e.g. by putting little post-its with positive affirmations at visible places such as on your mirror, into your bag/purse, into your car, on a door frame or the door of your fridge etc.
5. Research has shown that much of the content posted on social media makes users worry about their appearances. That included idealised images, diet or #fitspo postings, for instance. Whereas body positive and body-neutral postings can indeed trigger positive feelings and good mood. Therefore: Critically assess the content you are exposed to on your social media newsfeed. Unfollow people/companies/pages that make you feel negatively about yourself. Instead follow those who inspire, empower and strengthen you. I have put together a list of people and pages that I recommend following if you would like to make your social media newsfeed a more positive and healthier place.
6. Learn how to have a healthy relationship with food, e.g. by eating mindfully! There are wonderful coaches and (online) coaching programmes out there if you need any help or inspiration, e.g. by my body image movement colleague Lisa Beasley (see her website here: https://www.mybodypositive.co.uk) or some excellent books, such as „Health at every size“ by Linda Bacon.
7. Move your body for joy and not for punishment!
8. RELAX! A diet as healthy as possible and even positive thoughts about yourself may not be as powerful if you are stressed and overworked. Take some me-time off regularly, do things that make you happy: Take a hot bath, snuggle up on the sofa with your favourite tea/coffee/hot chocolate/any other drink, do Yoga, go for a walk, treat yourself with some Wellness,…….. opportunities are endless – Just grant yourself some of the much-deserved time off and DO IT!
9. Stop negative body talk, especially in front of others. Instead, talk about the things that make you happy and that inspire you.
10. Check out the 4-weeks „Embrace you“ programme by the Taryn Brumfitt. It’s incredibly powerful and even though it’s not for free (because BIM is entirely self-funded), it can be a very wise investment. The programme consists of several downloadable videos and audio files, live-coaching sessions with Taryn and your personal workbook.