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1. Where ya at on a scale of 1-10?
Not all bad body image days look the same. Check in on a 1-10 scale. If you’re heating up, having trouble breathing, and having catastrophic, horrible thoughts, chances are you’re a 9/10 out of 10 , and your first course of action is to calm down. It's not until you are feeling less activated to dive into your thoughts. Sometimes we try to immediately rationalise with ourselves but we don't realize we are too worked up to see clearly, so this can be super helpful in assessing your state of mind. Once you've noticed where you're at, see step 2.
2. Deescalate w/ the Tools in your Toolbox
Take three slow deep belly breaths. Watch a funny TV show. Take a bubble bath. Call a friend. Take a walk. Smell some calming essential oils. Stretch. Meditate. DO WHAT CALMS YOUR PRECIOUS SELF DOWN. Because you can’t do anything in a super activated state (stress effects the prefrontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for helping people process information, come up with informed decisions, and solve problems). So you first have to calm down!
3. Ask yourself WHY
Once you’re calm enough to think, ask yourself why you were triggered. Did you weigh yourself and see something that shocked you? Did you have a weight-stigmatised experience with a doctor? Catch an angle of yourself in the mirror you didn’t enjoy? Try on clothes that didn’t fit? Maybe it’s something unrelated that’s bringing your mood down or you're having an overall bad mental health day. Whatever the case, getting to the root of your feeling, aka your thought patterns, can be an effective first step in understanding how bad body image is triggered within you and why.
4. Go for TRUTH
Once you've assessed your state, deescalated, and noticed what triggered you, dig into what's TRUE. If you have gained weight, don’t fit into your clothes, had someone comment on your body, or see something mirror you don’t equate with “beauty”, that doesn’t automatically equal bad feelings. It’s the meaning you’ve assigned to it.
So if any of those things are causing you to feel sad, anxious, stressed or any other negative emotion, notice that that’s not what’s TRUE. It’s the meaning you assigned to something neutral.
Can you begin to look at what’s true? Is your body functioning? Are you alive and well? Are there other diverse bodies that have positive body image? Then might that be possible for you? Begin to go from catastrophic or glass-half-empty thinking and begin to investigate something a little more honest, true, or neutral.
5. Ask for support
We are not meant to go through tough s*** alone. Leaning on friends, family, your partner, your pets, your therapist, your anti-diet coach (hello!) can all be helpful in challenging moments.
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