3 Ways to Practice Body Neutrality — Evansville Indiana Boudoir Photographer

**Please keep in mind that I’m not a mental health professional — this advice is strictly from my own experience in my body.

As a refresher course, let’s define what exactly “body neutrality” is.

To break it down, body neutrality is about respecting and caring for your body, regardless of what it looks like. It’s about thinking less about what your body looks like, and more about what it’s capable of. It’s about embracing the good days and the bad days alike, and not spending too much time stewing about either one. It celebrates progress and self-improvement beyond body-based goals, and love that looks like taking care of yourself and striving for wellness in every aspect of health.

"Too often, we fall into the black-or-white trap of either loving or hating our bodies, and I think this movement provides an opportunity for a middle ground," psychotherapist Alison Stone told the Huffington Post. "It provides an opportunity for acceptance."

Easier said than done. So how can we practice body neutrality?

Movements like these regarding our bodies, our mental health, and our internalized beliefs and thought patterns are much easier to practice in theory than in reality. In theory, it seems so easy to be neutral about your body and appreciate all that it does for you. But in practice? It can be much more difficult to move past that negative voice in your head.

I’m currently at my highest weight and have never felt so at home in my body. I’m working on moving past loving my appearance and instead loving my body enough to be more in tune with what I need and how I feel. There are days when I’m hard pressed to find something that I love about my appearance, but instead of focusing on what I look like on these days I try to redirect my thoughts by practicing gratitude for everything that my body does for me and appreciating other aspects of myself that aren’t related to what I look like. Things like how I make people feel, my abilities and talents, my accomplishments. I’m trying really hard to redirect my thoughts, change my mindset, and strengthen my positive inner voice.

Here are three things I’ve found that help me practice body neutrality!

01/ Tune into your needs.

You don’t have to always be ‘in love’ with your body to love yourself and take care of yourself. It’s helped me to try to think less about what my body looks like, and more about what it does for me. To think about what my body is capable of in a very literal sense; breathing, movement, protection from illnesses.

I’ve found the best question to ask myself is, “how do I feel in my body?”  — once you’ve identified whatever it is that I’m feeling, I let myself feel it and then let it pass. Stewing over those thoughts and feelings, in my experience, only makes them last longer and really brings down my mood. I try instead to figure out how I’m feeling emotionally and journal it out until I can move past it and on with my day, and then figure out how I’m feeling physically. If I’m feeling hungry, I’ll have a snack, or if my neck hurts, I’ll stretch for a minute or two. Being present in my body, and respecting myself enough to tune into my needs like this has helped a lot.

02/ Let thoughts and feelings pass; don’t ruminate on them.

When you have a thought of any kind about your body, identify what the feeling is attached to it. This could take some time processing and journaling! It helps me, and it may help you, to redirect your train of thought in that moment and think about what you’re thankful for, your achievements, your strengths, and who you are as a person. Shift your focus to think about your life as a whole, and slowly you might see yourself thinking less and less about your body.

03/ Intuitively care for yourself and your body.

Instead of focusing on what you see reflected in the mirror and how you look to others, try to focus more on how you feel, and how the things you do make you feel. For me, this means not pressuring myself to go to the gym, but instead moving my body in ways that feel good to me. Sometimes this looks like going to the gym, but sometimes it’s a dance party, it’s a short workout at home, it’s a walk outside, or a quick yoga flow. I feel a lot of pressure to be physically active, and sometimes my brain turns it into a punishment for making “bad” food choices, and I hate that. I decided I’m not doing that anymore, I'm instead choosing to move my body because I can, because it feels good, and not expect any outcome from it other than feeling good doing it.

If you struggle with body image and it’s affecting your daily activities, I would really encourage you to talk to a mental health professional!