Video of the Day: How to Stop Hating Your Flaws

Hello, and welcome to this free training on how to stop hating your body’s flaws. And I’m putting flaws in quotation marks here because, um, obviously I don’t think that they are actually flaws. Most of what we consider our body’s imperfections and flaws are actually totally normal, totally fine, not unattractive or a problem or anything to sort of justify the amount of shame and negativity that we feel about them. But for the sake of this video, I’m going to be calling them flaws because I know that that is usually what you guys are calling them. So, um, this video is on how to stop hating your laws. Now, if you don’t hate your flaws, don’t watch this video. If you don’t feel self-conscious or bitter or angry or frustrated about certain parts of your body on a regular basis, don’t watch this video. It’s not for you.

This training is about the people who I talk to all the time, um, of all genders who go into their bodies with the perspective of I have to be perfect. I should be perfect. I should look different. And then the things that, that aren’t perfect, um, make them really, really upset. So they’ll be like, I hate my belly fat, my cellulite, my weight, my thighs, my jiggly arms, whatever it is. And they have so much resentment built up towards these, uh, so-called flaws that make their bodies supposedly imperfect. So that’s who this training is for if that’s you awesome. Um, it’s gonna be a long one. We’re going to really dive into some stuff because obviously whatever you’ve tried up until now, hasn’t worked or you wouldn’t be watching this video. But most of what we’re told about flaws is like, just embrace them. Just love them.

Like they’re gonna be great. Just love your curves, embrace your flaws. That doesn’t work. It doesn’t help. We cannot out logic the, um, resentment and bitterness and hatred that we have towards the parts of our bodies that we hate. We can’t out logic it. So I’m gonna have you just take that myth right now and throw it in the trash basket because it doesn’t work. If you could just outline logic it, you would’ve done that by now and we wouldn’t be here. Um, and I wouldn’t have a job because I’m a body image coach. And, uh, yeah, that would be great. I mean, I, I hope we ended up there, but yeah, it doesn’t work. You can’t out logic it, you can’t just choose to be like, Oh great. I love this part of my body now after a lifetime or years or decades or whatever of hating it.

So that is what we’re going to do today. Starting with, how do we learn about our flaws? How does anybody know that you’re flood easy? We internalize certain beliefs about how a body is supposed to be, how it’s supposed to look, how it’s supposed to function, et cetera. Based on media marketing, movies, advertising, it’s a big one. Marketing and advertising are huge. I mean, everything from Barbies and social media, to what our family says, our core family growing up, our friends and social circles and partners, what kind of feedback we get from other people so early on in life, most of us discover that there are ways in which we deviate from this supposedly or ideal. So that’s what we identify as a flaw. It’s the ways in which we deviate from some kind of ideal, whether that ideal is like a movie stars body, or it’s like what our parents think we should look like or be like.

Um, so that’s where we find our flaws in the first place is we noticed the spots between what that ideal is that’s presented to us and how we deviate from it. So you might be like, Oh, great. Well, I’m like thin. So that’s good. You know, that’s one of the ideals, but I have this like weird pocket of fat here and that’s not good. So that’s, that’s one of my flaws. Like that’s how we identify them. Um, particularly for women, it’s like really huge that women’s flaws are, are brought up. I mean, there’s, I’ve never seen an article in a men’s magazine being like, hide your flaws. Fella’s like, that doesn’t really happen. It’s not to say that men don’t get an idea about what’s ideal cause they do. And of course, then they notice in what ways they diverged from that ideal for women, that’s very, um, overt and it’s very explicitly stated like literally ladies, these are your flaws.

Um, there’s thousands, hundreds of thousands of articles literally written about that. Like here’s how you deviate. Here’s what’s wrong with you. That’s for women. It’s stated that clearly. So what do we learn about our flaws? We learned that as women, it’s our responsibility to give other people a good experience of us and that we’re responsible for their feelings and for meeting their expectations and for making them happy. And then we identify that these flaws don’t do that. We identify that our flaws messed that plan up, that it gives other people in negative experience of us that it disappoints them, that it doesn’t meet their expectations, or it makes them unhappy somehow, which we get that message. When people say things like, Oh, you gained weight, you know, or whatever. Like people say these things to us and we get that message from the ideal that’s presented socially.

So basically what we learned is that in order to give other people a positive experience of us and meet their expectations and make them happy, like we are supposed to do as good girls and women, um, we learn that we have to hide any flaws, any ways in which we deviate from the idea, we must hide it. We must fix it. If we can change it, uh, hide it. If we can’t or distract from it at the very least, right? Like don’t let anybody know that you have jiggly arms like just wear, you know, wear baggy clothing wear, uh, never wear the wrong kind of stripes. Like we learned that, that that’s our job is to keep people from noticing that we are not perfect because it’s our job to make them feel good when they look at us. So again, men have their own version of this, but it is very particularly the message for girls and women that it’s our job, our responsibility to make other people feel good when they look at us to give other people a good experience and it’s our job to make them happy.

Um, certainly some men internalize this as well, just to be clear on them. All right. So why do we come to head our flaws? It’s kind of simple. We are wired to want connection, love, acceptance, respect, belonging, and safety, both physically and emotionally. We are wired to need safety. And then we believe as women that the only way to get those things, things is to look good enough is to give other people the positive experience when they look at us or interact with us that they expect and want and we think need. And so if we are good enough, then we will earn those things, connection and love and safety and belonging, right? That’s, that’s what we’re taught. That’s what we believe leave. So then in our society, we recognize that in order to be good enough, we have to be attractive enough. We have to be thin enough.

We have to be perky enough. We have to be tight enough. We have to be tiny enough. All the things that make a woman’s body good enough are about being desirable, being attractive to others. Um, so then it becomes just kind of a natural jumping-off point that we want to change the way we look in order to get those needs met in order to feel like we’re connected in order to feel like we’re good enough, worthy enough, you know, safe enough. We start obsessing about how we look. So that’s why we come to hate our flaws is because it feels like our flaws are what stand between us and getting what we really want, which is safety, connection, community, belonging, respect, kindness. Um, so it’s important to recognize that beauty and body for women are status symbols. Now for men, the status symbol is masculinity is there is a certain physical ideal that goes with that.

Looking like you could fuck people up for sure is a beauty and body ideal for men. But for women, it’s just about being desirable to men. That is the status symbol. So if you are a person who looks desirable to men, then you automatically walk through the world with a certain level of privilege, meaning kindness and opportunities are offered to you. Um, resources are more available to you. People generally see you more. So you get more of a feeling of visibility as opposed to a feeling of completely being erased or ignored, which is what a lot of women, um, who don’t have the conventionally attractive or desirable bodies feel as they move through the world, which is a terrible feeling. So, um, so if we think about it as a status symbol, then you can see it as like perfection of desirability, like perfect looking women are the highest status and naturally, we want status.

We want access to resources and opportunities and kindness. Of course, we do, right? We particularly, all of it really boils down to, we want access to belonging and acceptance and connection and safety. Like all of the things that I just named can kind of be boiled down to everything that body image issues are about. But status is like the standard. It’s like what? We’re really pursuing a status. We want to look hot. You know, we don’t want to look like somebody who belongs. That’s not really what we’re going for. But underneath wanting to look high is wanting to be accepted, wanting to feel safe as we move through the world, wanting to be seen and treated like a person, you know? So all of those things are what we’re chasing when we fucking hate on our bodies. When we hate our flaws, when we get really angry about like this thing is ruining my life, this my saggy boobs, my, you know, thick thighs, these things suck.

And it’s because they are what we believe are standing in the way of our status. They’re standing in the way of our ability to fulfill our role of, of hot or desirable or pretty or beautiful or whatever it is that we want to be desirable for other people so that we can give them a good experience so that we can get the stuff, safety and belonging that we crave our flaws. Feel like they’re what stands in the way. So we hate them. Obviously, they’re betraying us, they’re ruining our lives. And so this is why it’s not so simple to be like, just stop hating them, just start living them. Um, because it like, would you hate a friend who betrayed you like a thousand times this last year? No, of course not. You’d be like, dude, what is your problem? Stop betraying me, stop putting me in danger, stop, you know, going behind my back and specifically doing what I asked you not to, but that’s how we feel about these particular parts of our book.

We consider flaws. We feel like they’re ruining our lives. Like they’re out to get us, like they are completely betraying us and putting us in danger a lot of times as well, because the danger of not being, not being accepted, not being respected, not belonging, the danger of relationships being threatened. If we’re not desirable enough to like hold a partner’s attention. For example, all of these things are what are being threatened by our flaws. So it’s not as simple as just love your flaws because they represent a huge amount of, um, yeah. Resentment, bitterness, betrayal, anger, hatred. So, um, we feel like our flows are lowering our set status. We need that status. We’re in pain and our deepest human meet needs are going unmet. And then we blame our flaws. So that’s how we come to hate them. And over time it just gets worse because we attempt to fix them or hide them or distract from them or whatever.

Um, and then, you know, we go through life and people praise us anytime we’re closest to the beauty ideals. They’re like, Oh my God, did you lose weight? You look amazing. And then we also experienced the negative criticisms when somebody is like, Whoa, you look exhausted today. Like what happened? You know? And so we experienced the push and pull of this where we’re getting all this positive attention and it feels like we’re belonging. It feels like we’re being accepted. It feels like we’re being loved. Even when we look closer to that beauty ideal, and it feels like we’re being like, people don’t like us, like they’re not going to accept us. We’re not desirable. We’ve lost status. Anytime we are moving away from that idea. So sometimes that’s things like weight fluctuation, you can see the difference in your life where, you know what, on the one side everybody’s like, Oh my God, you look amazing.

What have you been doing lately? And on the other side, that’s just silence. Um, and then other times it’s the things that you can’t actually see the changes in, but maybe you have always had one particular feature. Let’s say like, um, you know, if you have deep stuff, eyes, you’ve always had bags under your eyes. You’ve never experienced a day in which you didn’t, but maybe you use coverup, right? So then you can experience it that way. Or maybe you just see women who have, or if you have like acne versus clear skin, you see women with clear skin everywhere and you don’t see any representation of people. Acne just isn’t something. So you start to feel invisible like, Oh, I do not matter to society. I do not belong here because of this feature. So basically our hatred of our flow has just been over time.

We get all this positive and negative feedback, this push pole, um, we get the silence of the lack of positive feedback. We get the feeling of a ratio or invisibility in any way that is marginalized. For example, women in large bodies tend to feel completely invisible when they look around, like where are all the women in large bodies? Um, and that is starting to change now, which is great. Like clothing stores and advertisers are starting to use real bodies. But for the most part up until now, we’ve mostly just seen one type of very thin female body represented in movies and marketing and everything. So it starts to feel even more true that our body and our flaw is the problem that it’s actually our body that earns us connection and love and approval and attention and safety and respect and belonging. And it’s our body that can cost us those things.

So no fucking wonder. We hate our bodies. Like seriously. It’s no wonder that the ways in which we diverged from this perfect ideal start to feel like huge problems. So then you’re looking in the mirror and you’re like this guy over here, this belly fat or cellulite or whatever is ruining my life. And it starts to feel so true that by the time you have a conversation with like me with my clients, but the time you have a conversation with a body image coach, you can tell them like, listen, I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like everything in my life would be better if I didn’t have this one body part. Or if I, if I weighed, you know, a certain number less or whatever, that feels completely true. Even if like logically you’re like that, can’t be probably true. Maybe you don’t fully buy into it, but it feels super viscerally.

True. What happens when this goes on is that we miss out on life, right? Cause we’re steeped in this hatred and negativity for ourselves. Um, we’re focused on our bodies. We have less mental energy leftover to pursue hobbies and hopes and dreams and skills and passions and purpose and curiosities and body image issues make us selfish and so focused and vain and boring because all you can think about is yourself and trying to change or fix or hide these issues that you have. So it makes us miss out on connection and joy and pleasure and great sex and being present. It makes us miss out on our lives. And it means that we don’t get to give to other people because we’re so focused on ourselves and what’s wrong with ourselves. So shame, which a lot of body image issues really, it’s just about shame, feeling not good enough.

Um, can often be what stands in the way of getting what you really want, which is like satisfaction and fulfillment and, and, you know, connection and belonging and community and purpose. All of those things are really hard to access when you’re just obsessing in this bubble about your flaws, right? So, it actually has the exact opposite effect that it’s intended to, which is to get you those things. Um, and instead it makes you so obsessed with yourself and what’s wrong with you that you can’t even like look up and be like, Oh, look at these people in this belonging that I can have here because you are so convinced that you’re not deserving of it yet. That if you just fix these stupid laws, you’ll finally be deserving of it. So, um, in short, I mean the basic thing that I’m saying here is that we have typically been trying to use our bodies, our physical bodies to get our emotional needs met, which is impossible.

It’s just impossible. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say, it’s impossible. You cannot use your physical body to get your emotional needs met. It doesn’t work. So you are setting yourself up to fail no matter what here. So if you can buy into it that far, and you can see yourself in this, if you have flaws that you’re like, yes, this resonates for me. I hate this part of my body. It does feel like it’s ruining my life. Then you can go with me through this next six steps that I’m going to share with you. And I want you to really see where you’re at with each one, because everyone’s journey with body positivity and body confidence is a little bit different, but these are some patterns that I see. These are the issues that I see come up with. Most often, these are steps that can help you handle those flaws, um, and handle the negativity and hatred that goes with them.

So I’m going to go through these six steps and I’m gonna give myself as an example because one of the flaws that ruined my life for so long was my belly. So I was taught or believed from whatever place in the universe that taught me this, um, that a woman should have a super flat, super, super like tucked in belly. Um, and she should never relax it and she should never have Pudge. She should never have roundness. It should be like as tight and flat as possible at all times. So I sucked in my stomach for, I don’t know, like 20 years, 15 years, um, constantly to the point that it was actually physically like doing damage to my body. Uh, so that this was one of the flaws that I worked on, that I worked on using these steps. The relationship that I had with my belly was so, so, so negative that somebody saying like, just love it.

Just love your belly would have been laughable. I mean, how could I love something so horribly wrong as around kind of puffy belly, which when I relate, when I relax, I released my stomach muscles. You know, if I’m not sucking in it, most of the time, assuming that I haven’t just woken up. And like, there are times that it’s actually pretty flat naturally, but most of the time it’s pretty round and it sticks out a little bit and it’s a bit soft because that’s how bellies are built. Or at least that’s how my belly is built. So like that’s normal, but it didn’t feel okay. It felt completely unacceptable. So I’m going to go through these steps and I’m gonna give you, um, the work that I’ve done on my, my stomach area as an example, just so you can see what it really looks like.

So these are six stops, steps to stop hating your flaws. You can apply this to any floor individually, or you can just do this to your body in general. Um, but you’ll, you’ll see where you’re at with them. Okay. So the first one is to identify and explore what the flaw represents to you. So really question for yourself, why is this such a problem? And to whom, what do you think it means to have this flaw or to not have this flaw? Like, for example, what does it mean to have cellulite? What does it mean about a person to have saggy boobs? What does it mean to have perky boobs? What does it mean to have a squishy belly or flat belly? What does it mean to weigh a hundred pounds or 300 pounds? What does it mean to have scars or big arms or whatever, right.

Like questioning get really honest because you, you have internalized beliefs about what this thing means or else it wouldn’t bother you so much. Right. So get clear on what those beliefs are. What does this flaw mean to you? What meaning have you attached to this feature of your body and have true? Is that story really? And where did you learn it from and who benefits from that story? Because somebody has benefiting or it wouldn’t have been internalized, right? Like maybe your parents really worried about your weight and they were like on you too, you know, watch what you eat, watch what you eat, you’re getting big. And now that’s where you learned it. Right. They benefited, or at least they thought they were benefiting by teaching their child to stay small. Right. That would totally backfire. But that might be where something like that comes from for me, I can say that who benefits from the flat belly story is marketers, advertisers, definitely the fitness industry, definitely the porn industry, definitely a fashion industry, the beauty and wellness industry, for sure.

The weight loss industry, all of the places that I saw flat bellies on women are they are benefiting. They are the ones that taught me this. And they are the ones that are benefiting from it. Now, of course, they don’t necessarily directly benefit from me sucking in or not. But the fact that I internalized this belief mean that I spend time and money and energy in their industries, or at least I have because I believe there was something wrong with me that I needed to fix. The more people who believe there’s something wrong with them that they need to fix. The more industries benefit. So recognize who’s benefiting from your insecurity. Can you think of examples that contradict this? So can you think of somebody with cellulite who you think is super hot? Can you think of somebody who’s fat, who you think is like amazing and totally worthy of love and belonging?

Can you think of somebody who contradicts the story you have about what this flaw means? Uh, could somebody else who has this philosophy will be lovable, worthy of belonging, worthy of respect and kindness and care? Um, yeah, really question it for yourself. So identify and explore what that flaw means to you, what story you have attached to it and how true that really is really explore it with curiosity. I mean, Hey, you might say, I think it means you’re a bad person and I stand by that. Like you might really believe in stand by the story that you’ve made up for this. If that’s where you’re at right now, that’s totally fine. I’m not here to convince you your story’s wrong, but I’m here to encourage you to explore it with honesty. So for my belly example, to me around or squishy soft belly represented total failure as a woman, it was complete failure because your job as a woman is to be perfect and sexy and hot for men to look at and objectify that’s your job.

And so if you fuck that up by having a round belly instead of a teeny belly, um, then you have completely failed. So for me, it was, it was a visceral sense of failure as a person at my job that I was here to do, which is really existentially, dark and heavy, obviously. Um, and I don’t believe that anymore, but that was something that was really in there. When I first did this work to write it out. That was what I found. I thought I needed to look like a perfect Barbie doll in order to be worthy of literally might taking up space on earth. Um, all right. So the next step is to identify what you really want or crave and what emotional needs you’re trying to meet with your body. So what social status do you think not having this flop would offer you?

What privilege, what opportunities, what resources, what experiences, what treatment from others do you think would be available to you? If you could change this block, if you didn’t have this flaw, or if you had the perfect version of whatever it is, um, question that what would be different in your life, if you had the perfect version, what do you think would be different? What do you think people who have the opposite of you experienced day today? Um, and what is it that you’re really craving? Cause the answer is buried in this. What is it that you’re really craving that you think fixing this flower, not having this flow would offer you cause there’s something, what emotional needs are currently unmet that you are trying to use your body to meet, meaning like what are you missing or lacking in your life that you think fixing this flaw or ha having this floppy different would fulfill?

So this is step two is to identify what you’re really wanting or craving. And then what emotional need you’re trying to meet with your body. So for me again, what did I really want? I would have said at the time I would’ve said I want to be considered hot. I want people to like me. I want safety from judgment. I don’t want anybody to judge me harshly. I was very afraid of people judging me or not liking me. Um, I would say, I want to feel like I won’t be attacked. Like I’m good enough to be safe, which totally doesn’t make sense by the way. But it was there. Um, to know that my body looked good enough to cover up for my difficult personality, that was like getting really to the deep stuff, um, of the work that I had to do around this is I really hoped that by having a perfect body, um, I would sort of counterbalance the fact that I felt like a difficult person that I, that I felt like my personality was too much for people.

And that I was so difficult that I had to have a perfect body in order to make up for it in order to make people want to hang out with me. So I was like, people are going to be a lot nicer to me and like more willing to tolerate my difficult personality if I’m super hot to look at. So that was a big part of, um, what need I was really trying to meet was the need to feel like I was allowed to exist or the, the feeling like I would be tolerated and belong, um, that people wouldn’t reject me basically. And to feel like I was okay enough to earn my spot in my relationships. So that was that step three is to get those needs met more directly, as you can see, it is not going to work. Getting those needs met emotionally or sorry, getting those emotional needs met using your physical body is impossible.

Having the perfect body, even if I literally had everything perfect. I still would have felt shame about my personality. And like I was too much for people. It wouldn’t have actually made it better. So yes, like focused on my flaws and I was worried about my belly and I wanted to look perfect and hot, but ultimately like none of that could actually meet the real true emotional need that I had. It was to feel like I was okay socially. My relationships were okay because I was lovable. Do you see how that need could never get met by having a good enough body? It’s impossible. So ask yourself, is there once you’ve identified the emotional needs that you have, is there a way you can get those needs met more directly brainstorm a huge list because you might not know exactly what that looks like yet, but make a huge list and just see if there was a way to get those needs met more directly not using your body, not using your appearance.

What might that look like? Also challenge any, um, anything once you’ve made this list that is about controlling other people’s behavior. Because a lot of times people will say to me, like, I just need my husband to be more affectionate. Like that’s the need that I have when really what they mean is I need more intimacy in my marriage. So controlling what your husband does. You can’t do it, right. It’s a failing venture. So if that’s where your attention is focused, if that’s what it feels like you need, um, reframe that into something that you can actually control or something that’s about you. What do you really need? You need more intimacy. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get that from your husband. But what you’re needing right now is more intimacy, not him to change his behavior. Right? So another example would be if I need everybody to like me, I hear this from clients all the time.

They’re like, I just need everybody to like me. And then I would be fine. Uh, so again, we can’t control that. That’s impossible. So let’s focus on what you actually need, which might be a sense of safety and belonging like it was for me. Um, so once you identify ways in which you can actually get your needs met directly, just go take action on that, because that is an important part of solving body image issues and stopping the hatred that you have towards these flaws. Because right now it feels like the flaws are the way they are the only way to get these needs met. But when you go get the metals where the flaw kind of is like super disempowered, it’s like, Oh yeah, well also I have a belly or whatever. So for me, um, ways in which I got those needs met where I needed safety and belonging, right?

So I did some safety work, uh, healing trauma, and starting to feel safe in my body, safe with people socially. Um, I worked on social anxiety so that I was able more able to connect with people so that I, again, started to feel seen. I started owning and expressing and integrating the more difficult parts of my personality and my day to day life. Meaning I found people who liked that and held space that easily. And certainly, I found some people who worked their way out of my lives and they were like, dude, that’s not what I signed up for, which is totally fair. Not everybody likes me, but I found people who liked me for who I really am. And all of a sudden the desperate need I felt to look perfect was not so important anymore because I was already getting that need met in my, in my daily life.

My relationships felt safer. They felt more nourishing. I felt more seen, I felt more accepted. So my belly being perfect was kind of like, why would I, why I stopped being so important? That’s all. Um, so step four is to identify and face your fears. If you are afraid of somebody seeing your legs start wearing shorts, if you are afraid of somebody seeing you make a free go make a free, if you’re afraid of people, knowing how much you weigh start telling people how much you weigh, if you’re afraid of whatever, go do that thing. Go challenge that thing so that you can start proving to yourself along with the rest of it. Like while you’re getting your emotional needs met, all of these things, kind of, you know, they’re different pieces of the puzzle, but as you start challenging that you’ll start to notice, Oh, I actually am safe.

I’m fine. Like if I wear shorts, nothing bad happens. So that starts to disempower the story. Even more that you have about how certain kinds of body can’t wear certain kinds of clothes or whatever. If you stop wearing concealer, nothing bad happens. Maybe people are like, Oh, you look tired. And you’re like, no, I’m not like you can start to see like, Oh, that wasn’t a big deal. I thought it would be really scary and painful, but it’s actually just people think I look a little tired and I can live with that. So start facing those fears and learning to live with the consequences of actually showing up in whatever way you’ve been terrified to show up until now. Now a good way to identify your fears in whatever this flyer is, is to ask yourself, what do you have to do? Or what can you not do?

And that’s gonna tell you your fear right now. So if your fear is around cellulite and I’m like, Oh, what can you not do? Because of that cellulite, you’re gonna be like wear shorts or wear a bikini. Um, and if I’m like, Oh, well, what do you have to do? And you’re like, uh, not that I don’t have to do anything. I just can’t do certain things. Whereas let’s say somebody with the concealer, they’re like, Oh, I have to wear concealer. Right? I have to, or I’ll say, just look super sick. So that’s a, that’s an I have to. And if I’m like, Oh, what can’t you do? They might not have something. So those are the two ways of asking yourself, what are the fears that you need to start facing? Then go start facing them. Literally just go take baby steps towards it, practice it, practice it, practice it.

But face those fears directly to disempower the story you have about what this flaw represents. Um, over time, this habit will expand your comfort zone. It will make you feel more authentic in the world. It will make you look back on shit and be like, I can’t believe I was scared to do that. Like, as you continue expanding your comfort zone, continue challenging and facing your fears. You’re just going to get bigger and bigger and more full in your regular life. So that even if you decide to wear makeup or, you know, wear long pants or whatever, you’re not doing it because you’re afraid you’re doing it because you choose to. And that’s a very different way to come at that. Uh, so break the rules, whatever they are for me with the belly, it was like, I have to second, it was super, superlinear.

It was like, I have to always suck in. I can never, never release that. Um, so I started learning to release the stomach muscles and it was really challenging because it was habitual at that point. It was years and years of this habit. So I would like take a deep breath and then I would force myself to relax. And then, then I would like to be like, okay, yeah, it did it. And then I’d go and do something else. And I’d realize like all of a sudden it was sucked in again. So it took a ton of unwiring for me to let go of that habit. But I mean, it probably took the better part of a year, maybe two before I was able to fully relax it pretty much all the time. And I realized that in order to continue pushing my comfort zone and challenging myself and my fears, I started doing things like wearing tighter tops and crop tops and then challenging.

Cause it’s like, okay, I got this down. If I’m wearing a baggy t-shirt, but now I’m out in public with somebody who I find attractive. Now, what happens now? It’s really hard. Now it’s sucked. And again, I’m like, okay, let go, let go, let go. And that’s like, now I’m at, I’m at dinner in a crop top. Like now it’s okay. Let go, let go, let go. So it’s practice, it’s practice over time facing your fears is a practice. The more you do it, the easier it gets. And it just disempowers that flaw. And the story that you have about what that Fleming’s step five is to tire sense of value and self-worth to something other than how you look, meaning obviously this is huge stuff. Um, but it’s a really, really important one and I can’t skip it. Um, otherwise your flaws will always feel completely unacceptable because they will be part of what you think your self-worth is about, which is how you look.

So remind yourself that your worth comes from stuff other than how you look, maybe it comes from your accomplishments. Maybe it comes from, uh, your passion or your whatever gives your life. Meaning maybe it comes from your relationships. Maybe it comes from your personality and who you are, but whatever it is, it does not come from how you look. And if it does come from how you look right now, that’s okay. But I want you to recognize that it doesn’t need to, that that’s not what makes you worthy or valuable to people that that’s not your job here on earth, that that’s not the greatest or most interesting thing about you. So you absolutely can be totally, totally confident without even liking how you look that can be, you can love yourself and be like, yeah, it looks fine. Whatever who cares about that? You can just step away from the idea that how you look matters by tying your worth to something other than how you look.

So, um, I like to encourage people to reframe any criticisms, criticisms that they have instead of trying to like, just think positive, which I find really annoying. And I don’t think it works for most people. If you’re like, Oh, I hate my cellulite. My cellulite is gross. And then you try to flip that. You’re like, my cellulite is beautiful. Like now you just feel like a liar and you still don’t like your cellulite. It just feels like lies. Right. But you can say my cellulite is gross. Catch that self-talk and be like, Ooh, I just said that thing that’s really mean to myself and then flip it into something else about you that makes you worthy such as I’m hilarious. And people like me. So that might not feel like a good enough response. Cause you’re like, yeah, but what about my legs? But that’s the point.

Connect your self worth and your sense of value and self-esteem on shit that has nothing to do with how you look and you will be so, so, so, so, so much better off because you continue to just disempower that floss story, even more, that way, like, yeah, maybe you still don’t like your cellulite, but it doesn’t impact your self worth at all because you are hilarious and people like you, or you are funny and smart and kind, or you are whatever it is that you like about yourself. And that’s what you focus on. That’s what you continuously train your brain to focus on. Every time you have a negative body thought about your flaws. For me, with the belly example, I started drawing confidence throughout the time that I was learning to release my stomach. I was drawing competence from my physical strength and performance, my personality for the first time ever, because I really thought I was just so difficult that people wouldn’t like me, but it turns out that some people like me, my blossoming business, which I was very proud of my relationships, which were strengthening and getting more and more intimate, the more that I shared with them and my ability to help people.

So I started to draw my sense of self-worth from all of these different areas that previously had been on really far back burner because I took all of my self worth from how I looked. So as soon as that started to happen, that shift, it was like, I still want it to look hot. Of course I did. I still want him to be able to like me and think I was cool in a hat, but that no longer actually was what my self-worth was built on. And so I was a lot more able to go. Yeah. But I don’t today. They don’t look hot today and that’s okay. I released my stomach. I’m like, I don’t look perfect. And that’s okay. So it just, it really disempowers the story that the flaw is. What’s keeping you from getting what you want when you actually start getting what you want and basing your self-worth on shit.

Other than how you look is one of the ways that you can get those needs met because what we really want is a feeling of self-worth and confidence. So that is step five. It is a huge step. I know that I don’t have time to go into it all today, but it is a really important one. So I needed to say it. And the last step is to reclaim and reframe the flow itself. So once you’ve done all that work to disempower it, now you actually get to like, talk about it again. Now you get to really go in and re-examine your relationship to this flaw? Because it doesn’t have the same power. You’re like, yeah. I don’t like how it looks, but who cares? Like I’m awesome. And I’m getting my needs met in the world. I’m having a good life. And I don’t like how my cellulite looks now, let’s talk about the cellulite it again.

Can you acknowledge that this part of your body does in no way affect your worth or value as a person? Great. Then step six is for you. If you cannot acknowledge that yet if it still feels true that this impacts your value as a person, step six is not for you yet. And that’s okay. That’s one through five. They can last year, year. So like I’m making a quick ass training video, but that is some shit that will take you some time. So if you’re not at step six yet, that’s okay. I just wanted to mention it here because people always ask me like, yeah, but what about loving the cellulite? Like I want to get to the point where I love it. Great. Do steps through five for a while until that’s all gravy. And then we’ll talk about six. So you can question it.

Is it really true that this flaw is bad or ugly? Is it really true that it is unattractive or problem or abnormal? What are some other perspectives on it? Start examining what you might change your thoughts about it too. Meaning what would a child say? What would your child say? What would a person from another culture say? What would your ninety-year-old grandma say about it? What would a person who is super aroused by you say about it? What a person who loves you unconditionally say about it? You know-how, like we all think our friends are like the most beautiful ever. And it’s because we like love them inside. And then they’re just loveliness sparkles through. And we’re like, Oh my God, there’s that beautiful? Like, that’s how we feel about each other when we really love each other is we find each other beautiful.

So what if that was part of it? What if you were beautiful to somebody because of who you are and how much they love you and that included this flaw can be really hard to wrap your head around that. If you’re still in steps one through five and that’s okay, but there will come a point where that is not such a crazy thought. So step six is all about considering other perspectives and reframing your story about this flaw. Not flipping it just to be positive, but literally just coming up with something that feels better to you. Um, maybe a more neutral alternative, if not positive. An example for me is I always call my cellulite fancy fat. Cause it just like looks all Lacy and pretty and people say it’s ugly, right? Like I’ve heard that. Obviously. I certainly believe that for a long time that it was a problem, but it’s just these pretty little dimples.

Like we like dimples and cheeks. We like dimples and babies. So I just kind of decided like once I had disempowered the whole thing and it started to seem kind of silly that I was mad about it. I was like, actually I think it’s kind of pretty maybe. So I call it fancy fat. I think it’s fancy. I think it’s pretty, I refuse to be held back by this idea that it’s unattractive or a problem, but I’m only able to make that choice because I disempowered it with all the other stuff because I get my emotional needs met. My worth is not based on how I look. All that stuff brings me to a place where I can say, I think it’s pretty. That’s what I’m going with. Um, the other thing about reclaiming it is that you have to get to know it. So whatever this flaw is, touch it, gaze at it, write a letter to it, talk to it like, like stroke, it meditate on it.

Get to know it really spend some time with it. Because most of the time when we do this thing, it’s like, Oh, that flop, you know, we like totally separate ourselves from it. It’s like, Oh, I love my body. And I love myself. I just hate this part. So instead of, um, living that way, I recommend really starting to integrate it back into your sense of self and who you are. You’re like, I’m a person with cellulite or I’m a person with a round squishy belly, whatever that’s who I am. So really owning that and reclaiming that can be powerful. But again, only after you’ve done the work to disempower the story that it sucks and is ruining your life, um, and change the goal from loving it to learning about it can be really helpful so that there’s not all this pressure to like, think it’s amazing and think it looks perfect all the time, but you can just be like, actually, I’m just getting to know you.

Cause you’re part of me. So hi belly. I love you. Um, yeah. So reclaim the body part as who you are and recognize that who you are as a person who’s worthy and love worthy of love and connection and belonging and safety and kindness and all this stuff. So therefore that part of your body has to cause it’s just a part of your body. It’s not this whole separate entity. Once you reclaim it into who you are and you have a strong sense of self-worth, you can’t hate it anymore. So this is the last step is really learning to reintegrate it into your sense of self. When your sense of self is somebody that you love, somebody that feels worthy of all these things that you want and who is getting your needs met. So am I here to tell you that you’re going to love what this flow looks like every moment of every day?

Of course not like, do you love how your kids look when they’re vomiting all over the floor or the car? No. Do you love do love them though. Anyway. Yes, of course you love them. You love them no matter what they look like, but you don’t like how they look in every moment you don’t like them when they’re like, you know, waking you up at 3:00 AM with some kind of nonsense. You don’t have to like every bit of your body, every moment of every day, you don’t have to like how it looks. You do have to recognize that it’s a part of you and therefore is worthy of love. It is worthy of love because it is a part of you. And because you are worthy of love and care and kindness and belonging. So that is that last stage is reintegrating it back into who you are and recognizing that, that by virtue of that fact, that it’s yours makes it beautiful.

Makes it worthy of love. Even if you don’t like how it looks that’s okay. Um, so my example, I post about my stomach, um, being round, especially when I’m traveling or I’m stressed, it gets like super bloated. Um, I know that about myself and I’ve integrated that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Like yeah, sometimes I have a really round belly. I post about it on the internet. It doesn’t matter. I know that it’s fine. I know that it’s normal. I know that it’s not even on a healthy really. It’s just like, it’s my reaction to stress and travel. Um, and I also know that it doesn’t impact my worth at all. And so it just is what it is. I love it. I don’t look in the mirror and I’m like, yeah, it’s so round and bloated today. But like, I love it because it is mine.

And I love myself. That perspective is the final step. In fact, anybody who thinks that the end result of body positivity and body confidence is like looking in the mirror all the time, being like, Hey, every single moment of what I look like, like, no, you have other shit to do in the world. You don’t have like, the goal is not to be staring at yourself more often and with pleasure, although certainly, that can be a fun practice. But the goal is to be out in the world with like a clear headspace. That’s not wrapped up in anxiety about how you look so that you’re, you’re super like anxious and shut down and, you know, unable to focus on all the amazing stuff that you have to give in to the world. So for me, yeah, I love my ballet. It is what it is.

I release it all the time. Still. I still have to catch myself and I’m like, Oh yeah. Okay, let it go. Um, and that’s totally fine because I recognize that it has no impact on my value or worth as a person in the slightest. It’s just a belly. Alright. So now that we’ve gone through all that, I want to acknowledge the fact that these six steps are a lot and I’m making this training video. So it’s like I’m trying to move through it quickly. Um, but these six steps are super, super powerful, even if you only did one of them, but when combined they can make a massive transformation in how you feel about yourself and how you’re able to move through the world. That said, I didn’t have time to dive into each one, um, more fully because I’m trying to make this quick and easy and cheap free.

Um, but I do cover these six steps in my authentic body confidence, um, coaching program. So this is a little bit of like a little snippet of the kind of training that I do, um, in my program. And each of these steps has covered way more in-depth in one of the 10 training modules that I offer, um, complete with tons of worksheets, with tools and resources and support and information to help you unpack it and dive into it and be supported through it much more fully, because as you can probably tell from having just watched this, um, it requires more support. It does, right? Like I can’t just like give you this and be like, go be free. You’ve got all the tools you need because it requires support and unpacking and exploring, and time, and like really being guided through what’s coming up for you.

Um, because this stuff is really deep and heavy and sometimes really painful our relationships to our bodies and ourselves is complicated. So authentic body confidence, this coaching program that I created is designed to go more fully in-depth on all of these topics and more, um, including like food fat weight exercise, like the whole shebang of what body image, um, boils down to it is a 20-week coaching program. It used to be 12 weeks, but I decided we need more time based on the feedback I was getting from people. So it’ll be 20 coaching calls and 10 training modules over 20 weeks. So you’ll have a weekly call coaching call and every other week you’ll get some material like this to just really unpack one of these topics with journal questions and practices and all that stuff. Um, and it will give you everything you need to know.

It is the culmination of all of my work on body image with clients, um, on improving body image and achieving body peace, body acceptance, and body love. So it really is like the thing when people come to me and they’re like, how do I start? Or how do I get to where you’re at? Or how do I, whatever I’m like, this course is the way I specifically packed it with all of this stuff that you need to know and gave you all of the support and time so that you can unpack it, um, with a group of other likeminded women who are doing the same kind of work, because that just makes it that much more powerful? So if you’ve been trying to love your body and feeling totally stuck, uh, or critical or shamed or angry, like I got you, that’s what this course is for the thing is though, um, I, as you now know, this is the stance that I take on this stuff is when you think you want to be thinner or more beautiful or more desirable or whatever, what you really want is something else.

Some emotional need is going on. Met like love, acceptance approval, respect, connection, safety, long in whatever it is. And so I help people get clear on that and then actually go get those things so that we can disempower the body story and the floss story to the extent that you actually can just reframe it. Whereas right now it might feel completely impossible to reframe because you’re still really like bought into the idea that this blog represents something really bad and dangerous about who you are or your relationships or whatever. Um, the other truth is that unpacking body image stuff like rejecting social standards of femininity and beauty and sex appeal, it is terrifying and it is too hard to be done alone. And this is something I know for sure is all of these amazingly brilliant and creative and interesting women come to me and they’ve been doing all this introspective work alone and they’re like, ah, I still can’t get past, something’s blocking me.

I still hate my body. I’m still obsessed with my flaws. Like I keep trying to be kinder to myself and it’s not working. So I know that being in a relationship is one of the keys, which is why I made this a group program because when it comes down to like needing to feel accepted and like you belong, you need people to accept you and you need to belong. So this entire program is based on that premise that a lot of these needs will be met inside of this program, at least as like a, we’ll say like a training path, you know, it’s like the first place may be that you’re able to open up and be vulnerable and share with this group where it’s a completely safe and supportive environment. And then you take that out into the world and then you take that out into your other relationships, right?

So it’s a bit of like a diving board. Um, but that is the reason that I make it a group dynamic is because so many of these needs are about our interrelationship needs. It’s about needing to feel like we’re accepted and supported. So I accept and support you. And so did the other women in the group, um, I’ve also found that it needs to be done in tandem with increasing authentic connections. Um, as I’ve said, that’s, it’s why we have that, but you guys have access to each other in the Facebook group as well. So you’ll be on the group calls like weekly. You can, can, you know, catch up with everybody, check-in with everybody, whatever. Um, but you also have the Facebook group so that you can chat privately. I’ve had people set up calls with each other for accountability and for support.

Um, so there really is a community dynamic to it as well, in which you, you’re not just alone and like in a part of a group, you’re like, you’re a part of a community who is really all there for each other, um, as we go through it. So what do you get over 20 weeks in authentic body confidence, you get 10 training webinars and worksheets and practices and, uh, journal questions and resources that go with it as well as 20 group coaching calls and a print and bound book that I will snail mail to you old school, um, with all of the worksheets and slide PDFs and everything, and an additional resource section in the back, um, you’ll have access to the Facebook group, which is private and, um, secret, you know, for support you’ll have lifetime access to the material, meaning anytime you ever want to go through a future version of the program, you can, and you’ll get seven exclusive interviews that I did with other women in their areas of expertise that are relevant to body image, including like fat politics, body politics, eating disorder of sex and pleasure that activism, um, all this different stuff that like, I am not the expert on.

So I drew in people to give you those extra resources in wind, uh, areas that they are experts on. And yeah, so enrollment is now open now for it’s open, we’re starting February 9th will be the beginning of the spring, 2019, uh, session of authentic body confidence, but enrollment is open now. So you can go to the registration page, I’m gonna link to it, um, both in the bio comment area description, um, below this video and also at the end of the video. So you can click on that. If you want any further questions, if you want to reach out, uh, you can click through and then go to book a call and only answer any questions, or if you’re not sure if this is right for you right now, I’m happy to talk that through with you. And yeah, I guess that’s everything I wanted to say about that.

Um, it is open to all genders except CIS men. So if you’re a CIS man, I’m really sorry. I don’t, uh, believe that this work is any less important for you. I just want to keep the group, um, sort of focused and, and feeling really safe for the people who are in it. And yeah, enrollment is open until January 26th and the cost is either, um, if you pay in full, you get a discount, so it’s 997, or you can do five monthly installments of 227. So I’m aimed to make this affordable for anybody who is really willing to put in the work cause five months of work. I mean, this is, this is a serious transformation that you’re signing up for, but I know that the women who come to me, they are ready to do the work. They are like so sick of hating their bodies and feeling held back by their flaws and hatred and negativity.

And this is the solution to that. So if you are ready to stop hating your body, obsessing over your flaws, feeling all this negativity and criticism and shame, I got you. So you can click the link below or at the end to sign up. And I am just going to go through the, um, syllabus a little bit so that you can kind of see it. And, uh, yeah. So module one is redefining self-care. Self-care is a huge part of all of this module. Two is body images, body image issues are protecting you from something. Uh, so we find out what they’re protecting you from or distracting you from. And then we deal with that directly. Meaning what emotional needs are you trying to get met by looking good enough? Module three is facing your fears. As we just talked about learning to stop people, pleasing, breaking all rules, you’ve been taught about how a woman is supposed to do and be an act in all this stuff and liberate yourself from being responsible for how other people think of you.

Module four is dealing with food, exercise and health. So learn the truth about bingeing, dieting, healthy eating, and weight loss, spoiler alert. You’ve been lied to, uh, give up food anxiety for good and move for pleasure rather than punishment. So that’s a lot of stuff. People come in with baggage around those areas. So we really dive into those module. Five is embracing flaws and fluctuations. A lot of stuff that we talked about today, like how beauty and body are status symbols for women. Um, and, and also how it’s okay to still want to look hot and do this work because that’s a big question that people come in with a lot. Module six is redefining self-love. Meaning does self-love mean you like look every single day? I don’t think so, as you already know. So we’ve really dive into that. Can you come up with a definition of love that includes yourself?

Can you apply compassion to the parts of yourself that you find lovable right now? So that’s, uh, going way deeper into that. Um, and what I call the new self worth paradigm as well, finding ways of attaching your self worth to things that are not how you look module seven is reconnecting to your body. So this is a big thing. A lot of people who hate their bodies and hate their flaws, feel completely disconnected from parts of their bodies. Like, like that’s why the reintegration process is. So it’s so important. For example, think about hunger. If you’ve been suppressing hunger for years and decades, maybe because you’re trying to diet and lose weight, then you’re not going to be able to know when you’re actually hungry or full. Like those signals will be completely scrambled. So reconnecting to your body is learning how to listen again, listen to the signals.

Your body gives you and then take action on them, tune in, and take action. So we’re back to self-care, but from a whole new level of actually listening to and relating to and trusting your body module, eight is examining your identity because, in order to like yourself, you have to know yourself. So again, this goes back to building self-worth outside of how you look. It also means not apologizing or hiding or editing or pretending, not people-pleasing, pleasing, just being authentic and showing up. And like I did with my feeling too much, like starting to bring more of that too much newness to the world and then letting the relationship sort themselves out because some had to go and some were like, Whoa, yes, they really vibe with this part of me and learning to identify with the parts of yourself who you consider worthy of love, connection and belonging.

Module nine is about embracing emotions, learning to feel and express your feelings without shame or fear. Getting your emotional needs met directly, which as you can tell is a big part of this program, uh, instead of trying to get them met with your body or appearance, uh, and nothing that you feel makes you bad or unworthy. So that’s just a basic foundation that we will really pull apart all of this stuff and help you learn to connect to your emotions, um, and then express them in a way that’s healthy and gets her needs met. And module 10 is building a life of yes. Meaning how can you connect with IX? Like identify and then express your authentic desires. Those big intuitive hits that are like, go this way. Greenlight. Yes. Yes, yes. That makes you feel so alive. And how many of those do you have in your life right now?

Odds are probably not many because most of us are taught that life is just for like grinding through that. It’s like, you know, it’s gotta suffer through and then you die, you know? Um, but, but that doesn’t work because then you don’t feel fulfilled. You don’t feel like you belong. You don’t feel seen because you’re not really expressing who you are. You need body image issues to distract you from all of this garbage that’s going on and all of these unmet emotional needs. So establishing boundaries and not worrying about what people think of you, which a lot of this course will help you do helps you then tune into what you really want and what really lights you up and then move towards that. So the moral of that story is live a life. So gloriously delicious that how you look becomes the least interesting thing about you.

That way you literally can’t feel the kind of negativity and criticism and anxiety about what you eat and how you move and what your body is doing and how you look to people and how you think people are feeling about you because you’re so focused on some other juicy, delicious shit. So I always say you have important work to do in this world. And body image issues are just holding you back from doing it. This course is about breeding yourself from that stuff so that you can go do it. Like the goal of this is not just to make you like how you look in the mirror, who cares you have big, important shit to do. And if you don’t think that that’s true, it’s because you’ve been focused on how you look for so long that it really feels you feel vapid and like a void you’re like, I don’t think there’s anything in there.

I hear that all the time from clients, but as they go through this program and you can read some of the testimonials on the site, if you click through, as I go through the program and as they heal their relationship to their body and step into a different way of approaching self-worth and getting their needs, met, everything changes. And they’re like, Oh my God, I feel like I need to start a blog or a business. Or like, Hey, I’ve just realized like I want to live in this city. Or like, I need this kind of relationship in my life. Like shit changes because nothing really juicy and delicious and good will flow into your life or your brain space when you’re focused on how terrible you look. So getting rid of all that stuff, clearing it right out is the key to living the kind of delicious, juicy, and wonderful life that you want.

Um, and I am living proof, uh, not just because of the belly stuff, although I’ve done this work with all of the flaws that I felt like really self-conscious about for so long. Um, you can love yourself. You can feel amazing all the time. Uh, not all the time, obviously, but like you can, you can feel amazing about who you are all the time. That’s for sure. And, um, yeah, this course is how I teach people to do that and support people in doing that. So if you’re interested, please click through registration is open, share it with your friends. If this is something that you think will resonate, um, otherwise just enjoy the training and let me know how these six steps have helped you because I’m super excited to get this message out in the world because otherwise we’re all screwed. There’s no amount of just out lodging, this kind of negativity that will ever work. So please try them and let me know how they go. And, um, thank you for watching.