"Our bodies change over time, so attaching our self worth to our appearance is akin to boarding a sinking ship. The reality is that our bodies will change over time. Skin will sag, wrinkles will form, body shape and size often changes. Thus, attaching your sense of self-worth to something that is only bound to keep changing is utterly unhelpful."
"Learning how to treat your body with compassion and respect, regardless of how you feel about its appearance is a key skill that I work with clients on in therapy. The way that you treat your body should not be conditional on how you feel about its appearance."
"Feeling like you have to work to 'love your body' is a lot of pressure that can cause people to feel hopeless and even give up when it comes to eating disorder recovery. A far better goal is body compassion."
An eating disorder therapist explains why pursuing 'body love' creates harmful pressure during recovery. Since bodies naturally change over time through aging and other factors, attaching self-worth to appearance is counterproductive. Instead, the focus should shift to body compassion—treating your body with respect and care regardless of how you feel about its appearance. This unconditional compassion is crucial because emotions fluctuate daily, and compassion should not depend on appearance satisfaction. The therapist uses the analogy of caring for a beloved pet to illustrate that compassion should remain constant regardless of external appearance, making this a key therapeutic skill for recovery.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]