Like many—probably most—women, I’ve spent a lot of time focused on my body.
Why can’t I lose the weight? Why do I still criticize myself every time I look in the mirror? And more importantly, how do we help the next generation of girls grow up without inheriting this exhausting loop of self-judgment? How do we raise women who feel at home in their bodies instead of at war with them?
Sometimes I find myself sitting with this question: What if the weight isn’t the problem? What if it’s the messenger?
We live in a culture that doesn’t really teach us to love our bodies. It teaches us to critique them, compare them, shrink them, hide them. From a young age, especially as girls, we’re handed a very narrow script about beauty and told—both directly and indirectly—that our worth is tied to how closely we fit it. Be thin. Be white. Be toned, but not too muscular. Feminine, but not too loud or strong. Flawless. Always flawless.
Even the language of “self-care” has gotten twisted into another kind of performance. One more thing to perfect. One more image to manage.
It’s no surprise that so many of us walk around not just physically tired, but emotionally starved—for safety, for authenticity, for the right to belong in our bodies without needing to constantly earn it.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how quickly most of us can name the parts of our bodies we don’t like. The stomach. The thighs. The arms. The skin. We know that list by heart. But when asked what we love about our bodies? That’s often a harder question. It takes a pause. Sometimes even tears.
I’ve come to believe that many women who carry extra weight are also carrying something else: protection. I’m not just talking about processed food or sedentary lifestyles—though we know the systems around food and health are flawed. I mean something deeper. A kind of embodied armor.
Sometimes, we carry weight to protect ourselves from being seen. From being judged. From being sexualized. From being picked apart. From the pressure to perform, or be pleasing, or meet someone else’s expectations. From the pain of past trauma. Sometimes, the body is saying, “Let me keep you safe until it feels safe to be seen again.”
And if that’s true—even just a little—then maybe the weight isn’t something to fight. Maybe it’s something to get curious about.
- What is my body holding onto?
- What has it been asked to carry that was never really mine?
- And what if, instead of controlling or punishing it, I started asking it what it needs?
- What if I treated my body like a trusted friend instead of a problem to solve?
- What if I thanked my body—for surviving, for protecting me, for adapting, for showing up, for being strong, for healing after illness and surgery?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel good in your body. Wanting to look attractive and wearing our clothing well. Wanting to move with ease, to be energized, to feel strong. But that desire should come from a place of love—not from shame or fear or self-rejection. The truth is most of us were never taught how to love our bodies.
Because underneath all the noise, I don’t believe our bodies were meant to be battlegrounds. I believe they were meant to be home.
Imagine what could shift if more of us walked in our bodies with confidence—not the kind rooted in perfection, but the kind rooted in permission. In safety. In self-trust. Maybe confidence isn’t something we earn by changing our bodies. Maybe it’s something we reclaim by changing the story we’ve been told about them.
I'll tell you this - I still have a lot of work to do around this one.
So, if any of this resonates, maybe take a moment—today, this week, sometime soon—and ask yourself:
What is my body holding? And what does it need to feel safe enough to soften? Can you maybe express appreciation and gratitude for your body?
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