10 Ways to Feel More Satisfied With Your Appearance
Folx may struggle with their appearance for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, phrases like body image or self-esteem might describe these difficulties. It can encompass worries about one’s appearance brought on by several conditions, such as obesity, gender dysphoria, a handicap, etc.
Body Image Research
A 2015 journal article examined the effectiveness of therapies in enhancing body image. It discovered that people’s relationships with their bodies had significantly improved after using the following transformation techniques:
- Discuss how thoughts play a role in how individuals relate to their bodies.
- Teach techniques to monitor and restructure cognitions.
- Address negative body language.
- Engage in guided imagery exercises.
- Rely on exposure exercises.
- Make use of size-estimate exercises.
- Provide strategies for preventing relapse.
- Teach stress management techniques.
- Educate people on the concept of body image.
- Deconstruct factors that can cause negative body image.
- Explore how negative body image can impact people.
- Review the behavioral expression of negative body image.
Ways to Feel Better About the Way You Look
— Dump the Junk
With this strategy, people are urged to reject media messages that can cause them to become more critical of their bodies, such as binary gender expectations, ableist norms, European beauty standards, fatphobic norms, etc.
Tip: It may help to think about one critical message to reject daily.
— Reframe the Framework
By deconstructing how people often relate to their body as an enemy, especially when dealing with health concerns that may feel out of control, it is encouraged to challenge that approach by allying with their body.
Tip: Allying with your body may mean devising more realistic expectations of your body.
— Curb Body Disparaging
Given the detrimental effects that negative body talk may have on how people feel about themselves, it is advised that people combat this behavior using this method.
Tip: Enacting this practice into your daily life is like deciding to use more neutral words to describe body parts.
— Meditate on a New Mantra
By repeating affirmations that promote radical body love, folx can combat the implicit and explicit ways oppressive forces often fuel body shame from settler colonialism to white supremacy.
Tip: Maybe you could say, “I am enough even when it feels like a struggle.”
— Banishing the Binary
By challenging binary understandings of their intersectional identities, people can better accept all that they offer more unapologetically, given how often there can be tensions between extremes in which they usually exist.
Tip: You can work on avoiding words like “always,” “never,” and “should.”
— Being Active
People may reclaim their bodies as a place of liberty rather than oppression frequently determined by cultural standards that lead to increased body shame by embracing the joy of movement.
Tip: To help bring more intentional movement into your life, try dancing in the rain or jumping rope.
— Explore Your Terrain
Through radical body love, folx are encouraged to explore their bodies as a part of the process to reconnect with themselves and what they need to live more freely in a world that can usually place many limitations on them.
Tip: You could focus on moisturizing your skin daily.
— Write a Fresh Story
People are inspired to rewrite tales about how they might escape body shame by entering new worlds of their creation that provide chances for growth and development through reinvented narratives. That can include attempting a different strategy for interacting with your body.
Tip: Purchase a journal where you can feel free to rewrite and create a healthier image of yourself.
— Join the Community
In sharp contrast to the body shame generated by isolation from social relationships, acts of vulnerability can provide people with a feeling of community that can develop radical body love.
Tip: To foster a sense of connectedness, it might be helpful to seek out and embrace new folx similar lived experiences.
— Give Yourself Some Grace
By meeting themselves with compassion even when it proves difficult to challenge body shame in a world that profits from it, people are encouraged to continue doing the much-needed work of embracing radical body love. This final tool refers to the ongoing compassion you need to do this work.
Tip: Try to talk to and treat yourself like a friend or loved one.
Conclusion
While these techniques for feeling better about how you appear may not be what quickly comes to mind, these ideas correspond well with scientifically supported therapies for enhancing the body image of folx.
These ten tools for radical self-love are well worth the effort of challenging traditional ways of relating to your body with shame through the lens of oppressive systems, given how frequently critical ways of relating to your body directly result from negative feedback that influences your thought patterns.
