When it comes to having a healthy relationship with your body, one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome is your relationship with your thoughts. Do you notice what goes through your mind when you look in the mirror, when you look at a picture of yourself, when you are trying on clothes in a dressing room? If you struggle with body-image, most likely there is an inner critic who has some less than kind things to say.

Body shaming often starts very young and is deeply engrained into the fabric of our culture. Commenting on other people’s bodies based on size and shape has happened forever in the media, and this is not likely to change. However, for many people who struggle with body-image, the shaming most likely began within familiar environments, such as at home or in school. Sometimes the body shaming could look like a parent commenting negatively about their own body, their child’s body, their partner’s body, their neighbors body, and so on. For many people, the body shaming happened in school, where kids are often bullied for how they look. Sometimes the shaming came directly from parent or caretaker to child, where the parent constantly commented on their child’s body, and even made decisions about food for their child based on how their child’s body looked. All of these experiences often leave a residue of shame, feeling not good enough, resulting in trauma, and the development of a very unkind inner critic.

When a child feels shame, they internalize the negative language said to them and then begin to say these unkind things to themselves. This happens as a protective measure in our psyche to help reduce the suffering of when it’s heard from an external source (especially a parent/caretaker). This is where the inner critic is born. This is where this part of ourselves develops and sinks its roots in deep. It begins as self-protection, this is a maladaptive coping mechanism that served a purpose for the child to reduce emotional discomfort. This then becomes the language of our own thoughts, creating opportunities to develop perfectionism as a way of managing inner fears and anxieties.

The inner critic starts as someone else’s voice, and then becomes our very own. The words it says are unkind, even cruel, and cause hurt, pain, suffering, and increased feelings of shame. Shame triggers the belief that there is something wrong with us, such as not feeling good enough, unworthy, or deeply inadequate, which causes tremendous psychological pain. This pain limits how much we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, open, to feel deep connections, and even limits our experience of finding joy.

When we can learn to see our inner critic as a part of ourselves, not our true self, we can begin to heal it. When we get to know this inner critic part, it often is a very young, child-like part of ourselves, and we can more easily begin to understand why it is there, how it came to be there, and what it’s trying to protect us from. With this information we can begin to develop the capacity to lean into healing and self-compassion by working with this part. We work to give this part a new job that is supportive, healthy, and useful.

To begin to get to know your inner critic more intimately, it requires listening, and then getting curious about why it says what it says. Curiosity becomes the anecdote and where the healing can truly unfold. The next time you hear a self-critical thought about your body— or anything else really—try going through this process:

Acknowledge your inner critic, and see it as a part of you, not your true, authentic self.
Get curious, ask it what it wants you to know? Does it have a specific message for you?
Ask it how old it is, when it learned to speak in this way.
Ask it if it would be willing to reframe and shift into more self-compassionate language, just to see what happens? If it’s willing, try it out and see, if it isn’t, ask it if you can try again later. Let it know you want to get to know it, to understand it, and to validate its fears and feelings.
Ask it if it might consider a new task, as this one it has learned to do so well is no longer serving you, in fact, it’s causing significant harm. If it’s open to that, offer some suggestions, or get ideas from it. If it’s not, let it know that change is difficult and you will try again later.
Thank it, let it know that it is worthy of being seen and loved unconditionally.
Practice reframing, reframing is looking realistically at the fear based negative thought and using mindfulness to answer what is really true right now. (If you want a deeper dive into thought work you can read a blog I wrote about examining your thoughts here).
Try this reframing example, if the inner critic said something like, “you look terrible today, you don’t deserve to be in the pictures” try reframing with, “although I am having a bad body-image day, I still deserve to have the memories of this event and to be in the pictures.” Or, “Even though I don’t feel my best, I am going to choose to be in the pictures to remember this event.”

Over time you will be able to create a new inner language with the assistance of your inner critic. The more you get to know your inner critic, understand its role, you will get better and better at reframing. This process of reframing will help your inner critic to find—and get just as good at—a new job internally. This new job will be non harming, supportive, and a job that most importantly increases your capacity for self-compassion, and self-love.

Through this work you can create a deeper appreciation for your body, just as it exists within this moment. Your body deserves this, this hurt protective part of you deserves this, you deserve this. You are worthy of creating a new language within, and shifting from inner criticism to inner kindness and inner peace. If you feel overwhelmed with where to begin or as though your inner critic is unmanageable, you may benefit from EMDR therapy, IFS therapy, or an EMDR intensive. With this work you can reprocess the traumatic memories that have created or reinforced the negative beliefs that have given your inner critic so much power. Healing is possible, you deserve to release the internalized shame and feel your best in mind, body, and spirit.

I have never met a person who was satisfied with their body as it was right at that very second. Particularly among women I work with in my psychotherapy practice, I hear complaints, self-deprecating comments, and how something they are doing related to food, exercise, or anything else just isn’t quite right.

Instead of purely enjoying a dessert or other decadent and delicious food, we often say, “I shouldn’t be eating this.” Why can’t we just say, “This tastes amazing, I love it so much!” This often comes from internalized beliefs about food, and patterns of restrictive diets that lead to food guilt and shame. When given a compliment about an outfit, I often hear it thrown back with a negative, self-rejecting comment, like, “If only I were five (or more) pounds lighter, it would look better.” I hear, “I should be exercising more. I should be eating healthier.” I should, I should, I should… Why is this? Why do so many women hate their bodies and struggle with body-image most of their lives? Why do so many women put so much pressure on themselves to look like what society has deemed to be beautiful, attractive, hot, and sexy?

For those who struggle with emotional eating, disordered eating, or an eating disorder, body-image tends to be the last layer to heal. For so many people, body-image is deeply entrenched and entangled with emotional eating. The long-standing history of feeling less than because of their physical body is old, deeply rooted, and very difficult to shift. Learning how to practice body neutrality allows it to become more possible to shift into gratitude for our bodies, and eventually, maybe even lead to body positivity. Mindfulness, particularly the element of nonjudgment, is essential in this work of true self, and body acceptance in mind, body, and spirit.

So what is body neutrality and how does it help with healing body-image? Body neutrality is a mindfulness practice that creates a neutralizing impact on our relationship with our bodies. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgemental awareness. Mindfulness allows us to recognize and release judgement in a way that can be neutralizing and have a profound emotional impact. Body neutrality as a mindfulness exercise allows us to focus on facts and functions versus size, shape, judgements, and emotions. When I walk my clients through the process of body neutrality, often there are areas of their body that they struggle with to get to a place of neutrality, however, with time, practice, and more practice, they often find it is indeed possible to accept, and even to love their bodies.

Body neutrality is an exercise that first I have people do in their minds eye. I talk them through each area of their body and encourage them to neutralize any judgements, and consider a fact and/or a function about each body part. For instance, if someone doesn’t like an aspect of their nose, rather than focusing on the judgement or emotion around their nose, can they name a fact, it's this particular shape, it’s in the middle of my face, it has a bridge and nostrils… and so on. And then can they name a function, I use my nose to breathe and to smell. Once we get to a place of neutrality consistently, most people notice a decrease in their self-judgement and emotional distress when experiencing their body.

Then, if possible, we search for gratitude. Is it possible to be grateful for your nose, just as it existing is in this moment? Can you experience feeling your nose in space? If so, experiencing their nose from a space of nonjudgement and gratitude, it often begins to continue to shift from discomfort to neutrality, and then over time, maybe even positivity—although this is not the goal, just a possible outcome. I encourage you to try this practice, to observe your body in your mind’s eye as a whole, and just see if you can be present with your body as the container that lovingly holds you, in this moment, just as it is. Then slowly move through your head and face, neck and shoulders, arms and hands, torso, hips, legs and feet. With each part of your body, consider a fact and/or a function. Notice how that feels. If an emotion or judgement comes in, notice it and let it go. If possible, see if you can offer gratitude to each part as you go through the exercise, not to force it, just to see what occurs.

When practiced consistently over time, body neutrality can transform your relationship with your body, as well as with yourself.