Body Acceptance and Body Flexibility

Kat Williams, MHC

As a body image therapist and a human with lived experience, I understand that the journey to finding peace within one's physical form, including everything that accompanies it such as food and movement, can be a bumpy and complex journey. I've discovered that embracing body acceptance and flexibility practices can transform how we perceive and relate to our bodies.

After working with numerous women of diverse body shapes and sizes, it has become evident that we are misled by the pervasive messages of diet culture. We're told that if we "fix," "control," or "alter" our bodies, we'll be happier, more successful, and more loved. These false narratives are ubiquitous in social media and deeply ingrained in Western culture. Consequently, it's challenging to feel content in a society that associates worthiness, beauty, and success solely with the thin body ideal.

Despite efforts to combat diet culture, such as the Body Positivity movement, I believe this perspective can be unrealistic and unhelpful for many, particularly when we first begin to engage in this self-work. Simply being told to "love your body" when we harbor difficult feelings towards our physical selves can feel dismissive and ineffective. This is where body flexibility and acceptance offer a different approach.

Body Acceptance involves acknowledging and embracing your body as it is, including all the emotions and sensations it entails. It doesn't necessarily entail unconditional love or exclusively positive thoughts about your body, but rather it means choosing to accept yourself as you are, rather than engaging in behaviors that distance you from acceptance.

Body Image Flexibility is a method of relating to our bodies differently, allowing us to live more freely in the bodies we inhabit and lead more meaningful lives in alignment with ourselves. This can be ditching any food rules, or workout rules that are rigid and seeped in diet culture and embracing more self-compassion and room for fluidity and change. It's challenging to live a fulfilling life when trapped in inflexible or rigid body image perceptions and that's where body flexibility can help us to live in more alignment of what a full life looks like for each one of us.

So, how do we cultivate both body acceptance and flexibility? Firstly, it's crucial to recognize that this is an ongoing practice that requires daily engagement. Over time, choosing body acceptance and embracing flexibility becomes more innate. By staying present in our bodies and acknowledging that they naturally change over time due to biology and life circumstances, we can foster acceptance. Every moment in this journey presents a choice: to accept our bodies as they are or to seek to change them, to sit with discomfort or to attempt to control and to practice flexibility or remain rigid in our routines and behaviors.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can begin your therapy journey towards body acceptance,I specialize in working with women in New York City (NYC) who struggle with body image, self-esteem, and disordered eating.