Are you unhappy in your body or just unhappy? It’s okay to say “both”. However, focusing only on the former is unlikely to change the latter.
Life is hard. Work, relationships, family, friends, politics… at times it all just seems like too much. When we focus on our bodies as a proxy for happiness, we are often just externalizes our feelings around things we can’t control. We find a focus for our incongruence in other areas of life. We feed our tendency to create guilt and shame around our behaviors and use a physical manifestation of ourselves to place the blame for all the overwhelming chaos that is the reality of life. The beauty is that the work that we do to combat the stressors of life can also be one’s that combat the stress around our bodies. Exercise, proper nutrition, working on our behaviors around alcohol or compulsions, improving relationships…. these all are keys to leading a more healthy life. They will all help with our daily happiness. They will also likely help with body composition. Body image is never about your body. But improving your image of yourself, as a whole, can help improve your body image. It’s just that the intent matters a lot. If it’s about your body rather than about your self image, it might backfire.
