Body Image

We live in a society that focuses heavily on how we look. Social media, advertising, television, movies, and influencers are setting unrealistic expectations for people everywhere. Now with PhotoShop and AI editing, it's getting harder to tell what's real and what's not.

When you exist in a body that doesn't look how society tells you your body is supposed to look and doesn't even work right half the time, it is easy to feel frustrated, discouraged, and even angry.

Having a new medical device placed can make clothes shopping infuriating. Finding accessible clothing can be a huge challenge. Medications might cause weight gain or hair loss that we can't control. We might experience other side effects from medications or procedures.

So how do we cope with these challenges?

Well, we can continue to envy the people we wish we looked like. We can sit in our anger and disappointment with our own body. We can focus on all the things our bodies can't do and all the ways they won't ever look.

OR... 

We can think more deeply about why it is we want to look that way. We can consider who it is that is trying to convince us that the way we look right now is inadequate. We can find and support companies that do make accessible clothing. We can come up with witty comebacks for people who feel the need to make comments about our bodies. We can lean into gratitude for the things our bodies are able to do, even if that varies from day to day.

We can allow ourselves to feel frustrated if something about our body changes, and then we can move through it. We do not have to love our bodies. It can be enough to simply feel neutral about them, but it makes for a challenging existence to live in a body that you hate. Our body is simply a mode of transportation for us to get through life. We only get one.

So we may as well learn to live in it.