Whether you are at the early stages of your Body Love Journey or just have a hard day, maintaining unconditional Body Love all the time, every damn day, can be hard. Although the end goal of your Body Love Journey might be to achieve a Body Positive mindset, it’s sometimes just not realistic to be able to maintain it constantly.
Being Body Positive means having a positive view towards your physical body, regardless of any appearance based attributes (like your shape, size, weight, age etc). It aims to release yourself from the expectations of what society has deemed a “perfect” body and being able to unconditionally love your body for what it is. If this is something that you want to be able to achieve, but are struggling to, that’s okay. There are other ways to do it.
Being able to give yourself Body Love and perfect positivity may not be realistic for your Body Love Journey, but having Body Neutrality is. Although Body Neutrality still focuses on accepting your body, instead of concentrating on physical appearances, it aims to celebrate how your body functions and its capabilities.
For example if you are trying to give your Legs some extra Body Love today, a Body Positive approach would be “I love my legs, stretch marks and all”. Alternatively, a Body Neutral approach would be “I love my legs because they help me run”. Although both have different focuses, each mindset encourages acceptance, appreciation and love.
@justgirlproject
As humans, we are ever changing. This means that its only natural that there are going to be some days where we are so deeply in love with ourselves and other days where any form of self love is just a too much. On the days when self love is harder, it can feel like a step backwards in your Body Love Journey. This can leave you feeling guilty and self-depreciating. This is why practicing Body Neutrality is important. It removes the pressure of always maintaining a positive mindset towards yourself and focuses on celebrating the little things.
The benefit of being on your own Body Love Journey is that you get to choose how you do it. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You get to choose what and how you overcome your restraints against your body and move into new mindset. For some, a complete Body Positive focus may work. For other’s it might easier to focus on Body Neutrality. Sometimes you might need both, depending on how you feel.
@Verywell / Jiaqi Zhou
If you choose Body Positive, remember be kind to yourself on the days where you might not be as positive as you hoped. If you choose Body Neutrality, take notes of the little things that your body does for you each day to remember when you’re having a hard Body Love day. Alternatively, by incorporating both Body Positivity and Neutrality into your Body Love Journey, you will be able to adapt your mindset on any given day. You might not be able to fully love yourself unconditionally in every given moment, but you can appreciate what your body is doing for you instead.
Remember a bad body day, does not mean you have a bad body.
Whether you are taking a Body Positive or Neutral approach to your Body Love Journey, you can still choose to celebrate yourself with a Boudoir Shoot. If you are interested in capturing the real and raw you, at any stage of your Journey, contact me. Let’s celebrate you.