Affirmations can be a useful tool on your body image healing journey. I know they helped me to grow my relationship with my body and food when I first started my food freedom journey. So here’s a list of some of my favorite affirmations for body image and how to create your own.
Why use affirmations for body image healing?
Your body image is just your relationship with your body. And your relationship with your body comes from your thoughts and feelings about your body.
The more negatively you think about your body, the worse you’ll feel about it. The more kind, respectful, and loving your thoughts are about your body, the better you’ll feel.
Your pattern of thinking really is just a habit, which means with time and practice you can change it. You can intentionally choose how you want to think about your body to create a better relationship with your body (and yourself).
That doesn’t mean old, unintentional thoughts won’t pop up still, but the more you practice, the more it’ll be a habit to go to thoughts that make you feel good about your body.
Affirmations for body image healing
- My body deserves respect
- I treat my body with respect
- I want to take care of my body
- I’m learning to like (or love) my body
- My body is exactly as it’s meant to be in this moment
- My body takes care of me and I’m taking care of my body
- I love my body
- It’s safe to accept my body as it is.
- All bodies are worthy
- All bodies are worthy of kindness and respect
- I feel better when I treat my body with kindness instead of shame
- Shaming myself didn’t lead to the body and life I wanted, so maybe this time I can experiment with being compassionate with my body.
- I forgive myself for taking on the misbelief that I needed to be mean to my body to be inspired to take care of myself.
- I forgive myself for taking on the misbelief that my body wasn’t worthy of love as it is
- I’m opening up to the idea that I can love my body always
How to create your own affirmations
If none of those affirmations resonate with you, don’t hesitate to create your own. Here’s how:
Brainstorm
First, grab a piece of paper and write down everything you think about your body. Here’s some prompts to help you fill up the piece of paper:
- What do you like about your body?
- What don’t you like about your body?
- How do you feel about your body? Why?
Getting all those thoughts down on paper helps you see where your current relationship with your body stands. Once you have your list of thoughts, put a star next to any belief that you’d like to keep, and a X next to any you’d like to change.
Now you have a list of beliefs you can create affirmations around that are specific to your relationship with your body.
Choose something believable and feel it
When picking an affirmation, the most important thing is to choose something believable. If you practice the affirmation “I love my body” but it brings up feelings like shame, guilt, disgust. Then that affirmation isn’t believable to you (yet).
Affirmations are most effective when at least a small part of you believes it.
I also find it best to work on just a few affirmations at a time versus a long list. That way you can really be intentional about practicing the affirmation and feeling a positive feeling along with the affirmation. Because your relationship with your body is how you think and feel, embodying the emotion cements the affirmation.
Wording ideas
If it’s a belief you’re working up to, it’s helpful to add onto the affirmation with something that brings in curiosity. So let’s use the previous example of “I love my body”. If that doesn’t feel believable, try something like “I’m opening up to the idea that I could maybe love my body”. Add as much extra wording as you want to open the door to curiosity and the possibility of believing the goal belief.
You can also meet yourself where you are by acknowledging old beliefs in the affirmation and the desire to forgive or shift away from that belief. For this you can add “I forgive myself…” or “It’s safe to let go of…”
Here’s a list of wording ideas for your affirmations:
- I’m open to the idea that…
- I forgive myself for…
- It’s safe to…
- Maybe one day I could believe…
- It’s possible that…
Looking for more affirmations? Check out these positive affirmations and neutral affirmations.