Providing compliments and acts of kindness are always nice, but we don’t want the sole focus to be on physical appearance. When you start healing your body image after years of dieting, emphasizing non-physical features helps. Keep reading for why it helps and examples of non-physical compliments.
Why it can be more helpful to focus on non-physical compliments
Too often dieting centers people around their physical appearance. Let’s face it, often people dieted because they wanted to change how their bodies looked.
Yes, it could be for strength or physical health, but if we are honest most people I talked to did it because they weren’t happy with some part of their body. But way too often when I talk to clients they’ll tell me about times when they did reach their goal weight and they still didn’t like their body.
The truth is how you feel about your body comes down to your relationship with your body, not how your body actually looks. Yes it can be easier if your body matches what you think it should look like, but that’s the key part of how you think it should look. Your thoughts and beliefs about how bodies should look creates how you feel about how your body looks.
Once you start to heal your relationship with food and your body, it helps to put a little less emphasis on how your body looks except to celebrate all bodies. That’s part of the reason why it’s more helpful to focus on non-physical compliments.
The other reason is you never know what you’re complimenting, it could be an unhealthy relationship with food and weight loss. Or it could be any number of reasons that make it more helpful to focus on other parts of who someone is.
Examples of non-physical compliments
Look for areas beyond physical appearance for compliments like personality traits, habits, skills, abilities, accomplishments, or their impact on the people around them.
Consider trying out some of these non-physical compliments:
- You’re such a good listener
- You have the best sense of humor
- I love spending time with you
- You inspire me
- You make me smile
- Being around you makes my day better
- You brighten my day
- I admire your patience
- You give the best advice
- It’s amazing how you (insert accomplishment)
- I love your energy and vibe
The point of non-physical compliments is to highlight someone’s internal qualities, characteristics, or growth they’ve accomplished in their life.
Yes, you still can provide physical compliments, and they can be nice when intentionally given.
But we don’t want it to be the only focus, just be mindful of where you focus your attention and what’s most important to you and them.
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