One of the most common desires I've encountered over the years of working with people on healthy behaviors is to look confident and attractive. You want to feel confident in your own body and not feel insecure about your appearance.

It’s so normal to want to change your body or the way you look that no one even questions it. But underneath this desire to look good are the unspoken shameful thoughts, the ones we are reluctant to admit, even to ourselves. Deep down, it's about a feeling of not being good enough that no amount of dieting, eating well, exercising, or changing the shape of your body - no matter how thin or fit you get - can ever fix.

When you dig into what’s behind the desire to be thinner, fitter, or different than you are now, is it really about you being so unacceptable? Or is it partly the conditioning that says you’re not good enough as you are?

In this blog, we’ll explore what’s at the root of your lack of confidence and dissatisfaction with your body, helping you find ways to start feeling more confident and at peace with how you look.

- In this article -

• When you’re triggered by another woman’s “perfect” body

• You’re only as hard on yourself as you are on others

• Questions to stop judging yourself and others

• Getting to what’s underneath the worry about your weight

• The reality of bodies changing

• No one is thinking about you as much as you think they are

• Confidence is a product of taking action

When you’re triggered by another woman’s “perfect” body

First, I want to share a personal story and then some "food for thought" on cultivating body confidence, decreasing body dissatisfaction, and accepting your body as it is now.

I was watching the Netflix series The Diplomat when I was starting to learn how to eat intuitively—a practice that involves rejecting the diet mentality. This is where many women, including myself, hit a roadblock. The fear of no longer being thin can feel like a threat to our sense of self and safety in the world.

It doesn't matter whether you already live in a body others would consider small enough to have thin privilege. The message that women should be small, pretty, and perfect is ingrained in us from birth.

The idea of letting go of dieting and embracing Intuitive Eating, even if it could alleviate our suffering, often feels too risky. Because let's name the fear - who wants to be judged as fat in a world that only values thin? That equates moral virtue and superiority with people who have put in the "hard work" to make their bodies look a certain way.

So what does “The Diplomat” have to do with my Intuitive Eating journey? Well, I couldn't stop obsessively staring at the main character Keri Russell's perfect body. It was the epitome of what I have always strived to make my body look like waif-like and thin. I pined over her slender legs and arms, her small chest, and her flat belly. Even as her character was breaking the mold of the small, quiet perfect woman in other ways, it was all ok because she still met the world's beauty standard for women - she was traditionally young, thin, and sexy.

I was acutely aware of mental concepts that I wanted to value more than a thin body, like set point weight theory and how diets don't work and end up in weight cycling and weight gain in the long term. But actually accepting myself and not judging myself for no longer looking like that actress was harder.

This is where the rubber meets the road and where the work of body neutrality and body acceptance comes in. It’s my work, and if you’re reading this, it is likely yours too. For me, that's choosing to accept my body as it is over and over again—to accept my body as it is, sometimes easily and other times with difficulty.

I wish I had a perspective back then that could have helped me and may support you as you work toward greater body confidence and self-confidence on this journey.

You’re only as hard on yourself as you are on others

If you're being honest, when was the last time you compared your body to another woman's, judging whether her body was "better" than yours? If you’re being honest, you might find that you’re as hard on others as you are on yourself.

As Brene Brown writes in Daring Greatly, “I am only as hard on others as I am on myself.” This rings especially true when it comes to body image.

When you meet up with a friend and you’re silently sizing her up for her weight and appearance as compared to yours, whether you deem her body better than yours or vice versa, I would argue this says more about your headspace than it has anything to do with her. Our thoughts and feelings, our mental health, are just as important as our physical health.

Let’s use a different example than body image to illustrate the point. If you feel secure about yourself as a parent,  when you see another mom at the store with a child having a breakdown in the aisle, you aren't so quick to judge. You’re more likely to offer a sympathetic smile—a moment of connection and solidarity. You’re solid in your belief in your own worth.

However, when you’re struggling with your body image and how you feel about the flesh on your bones, you’ll likely have much less tolerance and understanding for someone you see as being less than perfect. This holds true regardless of how outwardly perfect you or others deem your body and appearance to be.

It’s not really about appearances. It’s about feeling less than enough, doubting yourself, or struggling with self-worth. It’s about mental health and inner psychology, not just the surface level of your physical appearance.

Consider that you are being hard on others simply because you are not yet in a place where you’re ok with yourself and how you look. The other person has little to do with it, they’re just like a mirror, reflecting what's going on inside of you.

Questions to stop judging yourself and others

Consider the discomfort of judging your body as an opportunity to question and shift your beliefs about yourself. If you choose to understand the challenge as an opportunity to grow individually and collectively, you may want to spend some time reflecting.

Here are some questions to ask when you are judging yourself, your eating, or your body (or someone else's):

• Where does this judgment come from?

• Who does the judgment belong to, is it mine?

• What is my experience like (notice in your body's sensations or where else your thoughts go or feelings that arise) when I judge myself or others?

• Is this serving me?

  
  

Getting to what’s underneath the worry about your weight

So what’s going on inside you that’s keeping you feeling less strong or confident? Do you imagine that if you lose weight, do not gain weight, or outwardly appear a certain way, you will then be capable, deserving, and worthy of doing something that currently feels out of reach? 

When you dig beneath the surface desire to lose or maintain your weight or eat less, this is fertile ground for new insight, self-awareness, and emotional healing.

• Where else in your life do you wish things were different than they are?

• How is continuing to focus on the need to lose weight serving you?

If you need more concrete support to address the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings that are the source of suffering, there are practical steps you can take to feel your feelings. Once you see what’s underneath your struggles with body image, you can address it with clarity and compassion.

When you aren’t stuck thinking your body is the enemy, you’ll be able to feel confident in your body because you feel good about yourself deep down, not just on the surface. This is where I like to focus when I work with women.

The reality of bodies changing

One of the only constants is change. Nothing lasts—not the time you weighed 100 pounds in grade school, not your pre-baby body, and not your post-menopause body. If you don’t like your body now, do you think you’ll like it any more in five years if you continue to hate it?

We struggle with change, transition, seasons of life, and the ways our bodies respond to these only when we resist this truth. What if, instead of resisting, you gave your body (and mind) a break? What if you accepted your body for what it is right now, with all your judgments included, and let it do its thing?

What is your body anyway except the collection of cells that allows you to experience life? Do you want to experience it full of shame and remorse about how you look and what you just ate, or with an interior sense of strength and knowing who you are and open to wonder, and enjoying the journey as much as possible?

No one is thinking about you as much as you think they are

Mike Robbins, in his TED Talk on authenticity in the workplace, shares a liberating thought: "We wouldn't worry so much about what people think about you if you realized just how much they actually were thinking about you!"

This checks out as true in my experience. People are doing their own thing all day, involved in and centered on their own experience, with very little consideration for what's going on with others, including you. Even if something comes up that makes them consider you deeply or even judge you harshly for not meeting up to some expectation or standard they hold, that's more about them than you.

No one is thinking about you as much as you think they are. I hope that feels as freeing to you as it does to me.

Confidence is a product of taking action

Are you confusing confidence with self-esteem? Confidence isn’t about how others perceive you; it’s about what you do. What are you holding yourself back from because you’re worried about how you look or how others might judge you? What are you waiting for?

You build confidence by doing the thing, not by achieving the level of expertise or the look you think you should have before you even start. Try the new exercise class, go surfing before you feel fit, or take that belly dancing class before you feel ready. Small steps build self-efficacy, leading to more steps that create momentum.

Often a lack of confidence shows up in less concrete ways, like in social situations, for example. Instead of assuming it’s your looks that are key here, how else could you show up differently in the way you dress, move your body, or speak that could immediately shift how you feel in those situations?

In essence, feeling more confident in how you look is not only possible, it’s also liberating when you explore it through the lens of “What’s underneath the desire to look good?” and “How can I shift my perspective?” 

If you’re interested in hearing more from me, let me send you letters.

Or let me know if you’re curious about working together to get to the bottom of things for you personally.

Jayne Anne Ammar

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