As women, we are taught from a very young age that our bodies are private and that we shouldn’t reveal them, look at them, think of them, or be proud of them, as we get older this modesty comes from a place of sexualization. The reason that we have Free The Nipple rallies are to desexualize women’s bodies, but I wonder how far this mentality permeates into our lives. For a very long time, I was ashamed of my body to the point that I hated looking at it, I would take a shirt off, switch into a clean one, take off my pants and put new ones on, I tried really hard to never be totally naked. When I committed myself to changing my life, I implemented naked time, I spent at least 5 minutes naked in the mirror, looking at myself in different angles, except I was looking for things to love. I would take note of where I saw muscles taking shape, or other changes in my body, noting where I had new freckles, (ladies, this is a good time to do a self breast exam too, just saying).
At first, I felt totally stupid, and gross, and ugly, but after a while I looked forward to it, not out of vanity, but out of appreciation, I spent that dedicated daily time to getting to know myself better, having a better relationship with myself, even talking to myself out loud. Becoming more comfortable with my naked body also changed my relationship with clothing. I used to use clothing to conceal “problem areas”, but once I adopted my naked time routine, I started accepting that that’s just how my body looks, and that clothing doesn’t change that, if there’s a roll here or loose skin there, it’s still there and still visible, it’s just got cotton over it. I started thinking of my body as the most amazing raw veggie, and clothing as oil, herbs, and spices. My naked body was perfect in its raw form, but it was fun to experiment with new flavours. A carrot is still a carrot after you put olive oil on it. Changing that outlook also challenged me to leave my clothing comfort zone and I haven’t looked back.
Image: Frances Cannon Go To Her Site
Taking five minutes out of your day to embrace the meat suit you’ve got can help you get past the things that you spend so much time fixating on the things you hate and allows you to start noticing the things that you love, how amazing your body is, and all the things that it enables you to do. Your body is your vehicle, it may be dinged up and scratched, maybe parts of it are held together with duct tape, but it keeps you safe, moves you around, and takes you on every adventure you get to have.