3 Ways to Build Trust With Your Body

Do you trust your body?

Body trust might not be something that you’ve ever considered much before. It might seem like a strange concept, but working toward trusting your body can be helpful with self-image, confidence, and self-compassion. 

When we’re born, we know to trust our bodies. When a baby is hungry, they don’t question the hunger cues they’re feeling. They just feel hungry and cry for food. When that baby gets older, though, they might not be as able to tune in to what their body is telling them to determine that they’re hungry. Why is that?

Over time, they began to question the trust they have in their body and their trust in themselves to listen to and care for it. 

Body trust is the concept of feeling connected and compassionate toward your body, and trusting its innate wisdom. Our bodies know a lot more about what they need than we think. Our bodies send us messages all of the time, but it’s often tricky to pick up on them when you’ve grown up learning how to tune them out. 

The Center of Body Trust has a great explanation: “You were born with an inherent trust for your body. Somewhere along the way you became disconnected from that way of knowing. Body Trust is disrupted by many things including and not limited to trauma, oppression, illness, and social constructs of gender, race, sexuality, beauty, health, and weight. Body Trust is an invitation to return to a relationship with your body and yourself that you want to be in for your lifetime—flexible, compassionate and connected.”

It might seem a little odd to have a term for what is essentially just listening to your body, but it’s necessary for many reasons. As we grow, we become influenced by the culture that we live in. We experience discrimination and oppression in some cases. Many of us experience trauma. These experiences teach us to disconnect from our bodies as a way to fit in, and often to stay safe. For example, someone in a larger body might internalize the message that they can only get help from medical professionals if they ignore their body cues for hunger and rest. To avoid substandard medical care due to anti-fat bias, they work to change their body size. 

This is just one example of the ways that we lose trust with our bodies. Any time you have felt that your body isn’t good enough or felt pressure from someone other than yourself to change your body, it reinforces the concept that you can’t trust your body. After a lifetime, it is hard to unlearn. 

What does a lack of body trust look like?

You might not even realize the messages that you’ve taken in about bodies throughout your life. There may be cultural messages that you disagree with on an intellectual level but have a hard time disconnecting from for yourself. You’re not alone. It’s hard to disengage from the constant messaging that your body is not good enough and that you can’t trust what it’s telling you. 

When you don’t trust your body, you might have a harder time picking up on body cues like hunger or thirst. You might ignore your body’s needs, like needing to take a break, because you feel you should push through. 

For many of us, it’s a habit to tune out what our bodies are telling us. It will take time and practice to learn how to tune back in. If you’re working on rebuilding the trust you have with your body, here are 3 things to try:

Notice and appreciate what your body does for you

Lots of us are disconnected from the ways our bodies support us. When we learn how to ignore the messages from our bodies, it makes it harder to appreciate all of the ways our bodies show up for us, day after day. The truth is that there’s probably something you can find to appreciate about your body. Maybe you really appreciate the way your senses allow you to experience the world. Or maybe you really love how your arms allow you to snuggle your pets. 

Take some time to tune in and notice what your body does for you. It’s gotten you this far, after all! Chances are, there is something, even if it’s small, that you can find to appreciate about your body. This will take time to learn. It’s taken a lifetime to learn how not to trust your body, and that won’t go away overnight. 

To get in the habit of tuning in to what your body is telling you, try doing a body scan. Take a few minutes to close your eyes and mindfully imagine your gaze scanning over each part of your body. Take a pause at each area to listen to what your body needs. Does your body need something to eat or drink? Does your body need a hug or to move around a little? Listening to the messages that you get from your body and meeting your body’s needs will help to reinforce that you can trust each other. 

Remind yourself that your body is not the problem

Most of the messages that we get about our bodies being a problem come from people trying to sell us something. If marketers can convince us that it’s our bodies that are the problem, then it’s much easier to sell us a solution. When you notice negative thoughts about your body creeping up, try to remind yourself that there are a lot of people who make a lot of money making you distrust your body. Who is profiting from you feeling this way? It’s probably not you. 

All of our bodies are different. They don’t always work the way they should, but that doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to always hate your body. Sometimes feeling positively about your body is not possible, but body neutrality can be helpful in those moments. Your body doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t need to be its biggest fan. You just need to treat your body with respect, because you’re on the same team. 

Treat your body like a friend 

Your body is the only body you’re ever going to have. You’re in this together for as long as you’re here, so you might as well treat your body well. Try to connect with it like you would a friend. If a friend expressed a need to you, would you ignore it? Probably not! When you receive information from your body, don’t ignore that either. 

It takes time to build trust, so it will take time for you and your body to learn that you can trust each other. When you show up for yourself and consistently listen to the messages that you’re getting from your body, you reinforce the trust you’re building. When you get a cue from your body that you need something to eat and you eat, you teach your body that it can rely on you to meet its needs. Over time, it will become a habit to meet the needs of your body. Being consistent with listening to your body is a powerful way to rebuild body trust. 

If you’re looking for support as you rebuild trust with your body, therapy can be a great place to start. Contact us today and our expert clinicians can help. 

Developing Self Compassion While Living with Chronic Illness

When you live with chronic illness, it can be hard to predict what your body and energy levels will allow you to accomplish on any given day. 

Some days you may wake up feeling wonderful, ready to fill your time with dozens of activities, while other days you make way up in the midst of a big flare up and even getting out of bed feels like a big ask. 

Feeling unsure of how you’ll feel from day to day can be extremely frustrating, especially given that we live in a culture that often conflates productivity with morality and “laziness” with immorality. 

While he was speaking specifically in regards to academic “laziness” Devon Price reveals a larger truth about laziness and lack of productivity:

“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.” (Laziness Does Not Exist)

When you live with chronic illness what seems like laziness or lack of productivity is actually both a mentally and physically exhausting process of trying to rest, recover, and tend to your body in the best way you can. 

In order to develop compassion for your limitations, you need to understand what they are. Instead of waking up and trying to get done what you could at an 80% day no matter how you’re feeling, it’s important to learn what different energy/pain level days look for you practically. 

One way you can do this is to keep a simple journal, logging what different days look like to you. 

This doesn’t have to be anything involved–while things like bullet journals and art  journals can be fun and stress relieving, they are also very intricate to keep up with and part of what you’re hoping to accomplish with this journal is just an easy way to build a reference for how to best take care of yourself. If it takes too long to update it or add to it, eventually you’re going to hit a high pain/low energy day where keeping up with it just isn’t possible. And then it won’t be helpful to you! Instead, keep it simple. Note:

• How your pain/energy/symptoms are in the morning when you wake up 

• What you think your energy level is from 0-100%

• What you managed to do during your day without overextending yourself 

• Anything that helped manage symptoms

As you keep track you’ll learn what your 10% days look like, what your 80% days look like, etc. and you can start to have reasonable expectations. 

When you can have reasonable expectations for yourself & your limits, you can start to develop compassion for those limits. 

It can be frustrating to accept a 10% day! If there are things you want to do or activities you want to participate in, waking up on a 10% day can bring a lot of grief. And while those feelings are absolutely legitimate, it can be helpful to make space for a more positive perspective on those days as well. For example, how can respecting your 10% day help you prepare to make the most of a 90% day?

Have a plan for caring for yourself on limited days:

Take a look at your journal, what are the things that have helped on days like this in the past? Can you make a reference for how to best manage these sort of days for yourself? Getting in the habit of providing care to yourself can help shift your mindset from self frustration to compassion as it starts to benefit you long term. 

And remember everyone else has limits too! Chronic illness can feel isolating especially on low energy or high pain days. Having physical restrictions or limitations is difficult in the world we live in but it’s not the only kind of limitation that exists. Everyone has things they need to navigate from day to day. While it might not be as visible, remembering you’re not alone in this can help reduce the shame you may feel.  

Learning that you have a chronic illness diagnosis is often a life-changing experience. Chronic illness tends to impact every aspect of life, from work to leisure time to money to relationships. Remember, chronic illness is not your fault. If you would like more support in coping with chronic illness, our therapists at Hope+Wellness can help.

Why “Should” Statements Make You Feel Worse

Do you ever have a hard time relaxing or focusing because you feel like you “should” be doing something else? 

Should statements are a fast track to feeling discouraged, anxious, and even depressed. 

Should statements are a type of cognitive distortion, or a faulty pattern of thinking. Cognitive distortions are often so automatic that we assume they’re true and don’t question the messages we get from them.  

Some people might find reminding themselves of things they should do to be motivating, but many others experience it differently. For lots of people, focusing on the things they should do leads to feelings of shame, stress, panic, and inadequacy. It doesn’t feel good to spend a lot of time thinking things like:

• “I should be a better mom.”

• “I ought to eat more vegetables.”

• “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

• “I should be able to handle this.”

• “I should clean my house more.”

These statements lead to worry, rumination, fear, and shame. They make us feel like we’re not good enough. When you say you “should” or “must” do something, is that statement actually true, or is it a way to make you feel like you will finally be good enough?

So, what can you do about should statements? They’re a normal part of having a brain, but sometimes they can spiral out of control and make you feel like you can’t do anything right. When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by shoulds, here are some things to try: 

Work on self-trust and self-forgiveness

When you are trapped in a cycle of feeling like you should do something, it can be hard to trust your instincts for what you want to do. Remind yourself of things you do well or good choices you’ve made. When you trust yourself, you’ll feel more confident in your ability to respond to your inner critic. 

Learning how to forgive yourself can also be powerful in reacting differently to should statements. Forgiving yourself frees you from the endless cycle of guilt and self loathing that often accompanies should statements. It’s okay if you don’t do everything perfectly. 

Remember that you’re human

You’re human. You can’t do it all. We all make mistakes and do things we’re not proud of in life. Beating yourself up about the things you’ve done “wrong” in the past does nothing to change the future. Realizing that you’re a person, and you’re allowed to be imperfect, can be freeing. 

If you find yourself thinking in “shoulds”, remember that the first step to doing something about it is noticing what’s happening and you’re already there! When you can notice what’s happening and refrain from judging yourself about it, it’s easier to redirect your thoughts. 

Reframe your thoughts 

Underneath all the shoulds are feelings of inadequacy, or guilt, or shame, or fear. These are all painful emotions that we don’t always know how to cope with. It takes practice to react to these feelings in a new way, but it’s possible to redirect or reframe your thoughts. 

When you notice shoulds creeping into your thoughts, notice them, remember they’re not actually your only options. Instead of saying “I should eat more vegetables,” try saying “I could eat more vegetables,” which takes away the pressure and judgment. You’re not a bad person if you don’t eat more vegetables, but it’s an option if you choose to and it feels good. Motivating yourself in a way that feels good is much more effective than trying to motivate yourself with shame. 

Look for the nuance

Cognitive distortions like should statements view the world in extremes or with hard and fast rules. In real life, there are shades of gray, and there are options other than extremes. 

When your brain is trying to tell you that you can only do things a certain way, that’s a clue to take a moment and question what’s going on. Is what your brain is saying true? Is there another choice here? Explore what’s really going on before getting swept up in your initial judgment. 

Explore where your shoulds come from 

Try to notice that inner voice that comes up when you feel like you should do something. Where did this voice come from? Understanding where the shoulds you feel come from can be helpful in learning how to respond to them in a new way. Do you feel like you’re not living up to a standard? Do you feel like you’re spending your time on the wrong things?

For example, if you constantly feel like you “should” do things related to keeping things clean, think about where that feeling of pressure comes from. Did a parent or caretaker make you feel like you weren’t good enough if you weren’t tidy? Did you grow up feeling shame about an unclean home? Lots of times the judgments we make about ourselves originate from someone that made us feel not good enough at some point. 

If you’re struggling with cognitive distortions like should statements, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help. Our clinicians are trained in CBT and can help you reframe your unhelpful thought patterns so you can cope more effectively. 

What Does it Mean to Take Care of Yourself? 7 Blogs to Help You Practice

What does it mean to take care of yourself?

Is self care about making your life as easy as possible? Is it about making sure you’re always happy? Does it mean that every off feeling we have can be solved with a quick little treat? 

At this point, I think we all know self care is a little more complex than that! True self care isn’t about avoiding difficult situations or banishing “negative” feelings; it’s about making sure you’re doing what you can to provide yourself with the tools and skills you need to manage those hard moments and tricky feelings when they come up. Self care is about noticing what needs tending to, and finding appropriate, compassionate ways to tend to them. 

That’s, of course, much easier said than done. Self care requires a lot of skills we aren’t necessarily taught, and it asks us to patient and compassionate with ourselves and others as we develop those skills. Some of them are easier than others; it’s easier to get yourself to stretch or go for a walk when you feel your body to start to ache than it is to figure out how to express an unpleasant emotion to someone you care about. 

To help you practice, we’ve gathered 7 of our favorite posts that cover skills you may not even realize are self care practices: 

Do you struggle to motivate yourself to do boring life tasks?

Getting started is often the hardest part, especially when the task itself is so massive it feels like even if you start you’ll never finish.  When you tell yourself “I don’t have to finish the dishes, I just have to start them” you’re easing that pressure. Chances are? You’ll realize doing the dishes isn’t actually that bad and you’ll just finish them. And if not? Then some of your dishes are clean now when they weren’t before! 

Read How to Motivate Yourself to Do Boring Life Tasks. 

When you think of self care practices, do you ever consider your social media? 

For every positive aspect of social media, there’s an equal and opposite negative action. Yes you’re able to keep up with friends, but do you remember that their lives aren’t as perfectly curated or posed as they seem on social media? Do you forget to check in with loved ones because seeing a facebook update makes you feel like you’ve already caught up? Do you get stressed from the information overload that can come with mindless social media scrolling?

Read How to Stop Social Media from Making You Feel Bad About Yourself. 

Waking up with a ball of anxiety in your stomach every morning is not ideal.

It can leave you feeling like you don’t even want to get out of bed. That’s why it’s helpful to establish habits that you can use every day to carry you through on the days when your anxiety is spiraling out of control. It can be almost impossible to snap yourself out of an anxious spiral, especially without practice. That’s why it’s important to find anxiety-relieving methods that work for you and then practice them until they’re second nature to you. That way, the next time you’re feeling anxious and out of control, you have something to reach for to soothe yourself. 

Read Daily Habits to Help Manage Anxiety in a Healthy Way

Telling someone you’re upset by something they’ve done takes a lot of courage.

It can feel like a risk–like they could be mad or upset or maybe even react unpredictably. It’s important to remember that while their feelings matter, you can’t control them and it’s not your job to prevent them from experiencing unpleasant emotions. It’s only your job to be honest about how you’re feeling and stick around to work through it if that brings up unpleasant emotions. 

Read How to Tell Someone They've Hurt Your Feelings

How do you react when you feel angry?

For a lot of people, anger is a confusing emotion. Everyone feels anger, of course, but we often aren’t taught how to deal with anger in a healthy way when we are young. It can feel like the only way to respond to anger is through yelling or violence, but that’s a myth that stems from our anger-phobic culture. 

Read 6 Safe Ways to Express Anger. 

How does comparison harm us?

Most obviously, comparison usually makes us feel inadequate. Particularly when we’re comparing ourselves to a carefully curated version of someone else's life (like their instagram feed). We see amazing or exciting things people are sharing, and if we’re not in the middle of something amazing or exciting ourselves, it can make us feel like we fall short. 

But it isn’t just us that it harms. Too much comparison can also be damaging to your relationships. When you’re constantly putting yourself up against someone else–out of either admiration or jealousy–you’re not seeing the other person as a full person. You’re only seeing the one thing that is provoking an emotional reaction out of you (a picture of their vacation, a post about their promotion, etc.) It can lead to jealousy, even resentment in your relationship.

Read How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others. 

Do you know how emotions feel in your body? 

Emotions aren’t only felt in the mind. Our bodies react to our environments just like our brains do, and it can be helpful to connect emotions with body sensations so we can better understand what’s going on within us. 

Read Learning How to Connect Emotions and Body Sensations.

Learning to care for yourself is a process and it can feel hard to do it alone. Working with a therapist can help teach you new ways to explore what your needs are and find healthy, supportive ways to tend to them. Get in touch with our office today to get started with one of our expert clinicians.