Confidence Reimagined

With summer around the corner, rising temperatures may also be increasing the volume of body-conscious thoughts and feelings. Warm weather brings more socializing, less clothing, and the pressure to get ‘beach body’ ready. The combination of all these factors sometimes motivates disordered behaviors around food and exercise with the intention of embodying self-confidence. But we already know weight loss isn’t sustainable, so I suggest we change our thoughts instead of changing our bodies.

Thinness=Confidence, Right?

Diet culture has us convinced that confidence is reserved for thin bodies only. Sure, it’s easy to believe that beauty queens never feel insecure, but that’s not reality. We know this because there are so many women whose bodies match society’s ideal who still struggle with their body image. On top of that, if you look around, you’ll see women who don’t meet cultural beauty standards who take up space unapologetically. Keep feeding your brain the evidence of diverse bodies exhibiting radical self-acceptance. It will rewire your brain’s perception of what it means to be confident.

I Felt Confident When I Was Thinner

A classic thought error when it comes to body image is believing, ‘I felt confident when I was thinner’. This is a simple misunderstanding of what confidence actually is. The willingness to show more skin, go for seconds, and take photos because you feel immune to criticism and judgment is not confidence. That is a false sense of safety.

This is why it makes total sense that you don’t want to get in the water at the beach or pool and play with your kids. Because you source your self-worth from your appearance and everyone else’s opinion of you, your brain wants to protect you from looking less than perfect. Getting in the water might mean your hair and makeup will come undone, or people will see ways your body looks or moves that you’d rather keep hidden. But if we remember our intention, which is to connect with our kids and create memories, this apparent solution doesn’t align with our values.

So How Do We Embody Confidence?

Confidence is a mentality of being your own best friend. It’s vowing to never criticize or judge yourself for being human. It’s intentionally committing to respect your body no matter what it looks like. It’s wearing clothes that express your unique self. It’s feeding yourself enough food that both tastes good and makes you feel good. It’s modeling to your children the appreciation you have for all the ways your body allows you to experience life. 

Confidence in Action

Say you want to plan a trip to the beach and your brain offers you the thought, ‘I hate my body’. You take action based on the emotions your thoughts create. Shame, guilt, and anxiety will drive you to mentally or physically restrict food and exercise militantly. These behaviors confirm to your brain that your body is hate-worthy.

Here’s how you plan a trip to the beach and successfully embody confidence: intentionally practice different thoughts than your brain is used to. This is called neuroplasticity and it’s a very straightforward process. The key is to be patient with yourself as you gradually rewire your brain to believe new thoughts.

 

Start by replacing the thought, ‘I hate my body’, with, ‘It’s possible my brain is wrong when it tells me my body is hate-worthy’. We don’t need to rush the process by jumping to our goal thought right away, but rather take baby steps away from our current beliefs. When that thought feels easy, try, ‘Other people feel confident in their bodies’ and find as much evidence of that thought as you can. Focusing externally will take the pressure off your own body image work. When you’re ready to move on, try, ‘This is a human body’. It’s a neutral, unbiased fact that your brain can’t argue. After that, try, ‘I am becoming a person who feels confident in their body’.

 

The process of changing your brain takes time and the progress is not always linear. Keep that in mind when you encounter days that are more challenging. Take time to acknowledge any amount of progress that you’ve made because celebrating your wins will keep the momentum going. You’re working to undo years, maybe decades, of conditioning. It’s not easy work and you don’t have to do it alone. That’s why I created a free, private Facebook community to support parents who want to recover from the harms of diet culture and become intuitive eaters + raise intuitive eaters. When you’re ready for support, I invite you to fill out an application for 1:1 nutrition coaching. Together we’ll reimagine what confidence means to you so you can start living a bigger, bolder, fuller life.