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With a fine line between self-appreciation and narcissism, we often shy away from saying “thanks” to ourselves. After years of self-criticism, a struggle through eating disorders, and borderline dangerous relationships, I decided to try a gratitude exercise. The results completely changed my life. I’m sharing this story in hope that this process can help others find self-worth and overcome body image issues as well.
Somewhere around the age of 10, or maybe earlier, I really hated my body. It felt like a liability to drag around — never good enough, never like the ideal image in my mind. My legs were just not long enough, waist too big, arms too crooked, eyes not the right color, nose too big, teeth too funny…and the list went on and on. And why? Who was to blame for this negative thinking? The culprit was my own mind. My own thoughts were telling me that my body was not good enough.
Thoughts of negative body image are binding. They kept me from feeling at ease, from doing things that I loved, and from being able to relax and have fun with friends. A painful memory of one day in 6th grade P.E. class: Everyone had changed and gone to the gym, but I — being embarrassed and unhappy with my body — stayed in a bathroom stall for the whole class period, hiding.
Then there was a close brush with anorexia. I didn’t think too much about it, but I remember avoiding food for quite a while. (Very quickly I got into big trouble with my mom, who snapped me out of those habits.) Why was I treating my body this way? For the simple reason that I thought I was too fat. I was not fitting into the ideal body image in my head. (Looking back at photos from that time, I see now that I was definitely delusional.)
Teenage years aside, the body hatred followed into my twenties. I grew out of clothing, and jobs, and friendships, and habits — but still for some reason, I could not grow out of the negative body image thoughts.
It took me a while to realize that my worth can only come from within. When I began to value myself, value my body, and value my appearance, the way that others treated me began to change as well.
My negative body image and low self-worth created a mindset in which I felt worthless. Feeling worthless can be a dangerous thing, as it allows people to treat you as if you are, well, worthless. I found this out in a brief but painful relationship, in which my body was treated as an object, and I was not worth his time beyond the time of “use.” I considered myself a worthless object, and for this reason, he believed the same.
It took me a while to realize that my worth can only come from within. When I began to value myself, value my body, and value my appearance, the way that others treated me began to change as well. Catching a glimpse of what a change in thought patterns can do, I began a journey through this change.
Somehow, I landed in the world of gratitude. There was a buzz about it . . . gratitude this and gratitude that. At first, my reaction was: What a chore! To write in a gratitude journal seems like a big waste of time.
Slowly, my reaction to gratitude changed. Through books like Sara Wiseman’s Living a Life of Gratitude: Your Journey to Grace, Joy & Healing and Dr. John F. Demartini’s Count Your Blessings: The Healing Power of Gratitude and Love, my interest in the subject of gratitude grew.
I thought, if we can be grateful for the world around us and the blessings in our lives, can we be grateful for our bodies?
And thus my journaling began.
I was grateful for my heart and lungs, which tirelessly work while I think about other things. And grateful for my brain, controlling everything like clockwork.
I began to write, a little bit each day, about every feature, every limb, every organ. I expressed gratitude for my eyes, because no matter what color they are, they allow me to see. I wrote “thank you” for my legs, because even though I would have preferred longer ones, these actually allow me to walk. Grateful for my nose, ears, mouth, skin, etc. After writing about features, I wrote about organs. I was grateful for my heart and lungs, which tirelessly work while I think about other things. And grateful for my brain, controlling everything like clockwork. Grateful for my spinal cord and nerves. Grateful for my stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver, bones, muscles. The list goes on, all the way down to the tissues and cells. I am grateful for all those cells — doing all that they do, and knowing exactly what to do and when.
I saw it clearly then—our bodies are miraculous.
The gratitude entries helped me step back and see the bigger picture. Our bodies are an amazing creation, a wondrous mechanism that we do not even fully understand yet. The gratitude opened my eyes to this wonder, and humbled me before whoever or whatever created us in the first place.
I saw it clearly then—our bodies are miraculous. They have the power to feel and act. To help others. To heal.
My negative body image thoughts vanished. I was finally happy with the way I looked, because there was so much more to be grateful for. I was able to feel at ease, to focus on more important things, to pursue goals, to kindle relationships.
Gratitude does NOT mean “complacency.”
I have been noticing a trend in aversion to gratitude in which people think, “I want to change, so why should I be grateful?” In reality, gratitude does not facilitate complacency. It has quite the opposite effect—it facilitates change, specifically change for the better. For example, feeling gratitude for my body does not mean that now I am complacent; it does not mean that I will not exercise or eat well because now “anything goes.” No, that’s not what happened. The mental change that took place was a change from doing actions out of fear and hatred to doing actions out of love. I used to exercise and diet out of fear of gaining weight, and out of hatred for my appearance. Now, I exercise, eat well, and take care of myself out of love — the love and gratitude for this body, and for everything that it allows me to do. It was this intention of gratitude and love behind my actions that helped me reach a positive change.
Open the door to self-appreciation, love, and self-worth. Let gratitude be the key.
Try It!
I encourage you to take a journal, or just a piece of paper, and start a gratitude list. Write about all parts of your body, especially the ones you don’t like right now. It might seem silly at first, but if you just stick with it and give it some time, you will notice a true difference in your thought patterns.
Open the door to self-appreciation, love, and self-worth. Let gratitude be the key.
For more information about Elena’s journey and the book, please visit www.thankyoumebook.com
We invite you to share a story about yourself or another person, reflecting on the question: “How has gratefulness shifted a moment, an experience, or a lifetime?” 
Revisited a part of Br David’s “Deeper then Words” this morning… the section of “Reserection”
This fits very well with this article and this point in time …Easter and the Resurrection of “Body awareness”.
Start Quote: To neglect either Spirit or body has detrimental consequences for both. Disembodied spirit becomes impotent. Bodily reality, separate from Spirit, loses its dignity and falls prey to abuse. Rape of the environment is shocking proof of this artificial and untenable separation. Ascetics of all traditions have often gone too far, mistreating their bodies instead of seeing them as temples of the Holy Spirit. They sought to strengthen the Spirit by weakening the body, as if the body were not a tool of the Spirit, but an enemy. The body may be hard to handle at times, but without this tool, what could we accomplish? How could we serve the crying needs around us?
On the other hand when the body is no longer the tool and expression of the Spirit within it, how can it thrive? It is one and the same life-force that drives our bodily appetites and guides us toward our loftiest goals. Deprived of this guidance, our body resembles a runaway car. It careens into abuse of every kind. In any 12-step meeting you will hear life stories that illustrate and prove this point.
The same abuse we inflict on our bodies when we no longer experience them as embodiment of Spirit, we perpetrate on our environment when we forget that it, too, is alive with divine life-force. Imagine how different our world would look if we recognized Earth as our wider bodily existence. We reverence and cherish every form of life the moment we become aware that it is animated by the divine Spirit. Faith in THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY is intimately bound up with reverence for the whole cosmos. END QUOTE
Thank you Elena. Though I had no perticular haterate for my body but when I heard the sentence ” do not judge a book by its cover” . I desperately tried to be a ” good soul” of course I at that time did not know souls are souls not good or bad, but level of consciousness yes.
This attitude of mine along with the sentence we are not our body, read by me literally. Made me not house my body.
After cancer I am scared of falling sick. Though I am fine now,
This article will really help me to get a over my fear and operate from love base knowledge.
I thank you again.
Truly grateful
Gargi
This is an exceptional article and so very very timely for this day on the Christian Calendar!
This day being the day of remembering of a certain Being’s body being abused….or so it is most often reported in current time. But if one is knowledgeable in the Original teaching of the Essene Christians ….then it is known not as a torcher event….. but a much much richer meaning ….It symbolizes the cross which is built in ‘The Symbol of Life’. This Symbol of Life is a complete, detailed, model of the Human Body, with its Centre column ( of light), three horizontal bars, ten major centres and many many interconnections. ( Please, This is not to be confused with the Eastern Chakra system of the Jewish “Tree of Life ) The Symbol of Life concerns all three Bodies, Noetical, Psychical and Physical as well as their corresponding Etheric Doubles ( the energy bodies which are in and around each body and interconnect the three bodies)
You are so right to say, “The mental change that took place was a change from doing actions out of fear and hatred to doing actions out of love. I used to exercise and diet out of fear of gaining weight, and out of hatred for my appearance. ”
And may I add that the Intelligence which actually DO the maintaining, the Archangels, the “Lords of the Elements”, Micheal (fire, heat), Raphael ( etheric vitality, magnetism, electric current in the nervous system) Gabriel ( water, liquids) and Urial ( the balancer of the three others) are REJOICING and welcoming you “HOME” to your body, with is the gift given to each Human and we will always have its forma , even after Theosis. These Archangels are charged with the responsibility of maintaining….(no Human mind will ever be able to comprehend the enormous complexity which is the Human bodies) …..but with Right thinking / Right Mental attitude ( as you have outlined so very well ) we can make their work easier.
We can also assist them by educating our selves in awareness of the body with the wonderfully detailed books now available “Atlas of the Human Body” by Beverly McMillan is one example. This, combined with relaxed, relaxed, relaxed meditations, and moving slowly around various points of the body ….getting acquitted with the Etheric Double of various points…IOb by isolating the Etheric Bodies feeling/giving ether at each point ( Etheric Vitality after all, IS, Mind Super Substance) you are strengthening the Etheric Double ( The material body is simply matter ..that has no sense of feeling) and there by, ALL over Heath …including Spiritual, Psychical and Noetical heath.
Be Well Be Present
EdS
Thank you Eds as this will also help me in my journey.
Gratefully
Gargi