“Dance to the music of your own life in love with your body.  It is your teacher, healer, and challenge.  It is your faithful companion for the length of your days.  Love your body.  Regardless.  And so it is.”   Patricia Lynn Reilly

How do you really feel about your body? Can body positive art make you feel better about your body?

These are loaded questions and we need to come together and bring them to the table, so, let’s start talking about them now.

Most women struggle with a distorted experience of their body.   We need support to shift the way we see and experience ourselves.  This is where body positive art comes in.  It offers you mirrors of how your body looks, inviting you to become more familiar with your body.  Slowly coming round to truly meeting yourself in the mirror.  These images can inspire you to feel good in your own body, giving you permission to breathe, to let go, to accept and to be loved.  To get beyond what your body looks like. To just be in your body.

When you look at this image of Maya, what comes up for you?  Some images may embarrass you, even make you feel ashamed if you resonate with them. You might even turn away.   Is it uncomfortable to look at Maya and her roundness, her nudity?  Does nudity make you uncomfortable?   When you see folds of voluptuous skin and fat do you feel judgment?  Does using the word fat make you uncomfortable? Does it feel odd, even wrong? To me the word fat is very body positive, it’s just a neutral word.  It just is. My body is fat.

Did you know you can use body image art to track how you are feeling in your body?  What comes up for you when you look at the images? Your thoughts about your body?  Body sensations? Consider how you can feel supported by these images.  How they can help you realize that you are not alone with your challenging experience of your body. 

We need to practice.  Be consistent in making efforts towards healing the negative imagery we’ve been surrounded by for way too long and instead surround ourselves with new possibilities.   Surrounding yourself with new, positive and loving imagery is a sacred and self-loving practice.

Here are some ways to begin to use body positive imagery & language:

Set up an altar to your body. A place in your home that offers imagery and fire (candles) to honor your goddess self, your body, your spirit.  Offering you a place to visit daily to be reminded of what is possible, how loving your body is a reality that is available to you.

Surround yourself with goddess art.  Goddesses are mirrors for shape and form. Bodies that look different than what is reflected in our culture.  These goddesses look familiar to many of us.  They offer truth and grounding in claiming our curves, our bumps, our strength.

Use words that remind you to breathe, to love yourself, to step into your bigness of spirit and body at whatever size it is.  Words that offer support, guidance & wisdom.

Our artists who create body positive art want to inspire you to expand your vision of your beauty and your essence.  These artists are courageous in expressing their joy, hopes and visions towards inhabiting the powerful and self-loving feminine.  They are offering imagery that supports your journey of healing.

All of these ideas and offerings are in service of uplifting you.  How you feel about you is going to change how you move through the world, through your life.  Look for images that reflect back what you need, that help you.  These images can shift how you feel.  What you see. The body represented in the piece of art may not be yours, it can still inspire potential for what you can feel about your body. 

Feel pride. Feel joy. Honor your body!

I invite you to share below in the comments whatever came up for you while reading this post. You are welcome to share with us what has helped you to create a more loving relationship with your body.  These types of conversations need to happen in order for us all to heal and transform.  

Note:  This is a weight-neutral space. Please do not share or engage in any conversations about weight loss.