Ahh… did it finally arrive? Spring.
And as I get older, it seems that right around the time the flowers finally burst from their buds, something else bursts too… the snot from my nose and the itchy eyes of allergy season. But…it’s all welcome.
For some of us, spring also brings a little extra spark of motivation. The urge to clean out a closet, start walking outside again, or finally tackle that backyard fence that’s slowly leaning into the neighbor’s yard.
I’ve also noticed that spring tends to wake up something else…
the volume of diet culture messages.
As the weather warms and layers come off, conversations about bodies seem to ramp up. We show more skin, and research in body image psychology shows that situations where the body becomes more visible tend to increase body monitoring and comparison.
So I thought… what a perfect time to talk about body image. What if spring cleaning didn’t just apply to closets and garages? What if we also dusted off some of the old thoughts and patterns we carry about our bodies?
Just a few days ago, I had an incredibly successful, powerful, and thoughtful woman sitting across from me in session. She became tearful as we talked about how many years she had been putting into working out and eating well. Still, she was frustrated that her body seemed slow to respond. Her arms still looked like… her arms.
She had an upcoming wedding, a sleeveless dress, and some complicated family dynamics that made her want to look and feel good for the event. But what struck her most wasn’t just frustration with her body.
It was frustration with how much her thoughts about her body were affecting her.
How could she have such strong footing in so many areas of her life, she wondered, yet still feel stuck in this one place?
If any part of that story resonates, you’re not alone. So many of us carry some version of this narrative. No one is immune from the conditioning of diet culture and the way it can quietly shape our thoughts about our bodies.
Since it’s spring, and many of us are already in the mindset of cleaning things out, I thought we could explore a few gentle ways to “spring clean” some of the places body image tends to show up in everyday life.
The first place might be closer than you think…
