Latest / Unlearning Beautiful / Ep. 28 Stop Trying to Fix the Clouds: How to Handle Negative Body Thoughts
Transcript
- Kristina Bruce: Have you ever seen yourself in a photo or looked in the mirror and felt your stomach drop? You recoil at the sight of your face or body, and pretty soon it feels like your whole day and your self-worth is ruined. But what if what is actually happening is simply that a storm is passing through? And instead of needing to change anything in the moment, you just need to wait for the sun to come back out. I was asked by a coaching client to share this metaphor on the podcast because she found it so helpful. So that's what I'm doing today. All right, let's dive in. Welcome to Unlearning Beautiful, a podcast for women tired of trying to look good enough and ready to feel good from within. I'm your host, Christina Bruce, here to help you let go of the pressure to look right or do it all right, and reconnect with your inner guidance, your natural work, and what truly makes you feel fulfilled. Because the freedom you're craving was never in how you look. What happens when you see that quote unquote bad photo, or you see yourself in the mirror and you don't think you look good? There's a real physical sensation there, isn't it? You feel something tighten, like your stomach drop or your body clench, or just the sense of disgust, or ugh, it feels really terrible. When you're feeling that way, doesn't everything just kind of seem darker? It's like this shadow has been cast over your life. That's what it's like when the clouds cover up the sun. Except the difference is when it's cloudy outside or stormy, we don't forget that the sun exists. We just realize that it's a storm passing through. But we don't see our thoughts and our feelings that way. We take them seriously. It's like we're looking at the storm and thinking, this is just what is. My life is. dark and stormy. My body is terrible. And it's like when we see that, you're trying to fix the weather. If you could imagine it's like we're trying to build this contraption to push the storm away or, you know, clear out the clouds. We don't do that because we know that it's just weather. But when it comes to our thoughts and our feelings about our body, we really believe them to be true. It's like we believe This is the truth. There is no sun anymore. And I need to do what I can to try to fix myself, to fix these clouds in order to feel better. When really what we need to do is see that those thoughts and feelings are actually like clouds passing in the sky. Sometimes it's just a very light gray overcast day. And other times it feels like a hurricane whipping through. The very first thing that we can do. To start to handle these negative body thoughts is to really start to see them as thoughts. Now I know you might be thinking, yeah, I know that I have thoughts, but there's still a part of you that really believes those thoughts. Otherwise, you would just see them as thoughts and see them as the weather and pass on by. But here's the other thing: when we've been looking at clouds for so long, we truly can forget that there is a sun. It's like every time we're looking at our body. It's like we've trained ourselves to always look for the clouds. You could have a nearly perfectly clear sky, but your eye is gonna go to the one or two clouds that are in the sky. It's the same way when we're looking at our body. We forget everything that's right with our body and we only focus on what is quote unquote wrong. Now, the funny thing is, is what we're even seeing as wrong is like a cloud itself. And clouds come and go. Those thoughts can't really be who we are because they don't stay. If it was really true that what your mind was telling you about your body was really who you are, then those clouds should be there forever. But you have moments of seeing the sun. Sometimes those clouds are there and sometimes they're not. So what if you could start seeing these negative body thoughts like clouds that are just covering up The positive warmth and joy that you feel when the sun is out. Because here's the truth: the sun is always shining, even when the clouds are there. It's just we don't see it. The good news is that the clouds, they're not solid. They're vapor. We know that when we go up into the clouds in the plane, the plane just goes right through those clouds. But in our mind, in our experience, when we have these negative thoughts about our body, it feels like they're solid. We treat them like they're solid, like they're a problem that needs to be fixed. Except if we were to get really close to them, we would see those thoughts are nothing more than vapor. It's just that we have a feeling associated with those thoughts that feels real and it's attached to our survival system. And when our survival system gets activated, it feels really threatening. It feels real. It feels like we're in danger. It feels like we're wrong. And our mind is going to go into overdrive and find all of the proof and all of the justification for why these thoughts are real, why it's really true that you're terrible and nobody's gonna love you and you're a failure and you have no worth and value. Now you might not be. Thinking those thoughts consciously. But if I was to dig down deeper into them, that's what would be lying underneath. Those are the cloud clouds that are kind of higher up in the sky, the ones that we don't always see. We see the thoughts like, ooh, you have too many wrinkles or you're too fat. But underneath those or above those in this metaphor in the sky are these deeper thoughts of I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough. And those ones feel so true, but they are no truer than a cloud. You literally can just walk through that thought. And so if you were to actually sit and imagine yourself seeing these thoughts, feeling like you're surrounded by these clouds, get closer to them. Start to walk through these clouds. Let them actually brush against your skin. What is a thought like I'm not good enough? Actually have a substance. Get closer to it. Let it just permeate through you. You'll notice that there's nothing to it. It comes and then it goes. It's only when we fixate on it that we believe it has some substance, but it really truly is like a cloud just hiding over the sun. And when you walk through those clouds and you get closer to the sun, or if you can imagine a clear sky, you feel good. You feel the warmth. And that's the other thing about this. You don't have to do anything. To feel the warmth of the sun, because the sun always exists. We just need to be able to see that these thoughts are clouds and there's nothing to them. And if we were to leave them alone, not give them our attention, they would start to pass. So what if instead of taking every thought that you have about your body seriously and believing it, you could see it like a dark cloud? Because we all want to feel the sun. It's just that we've been tricked into believing whatever the thought is telling us that that's what we need to do in order to feel better. So if the thought says, your body's too fat, well, now I need to lose weight in order to feel good enough. Where really you will feel good enough when the cloud passes. So if you just walk through that thought, let it dissipate, you will notice that the sun will naturally start to shine through. And from that place, Of a clear sky, you now have the opportunity to make a different choice. What are you going to wear that day? What are you going to eat? How are you going to move? Is coming from a different place when there's a clear sky versus from a place of, I need to fix this weather. I need the clouds to go away. There's a very different feeling to that. So try this on. Imagine that those thoughts that are coming in, making you feel terrible about your body, are really just like clouds. And when we let them pass on by, the sun is right there behind it. I explore this concept more in my mini course, the Body Peace Video Series. It's a three-part series where I bring you through experiential exercises so you can start to experience the sun more and allow the clouds to pass. Check out the link in the description below. There's $20 off for podcast listeners. Give this exercise a go. Let me know how it works for you, and I hope it supports you in feeling better in your body without needing to change it. Thanks for listening today. Look forward to seeing you the next episode. Thanks for listening to Unlearning Beautiful. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show and share it with another woman who's ready to see beauty and herself in a new way. And if you feel moved, leave a rating and review. It will help this show reach more women who need to hear it. Remember, You're already everything you've been trying to become. Enough, worthy, and free. I'm Christina Bruce. Until next time.