[Case Study] Being Unbothered About Your Body
Read time: 4 min.
Being unbothered about your body is not the goal of body acceptance.
I know. It’s probably exactly what you’ve been wishing for.
But what if the thing you want, being unbothered about your body, is the thing that keeps you stuck with your body?
A Real Example
Yesterday I was in consultation with a woman who wanted to work with me 1:1.
One of the main reasons why I do a consultation is to make sure I can help you achieve your goal(s). I want to make sure I’m the right coach for you.
So I asked her: if we were successful at the end of our six months together, what would have happened?
She said, “I would be unbothered by my body. By its new size, by its aging, by my new wrinkles. I’d be able to let my hair grow gray. I’d be unbothered by the way my body looks. My body would not be a thing I would think about.”
Then she told me why. She’s planning to take a year off before retirement to travel through South America. Discover the culture. Go to Machu Picchu.
What I Told Anne
I told her I couldn’t ethically help her become unbothered.
Not because her goal isn’t a good one. Because being unbothered won’t get the kind of relationship to her body that will get her to have the behaviors that will make her dream a reality..
The trip she described requires good cardiovascular health. It requires strength in her lower body. It requires energy. It requires mental space to stay focused on creating what she wants. It requires mental, emotional, and physical well-being, not just for one year of travel, but for the next 10, 15, 20 years of her life.
Being unbothered with your body doesn’t create any of that. Being unbothered does not drive respectful behavior toward your body.
What’s Actually Happening Here
When women tell me they want to be unbothered, here’s what I hear underneath.
Right now, you are bothered by your body, which means checking it, criticizing it, finding what;’s wrong with it, blaming it for not having the life you want and perpetually trying to fix it. Believing your body is wrong and you are wrong.
Of course you want out of that!
But that’s not being bothered. That’s being critical. That’s being dissatisfied.
There’s a confusion in how we describe what we want.
The Deeper Truth About Body Acceptance
Most of us were taught that the only way to pay attention to our body is to judge it. So when you’re exhausted from the judgment, not thinking about your body at all looks like the only way out.
It isn’t. I want you to be bothered by your body. Just in a different way.
Bothered enough to be connected to it. To hear the signals your body sends and understand what it needs. To look at your body every day, not to inspect it, but to stay connected with it. To pay attention to the aches and pains, the hunger and fullness, the emotions, so you can respond in a way that supports the life you want to live.
That’s respect. And respect is what drives health-promoting behaviors.
This Is The Work I Do With Women
I don’t help women stop being bothered about their bodies. I help them be bothered differently.
That’s what body acceptance, done the right way, gets you.
If Anne's story hits home, I invite you to consider your next step working together:
You can join the Body Acceptance Challenge. Next cohort starts soon!
Or
With love,
Stephanie
