Your Body Is Not the Problem

The other day, I caught my reflection and, for a brief second, the judgment appeared.

It was subtle. Familiar. “You could look better.”“You used to have a flatter tummy…”

You probably know those kinds of sentences.

And in that moment, I realised something.

I wasn’t seeing my body.

I was seeing an interpretation.

In A Course in Miracles, there is a teaching that says we do not see things as they are; we see them as we believe them to be. That idea has stayed with me, especially when it comes to body image.

Because maybe we don’t hate our bodies.

Maybe we hate what we think they mean.

A stomach is not a failure.

Softness is not weakness.

A number on a label is not a measure of love.

And yet we load the body with meaning.

We look in the mirror, and we don’t just see skin or shape. We see stories, comparisons, old comments that never quite left; expectations we absorbed without even realising.

Body judgment rarely starts with the body.

It starts with fear.

Fear of not being chosen.

Fear of being rejected.

Fear of not being enough.

When that fear goes unexamined, it gets projected outward. The body becomes the visible target.

For a long time, I believed healing my body image meant changing how I looked. Or forcing myself to love every part of me. Now I see it differently.

Healing might begin with something quieter.

Not attacking.

Not believing every critical thought.

Noticing the voice without automatically obeying it.

And asking gently:

What am I really afraid of right now?

What meaning have I attached to this part of me?

Who taught me to see myself this way?

The body changes. It always will. If our identity is tied to something that is constantly shifting, we will feel constantly threatened.

Perhaps we are not our shape.

Perhaps our worth does not fluctuate with our weight.

Perhaps the body is not the problem.

Perhaps the interpretation is.

And maybe healing begins in that small space between what we see and what we decide it means.

Not with perfection.

Not with forced positivity.

Just with a little less attack.

And a little more willingness to see things differently.

With love,

Laura 💜

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If this resonated with you, and you’re ready to explore your body image on a deeper level — not by fixing your body, but by healing the fear and stories attached to it — this is the work I do inside my Embodiment programme.

We gently untangle the beliefs you’ve absorbed, the shame you’ve carried, and the meaning you’ve attached to your body. We work with the emotional roots, not just the surface thoughts.

Because your body is not the problem. And you don’t have to navigate this alone.

You can book a free 30-minute session here.