I believe in body autonomy

Body love, body positivity – whatever you want to call it, is important and needed. Celebrating all bodies should be normal human behavior. It’s not. We are trying, but it is confusing, and hard. Especially when it changes. Especially when our society focuses enormously on physical appearance.

How can you love your body? I believe you can love parts of your body and feel grateful for you body, but still feel uncomfortable in it. You can still wish to change things about it and that is OK because I believe in body autonomy.

You are in charge of your body. You get to choose.

You can workout for two hours a day.

You can exercise once a week.

You can drink green juice for seven days.

You can eat doughnuts for dinner.

You can go Keto or Paleo or Vegan.

You can get a Mommy Makeover.

You can get botox.

You can get fake eyelashes.

You can get your eyebrows microbladed.

You can wear sweats to Costco.

You can avoid makeup.

You can do the work to become an Intuitive Eater again.

As with any choice, there will always be consequences. You might lose the weight you wanted going keto, but how’s your liver, your cravings, your relationship with food? Did you cleanse your gut after the detox, or were you so hungry you ate everything in sight?

Maybe you can’t afford all the beauty treatments you’d like, but you want something for you – an eyelash fill is a form of self-care to you. Maybe your abdominal muscles are so torn from having babies that a Mommy Makeover it what it’s going to take to heal your back. Maybe you realize exercising for two hours a day is messing with your hormones, and you really don’t need that much.

The point is this…

Body autonomy means that you get to choose. No one can choose for you. You have to decide what you need, only you can discover what that is. Perhaps, it’s after you’ve tried a few things and learned what is not for you. But that also means you don’t get to judge what anyone else does to their body…

Unless it’s your child or your sister or your BFF…then you can say something…