Today, I Will Accept My Body Just As It Is, Without Judgment.

Today, I will accept my body just as it is, without judgment.

With this statement, we remind ourselves to focus on acceptance.  In recovery, learning to accept ourselves and our experiences helps us to move away from suffering and toward inner peace and self-acceptance. I find this affirmation so grounding after years of refusing to accept anything about my physical body, which ultimately led to the pain and suffering of self-hatred perpetuated by the self-destructive patterns and cycles of my eating disorder.  

On my journey, I have learned that pain in life is inevitable, but that it is a transitory state if we accept it and allow ourselves to experience it and move through it.  It's when we refuse to accept our pain and attempt to control, avoid or soothe it that we cause ourselves to suffer long term.  The greatest cause of suffering for myself has been the judgment and self-hatred I have felt for my body when it doesn't meet my standards of perfection.  Rather than accepting my body as it is or accepting the negative emotions that come up when I am judging it, I try to control them by engaging in ED behaviors.  While the behaviors soothe my pain in the present, they actually keep me in a cycle of suffering because it keeps me hating my body and myself when I don't feel "perfect," which is of course an impossible state to obtain.

I believe this affirmation to be a truly healing reminder that learning to accept our bodies as they are on any given day without judgment is a huge step for recovery.  Because when we learn to accept our bodies and stop trying to constantly control them, we consciously remove ourselves from our cycle of suffering.  Acceptance without judgment is our route to freedom and self love!  May we strive to open our minds and hearts to our bodies as they are, learning to work with them and not against them so that we may realize the wholeness and oneness of our beings! 

Sending acceptance your way!

Taylor