Welcome to How to Love Your Body - today on the podcast we will be talking about comparing your body to your PAST body, this is the most challenging comparison that women come to us struggling with.

To work on this and find some healing for yourself be sure to grab your free worksheet here www.thebodylovesociety.com/92

When we ask about comparison women say the hardest thing to move on from is comparison to their past bodies.

And that makes sense, we create an identity for ourselves as we live our lives and a big part of that (sadly) is based around the way we look. So a couple decades later when we look different, it can feel very uncomfortable.

Who are we now if we aren’t the fit one, the thin one, the super healthy one, or even the one always trying to lose weight.

Even though these things really are so minor in WHO we are, we base a lot of our self worth/ identity around these things.

If we are constantly comparing our bodies to our past bodies, it’s almost impossible to find peace now.

So how do we deal with this?

One great tool is to create a mindset shift using a different aspect of your life from your past that has changed (when we focus on weight and body it can be hard to see clearly and it is a very emotional subject in our weight obsessed culture).

For instance:

(Lauren shares her life as a past athlete)

(Jenna shares her life as a past model) 

Yes, these times in our past had a lot of positives, we look back at them lovingly, but they are in the past and there’s no way to change that. Our lives are different now, we grew up, started families, found work we loved. A lot has changed and there are losses to that and things that we have gained.

It’s the same with our bodies - whether it was a time of restriction and it was really hard for you or whether your body has just naturally changed over the years, there are things you’ve lost and gained since then.

Grab your worksheet so you can take note of these things and change the way you think about your past at www.thebodylovesociety.com/92

Start by choosing a time in your past that you tend to compare yourself to.

Take some notes on what you miss about that time - the things you feel you have feelings of loss around.

This might be things like: 

 

Certain relationships/ friendships


Maybe you lived somewhere else and you loved it there


Your social life


Having more freedom (life before kids!)


Being in school that you loved



Being in a thinner body that you felt was “better”


 

What do you have NOW in this present moment, that you feel you have GAINED since this time in your life?

 

Family


Wisdom


Career expertise (success)


Sense of self ? (even in a different body do you feel you KNOW who are you more now?)


Some amazing life experiences


Learnings from some tough life lessons


20 years of LIFE that you didn’t have before!



New relationships and new love


 

So we know for sure that there have been things that we feel we have lost from our past but there are also many things we have gained (but we get that when you look at an old picture of yourself all you can think of is what’s changed in a negative way, in your eyes and not all the amazing things you’ve gained in life)....

Now dive a bit deeper into these things that you feel loss around - we don’t just want to leave it as a loss that can never be recovered:

The thing that we really feel loss around is the FEELING things give us, not the things themselves: 

What is the FEELING that these things from your past gave you?

Relationships might be connectedness and love

Life before kids may have felt more carefree and relaxed

Being in a thinner body may have made you feel confident 

Now that you have your list of feelings it’s time to brainstorm:

How can you get these feelings in your life NOW!

Yes, the past is the past and it won’t ever look the same, but the good feelings you feel you’ve lost can come back in new ways…

Don’t have close girlfriend relationships and want