Geneen Roth

Those of us who grapple with body image issues tend to spend a lot of time and energy focusing on our physical imperfections and lamenting all the things we feel are wrong or missing. We are often so keenly attuned to the perceived negatives of our physical being that we completely lose sight of the many positive aspects inherent in having a body.

Today, I completed exercise #3 from “200 Ways to Love the Body You Have.” This exercise, simply titled “Gratitude,” challenges us to list all of the ways our bodies serve us, those things we wouldn’t be able to experience if we didn’t have a body. Surprisingly, I had no trouble at all creating my list and within a short fifteen minutes, I had listed 25 blessings for which I feel gratitude toward my body.

My list mostly encompasses the many joys of experiencing life through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

This post represents my first exercise from the book, “200 Ways to Love the Body You Have.” Taking the author’s suggestion, I opened the book to a random page and let my intuition guide me in selecting the perfect exercise for me at this point in time.

I couldn’t have selected a more perfect exercise to start on my journey to finally love and accept my body!

First Exercise – Body Love Goals

The exercise I selected was #146, “Body Love Goals.” This exercise involves writing about my vision of what it means to love my body and to live in peace and harmony with it. In following the instructions, I completed the following sentence in as many ways as came to mind: “I’ll know that I love and accept my body when…”