Accept Yourself In Body And Soul

The current beauty canon, in which youth and thinness prevail, can generate physical complexes. Observing directly what you are least proud of your body with a receptive attitude, being aware that everyone has their singularities (a too wide nose, very small ears, a somewhat drooping chest …) helps you to increase confidence in yourself.

The body manifests what you have lived and what you are. The body position, the wrinkles that cross your face, that scar you made as a child … are signs of what you carry with you, and it is wise to accept them.

Look in the mirror and improve your self-esteem

This exercise helps to increase self-esteem and to learn to decipher the messages of the body.

In front of a full-length mirror, notice your usual posture: are the shoulders hunched or slumped? Does the jaw seem tight or relaxed? Is the chest sunken or forward? Do the feet rest evenly on the ground or is the weight on either side?

It is about observing your posture and connecting with the feelings it generates: sadness, understanding, strength, love, weakness … Accepting yourself as you are, with your strengths and weaknesses, is the first step to transform blockages and insecurities into an experience of enriching growth.

Dialogue with your face and the healing drawing

Now look at your face, the gray hair that may begin to fill the hair or the wrinkles that little by little appear around the eyes. They are nothing more than witnesses of time, of everything we have experienced. After a few minutes of observation, close your eyes and caress your face lovingly, slowly, starting from the forehead and working down the eyebrows to the neck.

Another exercise that puts you in touch with body self-perception is trying to draw yourself. Do you look sad or smiling? In what position do you draw yourself? Try not to suppress the emotions that arise in you.

4 techniques to promote dialogue with your body

When it comes to gaining body awareness, there are many paths you can take. The result depends, to a great extent, on the dialogue that is established between the therapist, the patient and the chosen technique itself.

1. Shell Release Method (MLC). According to this technique, the muscles can store emotional and mental blocks within them that prevent vital energy from flowing freely through them, causing stiffness, pain and tension. To promote the circulation of this energy, simple movements are carried out in which the body comes into contact with rubber balls, foam balls or rubber covered sticks. The pressure they exert helps the person to perceive how their muscles are and to observe what feelings or thoughts this pressure generates. It was created by Marie Lise Labonté as a self-healing method.
2. Trager method. This discipline, created by Dr. Milton Trager, combines body massage with learning simple movements that can be carried out at home. Its aim is to increase mobility, dialogue and body awareness. By not working abruptly, the space of the body is respected, which can thus cause changes from the inside.
3. Global postural reeducation (RPG). Created in 1981 by the physiotherapist Philippe Souchard, it detects which muscles are tense or shortened and deciphers the ultimate reason for that tension, sometimes overlapped by muscle compensations. The most important thing is that the patient becomes aware of how his body is and performs the stretches proposed by the therapist.
4. Integrative body work (TCI). Luis Carbajal, who has developed this line of work, explains that the TCI seeks the integration of techniques such as Bioenergetics, Gestalt therapy, the Grinberg Method or the Harmonic Movement, to regain contact with the body. Promoting playfulness, with tools such as dance or contact games, is one of its characteristics.