Your Body Was Never the Problem - A Somatic Reframe of Body Image
In my work, I have the privilege of sitting beside many tender souls navigating a painful relationship with their body.
And what I’ve come to learn is this: body image pain is never just about how we look. It’s about how safe we feel inside our skin.
Sometimes the struggle shows up as a lifelong attempt to shrink.
Sometimes it looks like a fear of taking up space.
Sometimes it’s body hatred so familiar, it feels like truth.
We live in a world that teaches us to disconnect from our bodies. To critique them, mould them, mistrust them. And in a society steeped in fatphobia, trauma, ableism, and comparison, it makes sense that so many of us feel at war with our physical form.
But this post isn’t about learning to “love your body” overnight. It’s not about forcing positivity where there is still pain.
It’s an invitation into something gentler. A soft, somatic reframe. One that asks, tenderly:
What if your body was never the problem?
What if your body image pain is a wise and protective signal—not of vanity, but of vulnerability?
And what if healing body image is not about appearance, but about relationship?
Body Image + The Nervous System
What if the desire to shrink your body isn’t really about the body at all?
What if it’s about safety?
So often, the harshest body image struggles emerge not from vanity, but from vulnerability. From a deep and very real need to feel okay in a world that doesn’t always feel safe.
The nervous system is wired to protect us. When we’ve experienced trauma, shame, exclusion, or disconnection—especially in and through the body—it makes sense that we might reach for control.
For many, controlling the body becomes a way to try and regulate the chaos within.
Shrinking becomes a strategy. A way to stay small. Stay hidden. Stay acceptable.
In this light, body image distress is not a flaw—it’s a brilliant survival adaptation.
It’s the body and brain doing their best to create a sense of order and belonging in a world that has felt unpredictable, overwhelming, or rejecting.
Through this lens, we begin to understand:
Body image pain is not about appearances. It’s about nervous system protection.
And if we want to heal our relationship with the body, we must also heal the conditions of safety within.
The Somatic Reframe - From Object to Relationship
When we think about body image, most of us have been taught to view the body like an object.
Something to sculpt, control, assess, critique.
A thing we have, rather than a being we are.
But in somatic work, we ask a different question:
What would it mean to be in relationship with your body, rather than in control of it?
Relationship asks for curiosity, not judgment.
It invites repair, not perfection.
It allows for complexity, tenderness, even grief.
Your body is not an aesthetic project.
It is a living, breathing vessel of experience.
It remembers things your mind may have forgotten.
It holds your survival strategies. It holds your joy.
And when we begin to tend to our body not as a problem to solve, but a part of us longing for safety—we start to come home.
Somatic nutrition therapy doesn’t demand that you love your body all at once.
It invites you to begin by listening.
To notice. To pause. To gently reconnect.
Not from force—but from the knowing that your body holds wisdom, even when it hurts.
And when that reconnection feels overwhelming—which it often does—somatic practices can offer a pathway back. Not to perfection. But to presence.
Somatic Invitation: A Pause to Be With the Body
You don’t have to love your body to come into relationship with it.
You only need to begin by noticing.
Let’s take a moment, right here.
Somatic Pause: “Withness”
Gently place a hand on a part of your body that feels neutral or safe—maybe your heart, your belly, or the tops of your thighs.
Let your hand rest there. Not to change anything. Just to be with.
Notice the temperature. The texture. The way your body meets your hand.
If your mind wanders, that’s okay. Just come back to the sensation.
Stay for three slow breaths.
No pressure. No perfection. Just presence.
You are allowed to be in relationship with your body even when it’s hard.
Even when it hurts.
Even when you’re unsure.
Your body is not asking you for love—it’s asking you for withness.
A New Way to Be with the Body
Healing your relationship with your body is not about achieving a certain image or arriving at permanent peace.
It’s about allowing the body to be more than a battlefield.
It’s about moving from criticism to compassion. From control to care.
It’s about creating safety—not by changing the body, but by changing the way you relate to it.
And that work doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens in moments. In micro-practices. In breath. In awareness.
You are not broken for struggling with body image.
You make so much sense.
And there is space for you to come home, in your own time, on your own terms.
Ready to shift from criticism to compassion in your relationship with food & body?
This is exactly the work we do in nutrition therapy: rewiring your nervous system so you can feel safe, empowered, and peaceful around food—rather than overwhelmed, guilty, and anxious.