There are many triggers for body preoccupation and negative body image in our daily lives, one of the most compelling being that few of us can ever comfortably achieve and maintain the type of body promoted as ideal, most women would rather reveal their age than their weight. Focusing on our bodies in a negative way, can provide a distraction from other struggles in our lives, difficult feelings that we don’t know how to handle and problems for which there are no simple solutions. So we may unconsciously shift our focus to fixing our bodies.

But here’s the thing: every time we displace distress onto our bodies and then try to “fix” them, we enter into a process that has the potential to disrupt our relationship with eating and body image; we also shut down any possibility of getting real perspective, mastery and peace in our lives. With genetics playing the largest role it’s unnecessary to try to create any illusions of what your body isn’t meant to be.

We must keep in mind that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder but it’s also in the eye of the possessor. What actually makes us attractive to others is the projection of our own self esteem....