How We Wire Our Brains Into Body Shaming

It’s human to feel shame, but it’s completely unacceptable to make someone feel ashamed about the way they look.

The act of making someone feel ashamed just because they look a certain way is known as body shaming and it is indeed a serious problem. Unfortunately, many of us unknowingly do this to ourselves, because somehow, we wire our brains into it.

In the course of our lives, it’s unavoidable to acquire neural patterns of thinking that interfere with our natural impulse to accept and be satisfied by certain things in our life, especially the way we look. The brain has a protective strategy in which it unnecessarily activates the survival response. This mechanism known as toxic thinking may seem well-meaning, but it’s a detrimental way of dealing with stressful situations and negative feelings. It also paves the way for body shaming.

Fortunately, recent studies show that your consciousness is key to eliminating negative thoughts. If you become a conscious participant in your thought processes, you can proactively control your thoughts, direct the changes in your brain, and take advantage of your neuroplasticity. In other words, when you become conscious of your bad behaviour and thought patterns, you can expose them, let go of fear, and start expressing your uniqueness.

Unfortunately, the problem is ubiquitous in nature; it can be found in things we are exposed to every day (advertisements, stories, films, etc). We see and hear things that stimulate the brain, feed us with negativity, manipulate our ego, and overpower our conscious self, which holds everything that makes us unique (imagination, decision-making, reflective thinking). When the wounded ego gets the upper hand, it makes us disregard the positive moments that happen around us. We become more likely to misinterpret our body’s signals because we tap into our strongest negative emotions, such as fear, guilt, and anger.

Overcoming the negative ideas we have conjured about ourselves can be hard, especially if they’ve been in place for a long time. But once you see past the distraction and realise the beautiful network of your brain and body, you will have better control of what creates and influences change ideas. You will control the flow of information from all directions, subconscious and conscious.

Your body listens to everything you say, so declare your love for it. Learn to get rid of the negative emotions that hold you back.

If you strive to change the negative thoughts and beliefs that lead to body shaming, you can start replacing them with positive ideas that will trigger neurochemical changes in your brain and ultimately result in acceptance of everything that makes you the awesome person that you are. As humans, we are not perfect, but it’s our imperfections that make us special Only when you’ve come to accept this can you begin to live a more confident life.