Learning to love your body is key to finding confidence in your personal style journey.
The grass is always greener on the other side, right?? Growing up I always wished I was as tall as my mom, or tall like a model.
Spoiler alert: I’m only 5’2” and that’s just how God made me. Today I’m talking about our inner longing to be something else.
I’ll offer three different things to focus on to learn to appreciate our own unique body design. Each of us is made in His image, and we are carrying around genetics that defines our body structure, flesh type, color, and essence.
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I want to talk about the body we have and the body that we want. I want you to know that I have been there so many times. In the last decade, I’ve had six kids in the last 10 years.
My youngest child is a year old and my oldest child is nine years old, so I have yo-yoed 40 to 60 pounds every almost a year. I have really felt those struggles, especially postpartum when your body is just definitely not your own. Everything’s still puffy and you’ve lost that cute belly.
My answer to this was to put on a dress because that’s the only thing that felt good. I put that on and that’s what I wore every day. That is where the whole concept of the solution came from.
When I was growing up, even before I started these yo-yo weight issues, I always wanted to be tall and skinny. Spoiler: I’m not tall or skinny. I am just shy of 5’2”.
I claim 5’2” because it makes me feel a little better, but I’m about five feet, one and three-quarters inches. I’ve always been curvy, even at my really lowest weight I still have curves. It’s just the way my body is built.
Wearing clothes that are built for somebody tall and very thin has never worked for me, and it’s always been a struggle to dress my curves.
No matter what body type you have, I think it’s normal to look at other people – the grass is always greener, right? We look at other people and say, “Oh, I wish I could wear that”, or “I wish I could do this”.
I want to encourage you today to focus on the body that God gave you and stop thinking about what you’re missing, or how somebody else has it better. Everybody’s got the same struggles and everybody has different things that make them view their body in a negative way.
Today, I’m going to share three things that you can consider to learn to love the body you have and appreciate the way that God made you.
Table of Contents
Love Your Body: Bone Structure
The first thing I want to talk about here is your bone structure. Often we think that our clothes don’t fit right because we don’t weigh what we should weigh or the size is too big. But a lot of what determines how clothes fit us is our bone structure.
And when you think about it from that perspective, this is a genetic thing passed down from your parents, through the generations. God made you a certain way, he gave you to this family, your bone structure is something that exists and you can’t change it. You can’t make your bones smaller, longer, or shorter.
You are stuck with the bone structure that you have, but you don’t have to be stuck, because there are so many ways to embrace it. If you have broad shoulders, curvy hips, long legs, short legs, long arms, or short arms, all of these things require different things out of your wardrobe.
Learning to embrace and appreciate the bone structure that God gave you is really key to finding clothes that fit you well and make you look your best and make you feel confident.
Love Your Body: Your Flesh
The second thing I want to talk about is what sits on top of your bones, I’m going to call this flesh. When I talk about flesh, I’m talking about skin, muscle, and adipose tissue. I want you to think of it in technical terms. Everybody has a different composition of this tissue and it appears differently.
You may have noticed that there are some women who, no matter what they weigh, their legs look super muscular. Conversely, there are other women who no matter what they weigh always have a really curvy bust line. These are all genetic aspects of your body.
You can change the overall size of your body by diet and exercise, but when it comes down to it, you really are created a certain way. You can’t make enormous modifications to the way that you’re created.
So learning to embrace the way you look, the composition of your flesh, and how it sits on your body is a really crucial element to finding what styles work for you.
For example, if you have a really curvy bust line, you may find that you need knit fabrics over woven fabrics. If you have naturally muscular legs at any size, you may want to wear things that show them off.
Being aware of these factors of your bone and flesh structure is crucial to finding clothes that make you feel your best.
Love Your Body: Color and Essence
I’m going to group two things together for our final point: color and essence. Color should be the best colors for you, harmonious with how you look, your eyes, your hair, your skin, and your lips.
God created you. Just like you are, stop trying to change it, just embrace it, and you will push through faster to feeling confident in your clothes because everything you wear will be cohesive and harmonious with who you actually are.
Essence is the vibe that you give off.
Maybe you’ve met somebody who just has a very beachy kind of look to them. You’ll notice that if they try to put on something really formal, like a black blazer, or they try to put on a really large floral, it just looks off because it’s against the essence of who they are.
I want to encourage you that this is another area for you to just express. God created you so unique in all these different ways, and your clothing and your personal style should really reflect those unique qualities.
I want you to look outside your window. Hopefully, you have somewhat of a nature scene outside your house. Look outside your window and look at the grass, the trees, the animals, birds, and things that you see, and notice how they all work together. Your body works together the same way.
Instead of focusing on what area you don’t like, or asking yourself, why do I have these long legs? Why am I so tall? Think about what you do love.
I would love for you to make a list of three things that you love about your body, just as they are right now. Think about how they’ve served you well, how your body does good things for you and helps you accomplish things in your day.
Put your list on a sticky note and go put them on the bathroom area where you get ready so that every day, you can see these three qualities that you have that you’re really, really proud of.
Final Thoughts to Love Your Body How God Made You
You don’t have to be anything other than what you are. God made you perfectly, just like you are when He created everything in the beginning, he called it all good, and I guarantee you that when He created you, He said the same thing.
I would love for you to just embrace what God gave you. Thank Him for creating you and show gratitude for the things that are working. Learn to embrace at least from a functional standpoint, the things that you don’t love.
If you want to know all about body structure, how your flesh works, your colors, your essence, how they all work together, and how to choose clothes, I encourage you to join the Radiant Woman Intensive. We spend a full month talking about all of these things, and then another month talking about specific clothing, and how they work with your body type, essence structure, and all of it together.
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Instead of thinking about everything that is wrong with your body, take time to learn to love your body just as God created it.
Stacey is the owner and creator behind Radiantly Dressed. She is a certified image consultant and AICI member focusing on creating simplicity in wardrobes via color and style.
