‘Everything is temporary’—it’s practically a motherhood mantra. It’s either reassuring or depressing, depending on how many big poos you’ve cleaned off the floor that day.
But it’s true. Everything is temporary; each stage and page passes—not just in motherhood but in life. Pain dulls, seasons change, situations resolve, or if they don’t, time moves on anyway. Nothing lasts forever except (because there seems to be one exception to every rule) for one thing: your body.
Your body is permanent.
Sure, how it looks is temporary—lines, spots, stripes, scars, and an extra ring around the middle will likely appear—but it will be the same body. To paraphrase Emma Thompson, your body is your ‘vessel’ and you’re in it for life.
Yet it remains a rare thing to meet a woman who accepts her body, doesn’t it? Despite our bodies being the only permanent thing, we fight against them.
And, let’s be clear on this: you weren’t born hating your body. You were taught to hate your body.
Multiple billion-dollar industries exist, profiting off our hate, denial or reluctance to accept our fate. Most messages in the media feel like they’re screaming: YOU’RE NOT PRETTY/SKINNY/SMOOTH ENOUGH. (Kasey Chambers got it.) Imagine how many industries would be out of business tomorrow if every woman alive woke up accepting their bodies.
For even when a woman hears a positive message, her reaction is denial. You tell her that she looks fantastic and her immediate response is to point out the one area she can’t lose weight, or how she many lines she has on her knees. (Some of the stuff we come up with really is outrageous.)
And I know why we do it. It’s terribly hard to break away from the deep social conditioning of: you MUST hate your body (even though it’s the one thing that’s permanent). And if you’re not going to despise it then, at the very least, criticise it as much as you can. (That’s the catch, by the way: a lifetime of body-hating ensures a lifetime of buying.) We can’t expect to experience constant body berating and come out with Frida Kahlo level confidence.
Unfortunately, we also can’t change the system overnight; it’s deeply embedded. I don’t have any grand solutions or revolutionary theories—except to suggest we do what my toddler does every time I ask her to do something: the opposite.
What if when someone says they love our outfit, we reply with: ‘Thank you, I feel freaking fabulous in it!’—rather than dismissing it as ‘old’ or ‘discounted’, ultimately undermining the compliment.
Or when someone says we look well, we say: ‘Thanks for noticing! I do look well, don’t I?’—rather than ‘oh, but I haven’t lost the baby/extra/holiday weight.’
What if when we’re in a spiral of thigh-hating, we stop to remind ourselves that those thighs have supported us through every step of our journey—then strut away to prove our own point? (Or dance to ‘I Am Woman’.)
Rather than staring in the mirror, tallying up the flaws, what if we looked into the eyes of the woman staring back at us and acknowledged that she’s been through some shit and yet here she is, trying her best each and every day.
What if every day were Opposite Day? What if we pushed back against our conditioned responses—just for a while—to see what happens?
You don’t even have to believe what you’re saying. Just resist the reflex to criticise, nitpick, and slag yourself. Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t. But I have a feeling it’s the only thing that will ever truly change the system.
If women started tallying every scar, curve, or patch of cellulite as a mark of resilience, rather than flaw to be fixed, what a different world this would be. Plus, think of all the extra time we’d save from not sitting around endlessly hating on our bodies!
Liking our bodies isn’t a threat to our humility—it’s a threat to their profit. And the only person who should be making money off your insecurities is you. So either buy shares in L’Oreal or stop tearing yourself apart.
The world doesn’t need more women who continually criticise their bodies—the world needs more women who criticise the people who make us think we should.
I know it’s hard—I do. That’s why we start small. Simply do the opposite, even if it feels icky, just try. (It seems to work for my toddler.)
Everything is temporary—except your body. Which also means the way you talk and think about your body can be temporary, too. We have the power to change it.
And who knows, by doing the opposite, maybe acceptance—or even love—for the vessel you’re in could become permanent.
*Maybe Gen Z already do this—I don’t know. I’m a dial-up internet millennial.