In LETTING GO of poor body image you need to TAKE STEPS to insure that you have released the pressure of control of others over how you feel about yourself. The control of others has led to your self-hatred of your body, looks, shape and size. You need to take decisive steps which will free you up of such control in the future to help you to overcome the self-hatred and self-loathing you have developed over your body image. The three steps needed to LET GO of self-hatred of your body image are: 1. Accepting personal responsibility for you own mental health. 2. Accepting that you are a human being. 3. Working out your anger over: "Why can't life be like my ideal?"

1. Accepting personal responsibility for your own emotional health.

This action involves accepting that there is only one person who has the power to influence how you feel about yourself and your body image and that person is you. You need to take back the power you have given others to influence how you feel about yourself and accept the responsibility for your own feelings. This means you will no longer be allowed to blame others for how you think, feel or act about your body image. Yes there were people in the past who imprinted messages in you which led to your self-hatred and poor body image. But as of today you need to take back control over your emotional health and state that: "I am responsible for my body image. I am responsible for my own mental health. I am responsible to put up healthy emotional boundaries between me and others who say negative and cutting things about my body's shape, size and looks. I no longer will give responsibility to others to make me happy or accepting of myself. I give myself the power and responsibility to help me unconditionally and fully accept my body just the way it is and to feel good about it. I will no longer hold others responsible for how I feel about my body image." To help you explore this concept further refer to Accepting Personal Responsibility, in Tools for Personal Growth.

2. Accepting that you are a human being.

This action involves accepting that you a human being after all. This means that as a human you are subject to making mistakes and experiencing failure. By this action, you let go of the perfectionistic control which others have encouraged in you.  You are willing to forgive yourself for the mistakes and failing you have made in the past in relationship to your body image. By accepting you are human you are able to establish more realistic expectations for yourself and your body image. By accepting you are human you are more open to accepting the concept of the "Italian Bank Account." As a human being you are open to accept that you may slip as you make attempts to be more self-loving and more self-accepting and that you will need to immediately get back on the wagon and try again. By accepting that you are human you will be able to let go of the false pride which led you to believe that you have to solve all your problems on your own. You will be able to accept that humans need mutual support of other healthy people who are dealing with the same problem. You will allow yourself to reach out to support groups to discuss your efforts to overcome your self-hatred and poor body image. You will be able to accept that humans need other humans who have experienced similar problems to help them sort out strategies and ways of maintaining the recovery from the problem. You will also recognize that pride leads you to believe that you must do your recovery perfect and that this is irrational and impossible. Recovery takes time, your whole life and it is a slow process, taking one step at a time. For more information on this concept look at Handling Pride in Tools for Personal Growth.

3. Working out your anger about: "Why can't life be like my ideal?"

This action entails getting out your anger about not having life be the way you want it to be. Because of all of the causes of you poor body image you have over the years developed an "idealized image" of how you would like your body to look and are angry that your body is not the ideal way you want it to be. You may have wanted it to be an easy, no effort, easy to do process to get your body into such an ideal state and are angry that it takes a lot of effort and energy to change your looks.. You may have fantasized or dreamed that people would never comment about your body size, shape or looks and are angry when they do so. You may have wanted to feel full acceptance from others for your body just the way it is and have been angry that this has rarely happen. You may have believed, "how your body looks should not be involved in how others judge or value you" and you are angry that this is not true for you. You may have a belief that "what is inside a person" is what counts and not "what is on the outside" and are angry that people judge externals more than internals. You may be angry over the societal pressure for people to be thin. You may be angry that there is discrimination against "full bodied" or overweight people. Your ideals blind you to how the real world is and make you angry about "why can't the world be the way I want it to be." You need to admit you are angry about not having your ideals concerning body image come true for you. You need to do many ANGER workouts about the inability to have your ideals about body image realized in your lifetime. You need to free yourself of the negative feelings in you which sap your energy and are keeping you from being motivated to work on implementing the Balanced Lifestyles Program in your life.  Only by releasing your anger about the loss of ideals about body image, can you accept life the way it is rather than how you have wanted it to be. You can get more information on letting go of ideals in Tempering Idealism and  Tempering Survival Behaviors in Tools for Handling Control Issues.