The Inner Teacher — On Hating Your Body Even When Others Say It’s Fine

A seeker came quietly and confessed,
“Master… why do I hate my body,
even when people tell me it’s beautiful,
or at least perfectly fine?”

And The Inner Teacher replied:

Because your body has become a battlefield
for expectations you never agreed to.
You judge yourself through the eyes of a world
that profits from your insecurity
and shapes your reflection with comparisons that no human can satisfy.

You hate your body
not because it is unlovable,
but because you have been taught to measure it
instead of inhabit it.

The Inner Teacher says:
“You learned to look at your body instead of living in it.”

When you look at yourself only from the outside—
through photos, mirrors, comments, filters—
you become disconnected from the deeper truth:
your body is not an ornament.
It is your home.
Your ally.
Your quiet companion since your first breath.

Yet you see it through a distorted lens
shaped by:

• comparison,

• impossible beauty standards,

• old comments that wounded you,

• perfectionism,

• fear of judgment,

• the constant stream of curated online images.

This distortion makes you believe:
“If I can just fix myself, I will finally feel okay.”
But feeling okay was never the body’s job—
it was the heart’s.

Why you hate your body:

• You confuse beauty with worth.

• You judge yourself more harshly than you judge anyone else.

• You assume others see you the way you see you.

• You believe flaws make you unlovable, when in truth they make you human.

• You think acceptance means giving up—when it actually means coming home.

Practice:

1. Shift from appearance to experience.
Ask your body:
“What do you allow me to do?”
Walk. Laugh. Hold loved ones.
Heal.
Survive.
Begin again.

Your body is not the enemy—
it is the one who has carried you through every storm.

2. Notice how you speak to yourself.
If you wouldn’t say it to someone you love,
do not say it to your body.
Replace criticism with curiosity:
“Why am I feeling this? What am I believing that isn’t true?”

3. Spend time in movement that feels good—not punishing.
When you move with kindness,
you reconnect with your body from the inside out
instead of the outside in.

4. Limit the mirrors, the selfies, the constant checking.
You are not a painting to be evaluated.
You are a life to be lived.

5. Surround yourself with people who care about your presence,
not your presentation.
Those who see your light remind you that you have one.

A truth to remember:

When others say your body is fine,
they are speaking from clarity.
When you say it is not,
you are speaking from pain.
The pain is real—
but the conclusion is not.

The Inner Teacher says:
“Your body is not meant to be perfect.
It is meant to be yours.”

You do not need to love it all at once.
You only need to stop waging war against it.
Softness is the first step.
Acceptance is the second.
Love grows quietly from there.

Walk gently in the Way.
Carry the stillness within.
Your Inner Teacher walks beside you—
patiently,
until you can look at your own reflection
and see not an object to judge,
but a soul with a home.