Can You Love Your Body and Want To Change It?

It can be frustrating to be deep into your self-love journey and still find yourself wanting to change your body—wondering, does that mean I don’t really love myself? Can I love my body and still want to change it? In this episode, we explore that question, the shame that often comes with it, what it truly means to love your body, why the desire to change it is so real and valid, and how the messages we've internalized about our bodies impact our lives, both individually and collectively. This is a nuanced, eye-opening conversation for anyone who’s ever felt stuck in that in-between. 

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Transcript

Rebecca Sigala: 0:01

Hey, beautiful. Here I am on June 22nd, 2025, and I feel like I have to name this date because let's be real, what's happening right now is going to go down in history. This morning here in Israel, we ran to the bomb shelter at, 7:30 in the morning with two rounds of rockets from Iran, and somehow now I'm here having a normal day, I guess? I was a guest on a podcast. I've been talking with clients and now I'm here talking to you. Because honestly, the work that I do right now just feels so relevant, more than ever. And I believe with my whole heart that self-love is the foundation of everything. Like could you imagine if the people who are causing all this pain and suffering in the world had internalized that they were enough when they were young, that their worth wasn't tied to power or control or somebody else's suffering? Like what if they were taught, to love themselves and others as divinely created and worthy and whole. The world would look so different today. And since, as you can see, I don't shy away from charged topics. I want to answer a question for you today that a lot of women have asked me over the years, and I'm sure at some point, if not many points, you've asked it yourself to yourself. I know that I have, and it's been a huge catalyst on my own healing journey. The question is, can I love my body and still want to change it? What a loaded question. And the answer is yes. You can still love your body and want to change it, and intentionally changing it can be problematic on a personal and societal level. So let's get into it because we have a lot to discuss and just to name the scale of what we're up against. Over 91% of women report dissatisfaction with their body. Over 91% of women, that's almost all women. One in 10 women will develop an eating disorder in her lifetime. And the average woman, this is shocking guys. Okay. The average woman spends over$300,000 in her lifetime on beauty products and girl, that does not even include fitness and diet programs, cosmetic procedures, supplements, or weight loss medications, or the time investment and mental load that could have been spent elsewhere. I mean, you could double it or even triple that number. And these numbers aren't just about appearance. They reflect a culture where self-worth has been hijacked and where self-improvement has been turned into a tool of control. I want you to know that I don't judge you for wanting to change your body. Most women want to change their body or wish something was different about their appearance. I also don't judge women who try to lose weight or tone up or look a certain way, and I don't judge women who have cosmetic procedures done or Botox or plastic surgery, any of it. I don't judge individuals, but I sure as hell judge society for making it virtually impossible for a woman to fully embrace her body without feeling like she needs to change it. This society constantly pushes an unattainable standard. It fuels body dysmorphia and eating disorders. It drives anxiety and depression and low self-esteem and perfectionism. It creates comparison and competition between women. And then it passes that pressure down to the next generation. And it's not your fault if you've internalized this many years of my own life, were spent there and it's wrong that society made us feel that way. I wasn't wrong for doing that or wanting my body to be different than it was I was human. And so are you. But before we get into all of that, when you say, can I love my body and still want to change it? What do you mean by love? Because, in the days when I was stuck in that cycle, it wasn't that I hated my body, or at least I didn't feel that I hated my body. There were many days that I loved the way that I look. I took care of my body and I felt that I was doing what was good for it. I was grateful for it at times, and I wanted the best for my body and for myself. And honestly, that's where most of my clients are before they start the New Sexy Mastermind. It's not that they wake up every day hating themselves and staying in bed, but they're looking in the mirror, and they're still fixated on that thing that they think needs to be fixed. They're trying to be kinder to themselves, but still clashing with their inner critic, loving parts of themselves, but then not loving others and thinking of their body, still as a problem to be solved or a project to work on instead of a home to live in, instead of something to embrace and unconditionally love. So as you can see, most of my clients do love their bodies. They love parts of it, and they love what their bodies can do for them. And just like in any relationship, love isn't always totally healthy, right? Think about the way that we treat our bodies, like people often treat their partners hoping they'll change, resenting certain traits, trying to mold them into what's acceptable, making their love conditional. And that's not unconditional love. That's control. And that control costs us. It costs us so much time, money, energy, mental space. It costs us our joy. What would your life be like if you not only loved your body, but you fully embraced it no matter how it changes? What would it feel like to live in a body that didn't need fixing? Let me be clear. You're not doing anything wrong if you're not there yet, you're not failing, you're not broken. But I want you to know that it is possible to get there. I'm living proof of it and so are my clients. So this question, can I love my body and want to change? It doesn't need to be another self-judgment. It can be an invitation and you can approach it with love and curiosity, which is exactly what I want to do on here today. In the personal development world, perfecting your body is often lumped in with becoming better or growing, and you've probably heard the phrase, you can be a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time. And sure, I've heard that. Even in the midst of my body image struggles, and it can feel empowering in the moment, especially when it comes with praise and likes and compliments and all this external validation. But over the years as I've really unpacked it, I've realized that's not healing. Healing is internal. It's becoming more regulated. It's becoming more connected to yourself and to others in a deep, authentic way. It's communicating with clarity and boundaries. It's feeling your emotions instead of suppressing them. It's showing up fully as you and reclaiming your power. And then the opposite is chasing this unattainable standard and that's not reclaiming your power, that's not healing. That's outsourcing your power to society's ever-changing definition of what's worthy and what's enough. It's handing over your energy, your joy, your self-worth in exchange for this approval, that doesn't really work and it doesn't last. And that is why diet culture is so sneaky today because it's rebranded as self-love and self-empowerment and body positivity and even healing and it's often really hard to see it for what it really is, especially because the beauty standards that we've grown up with are so deeply woven into how we measure our worth. It's subtle. Or it's seemingly subtle. It doesn't feel subtle to me anymore, but at some point it felt very subtle and it's everywhere and it runs deep and the impact can be incredibly painful for all of us. I remember at some point on my journey, I read this book called Your Body is Not An Apology, and I read about the author's perspective on body changes and about how when people say It's my body, I can do what I want. We also have to acknowledge how those choices impact others and perpetuate beauty standards because when women are wrinkle free at 50, when fewer women have gray hair, when the majority of bodies that we see are altered and filtered or surgically sculpted, it just becomes so much harder to exist in a real aging and changing body, and the cycle continues. So even if you say, I see the beauty in other people, and good for them if they love their bodies, but I'm gonna change everything about myself. We haven't exactly broken that cycle and we're just continuing it. It was such a hard pill for me to swallow because at the time I could not even imagine what it would look like to fully embrace my body without, like a resignation, like, ugh, it has to look this way. I couldn't imagine fully embracing my body and loving the way it looked at the same time. I didn't think it was possible to not be constantly shifting and changing it and still be confident in it. So again, this isn't to blame any individual, but it's just a fact that when we do these things, when we buy into it, we perpetuate the culture and mindset around bodies that we're living in right now. And it gets passed on without words, and same thing with the radical self-love and fully embracing your body, that also gets passed on without words. And that's the beauty of it, because it's about embodying these values. And here's the truth that I want to leave you with. Unconditionally loving your body isn't just a switch you flip. It's a journey, a transformation, and like any transformation, it unfolds in stages. Because like I said, a lot of my clients don't hate their bodies. They've already done so much healing. They've learned to speak more kindly to themselves. They nourish their bodies. They move their bodies. They feel confident in so many ways, but they're still waiting to feel fully free. Still stuck in quiet comparison, still holding their breath during photos, still not feeling sexy when their clothes come off. Loving their bodies, but only when it cooperates, when it meets the standard, when it feels presentable enough. And that's where the deeper work begins. That's where the shift into unwavering, embodied self-love happens. And I like to think of that journey as the transformation of a butterfly. I have four stages of body love, and the first one is called, body hatred. That's when we're a caterpillar. We are on the ground. So many of us have been there. You avoid mirrors, you obsess over your appearance, you cancel plans. You feel like your body is just only something to fix. And it's exhausting. And it's isolating. The next stage is body perfectionism. You started to do the inner work, but your love still feels conditional. You feel better when your body looks a certain way and you restrict and you compare and you try to control your body into it being acceptable and lovable even when you know better and you don't wanna be there anymore. And then the third stage is when we emerge from the cocoon, the body perfectionism was in the cocoon. And then body acceptance is when we start to emerge. And I think a lot of you might be at this stage where you've come a long way, you more gentle and kind to yourself. You speak kindly to yourself more often than not. Or you try to redirect your critical thoughts into kindness. You want to break that cycle for your kids, for your loved ones, for your clients and you celebrate all bodies, but you still struggle to feel that way about your own, and you're still figuring out how to feel sexy and confident and embrace your body without needing to change it. And then the fourth stage, this is when you become a full butterfly, and that is what I call body love. And this is where the magic happens, where you meet yourself with love, not critique. You feel sexy and radiant at home in your body no matter what. You no longer compare or shrink. You radiate confidence and joy. You take care of yourself from a place of true love, not guilt or punishment, and you show up fully unfiltered, unedited, and unapologetic. And here's the part that we don't talk about enough. Feeling beautiful and sexy in your own skin is not shallow. It's sacred. It's reclaiming something that was never meant to be taken from you and reclaiming it on your own terms, and you don't feel this way because you finally like arrived at this perfect body. You feel this way because you remembered who the fuck you are and you stopped waiting or hustling for your worthiness. And that is what's possible when you fully embrace your body. It's what I've lived. It's what I'm living. It's what my clients experience every single round of The New Sexy Mastermind. So if something inside of you is whispering, I want that. I really want that. I don't know if it's possible, but I want it. I want to invite you to take the next step. The New Sexy is open for enrollment. This is actually the last week to apply. And we begin very soon, and there are limited spots left. If this episode sparks something in you, apply using the link in the show notes and tell me where you're at. I'd love to hear your story and support you in creating a whole new one. Because yes, you can feel beautiful. You can feel sexy, powerful, and radiant in the exact body that you have now. You can take up space, be seen, and be you and know you are not too late. You're right on time.