Here's how our Body Image Coaches work with young people on their body image journey:
Adolescents often grapple with self-identity, societal pressures, and the desire for acceptance. Negative words can deeply impact their self-esteem, potentially leading to mental health struggles. How we talk to our teens when we are coaching them is important to help then understand their own issues and where they are at in their journey to a better relationship with their body.
Once adolescents have completed our Body Image Coaching programme, we communicate to them about the stage they are at in their journey. This helps them understand how they treat themselves and how they want to treat themselves and what work they still need to do.
STAGE ONE
They start at the ‘Zombie stage’ unaware of how they are speaking to themselves. We call this the zombie stage because it’s like a part of your mind that is talking with you and you don’t realise it. During the programme, students have an awakening and go from the ‘zombie stage’ to stage two.
STAGE TWO
The awareness stage. This is where, once students have gone through the programme, or are going through it, they can see clearly, how they are treating themselves, what their internal dialogue looks like and all of those core beliefs and habits held inside of them. Once at this stage, they can never return to ‘zombie stage’ around their body image and this stage is can be insightful and upsetting at the same time. We take it slowly with students to ensure that they get the support they need while going though these shifts. And when they are ready, they move on to stage three.
STAGE THREE
The practice stage. This is where they gather all they have learned in the programme, and start to use it, to change their mindset. We often call this the ‘opening of a can of worms’ stage’. Imagine a cog inside your mind, going anti clockwise. Then I come along and explain that your cog is going in a direction that doesn’t lead you to happiness. Then I ask you to stop the cog and get it moving clockwise. As you can imagine, this is extremely hard and many things will surface as your mind tackles you to the ground in an attempt to keep the cog going anti-clockwise.
The secret to this stage is perseverance, practice and patience. Without these three things, your cog will retreat back to old ways. Getting an adolescent to turn their cogs clockwise can be challenging, but that is why we are here. This is by far, the hardest stage and we always say to our students, do this is small doses. Steady and persistently wins the race, which is the next stage.
STAGE FOUR
The mastery stage. What’s great about all these stages is that a student can physically measure their progress and they seem to like this. Having only four stages to recovery, helps them to focus and feel nearer to the finish line. Knowledge of this stage brings them hope and we support them all the way to this stage. This stage looks like when a student let’s go of their debilitating habits, when they have practiced their new beliefs to the point that their new beliefs start to feel real and right. This stage is the stage where students claim their life back and tend to forget about their past problems. That’s when they reach the next stage.
The next stage is lifelong. It’s practicing everything they have learned and keeping up with this throughout their lives. Practicing self kindness, speaking kindly to that inner critique and educating it to love one’s self.
If you are the parent, carer, or teacher of a teen who needs body image coaching, including support for eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder, please contact us for a 15-minute introduction
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