How to Stop Putting Your Life on Hold Because of Your Body
- Meagan Clark, MA LPC NCC ACS BC-TMH
- Jul 12
- 7 min read
There's a version of summer happening around you right now, and there's a version happening without you.
Maybe it's the pool invite you said you were "too busy" for. The sundress that's been sitting in the closet with the tags still on since June. The family photo you found a reason to duck out of, again. None of these moments announce themselves as body image struggles. They just feel like small, reasonable decisions—a busy week, a bad hair day, a photo you'll catch next time. But if you add them up across a whole summer, a pattern starts to show: you've been waiting for permission from your body before you let yourself show up.
That waiting has a name. It's called body image avoidance, and it's one of the quieter, more socially acceptable ways body image struggles show up in women's lives. It doesn't look like an eating disorder or a breakdown in the mirror. It looks like a woman who is, by every outward measure, doing just fine—she's just also missing her own summer.
At a Glance: How to Stop Putting Your Life on Hold Because of Your Body
Putting your life on hold because of your body—skipping the pool, the dress, the photo, the invitation—is a form of avoidance that reinforces the belief that your body has to look a certain way before you're allowed to participate in your own life. The way out isn't a smaller body. It's learning to act in spite of discomfort instead of waiting for it to disappear.
What "Putting Your Life on Hold" Actually Looks Like
Body image avoidance rarely announces itself with a dramatic refusal. It shows up in the small opt-outs: choosing the outfit that hides instead of the one you actually want to wear, declining the invitation because it involves a swimsuit, skipping the picture because you'll "deal with how you look" another day, holding your breath through moments you should be enjoying.
The common thread is a belief—often unconscious—that comfort, joy, or visibility are rewards to be earned by first changing your body. Until that condition is met, life gets lived at a distance. You're present, but braced. Attending, but not really participating.
This is different from simply not liking a photo of yourself or having an off day with your reflection. Avoidance becomes a pattern worth naming when it starts shaping your actual choices—what you do, who you see, what you remember about a summer that's slipping by while you wait to feel ready for it.
The Myth That Comfort Has to Be Earned
Diet culture doesn't just sell the idea that smaller is better. It sells the idea that discomfort, invisibility, and self-denial are the entry fee for eventually being allowed to feel good. Rest, joy, ease in your own skin—these get framed as things you graduate into, not things you're allowed to have now, as you are.
This belief isn't something women invent on their own. It's reinforced everywhere: in advertising, in casual comments about bodies, in the quiet assumption that a woman's comfort in public is conditional on how she looks while she's there. Internalized weight bias has been shown to contribute directly to body dissatisfaction and to avoidance behaviors like the ones described above, meaning the pressure women absorb from the outside world doesn't stay outside. It becomes the voice that decides what you're allowed to do today.
The truth is simpler than the belief: comfort was never something you had to earn. You're allowed to feel good in the body you have right now, not the one you're working toward, not the one from five years ago. The one you're currently living in.
What This Pattern Actually Costs You
It's easy to dismiss body image avoidance as low-stakes: "just" a missed pool day, "just" one skipped photo. But avoidance rarely stays small. Research on body image coping strategies consistently links avoidance to higher rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and the cost compounds the longer the pattern continues. Every declined invitation reinforces the belief that you weren't ready. Every skipped photo becomes one more summer with no evidence you were there.
This is what makes body image avoidance so quietly corrosive: it doesn't just limit what you do today. It shapes the story you tell yourself about who you were allowed to be—present or absent, visible or hidden—during a life that was happening either way.
Small Shifts Toward Living Now, Not Later
You don't have to feel confident to start acting differently. Waiting for the feeling to change first is usually what keeps the avoidance going. A few ways to interrupt the pattern:
Try the thing anyway. Confidence is often a result of action, not a prerequisite for it. Wear the dress before you feel ready. Get in the pool before you feel "prepared." The feeling tends to follow the behavior, not the other way around.
Treat discomfort as information, not danger. Feeling exposed or self-conscious isn't a signal that something is wrong — it's often just the body's response to breaking a long-held pattern. Discomfort can be uncomfortable without being a reason to retreat.
Separate your worth from your appearance. This is easier said than done, and it's exactly the kind of work therapy is built for. But even naming the belief — I think I have to look a certain way to deserve to be here — starts to loosen its grip.
Notice what you'd want to remember. At the end of this summer, what do you want to have been part of? Let that answer guide today's decision more than the mirror does.
Take This Further: Body Permission Cards
If you want these shifts to feel less like willpower and more like permission, we made something for that. Body Permission Cards is a pick-a-card set—four permission slips for movement, your feed, the inner critic, and nourishment—designed to help you re-enter the parts of summer you've been sitting out on.
When Body Image Avoidance Is Something to Bring to Therapy
If this pattern feels bigger than a single summer—if it's shaped years of missed moments, or if it's tangled up with anxiety, disordered eating patterns, or a self-worth that feels entirely conditional on appearance, that's not something you have to work through alone, and it's not something you need to have a diagnosis to bring into a therapy room. A therapist can help you understand where the belief came from and build a different relationship with your body, one that doesn't require avoidance to feel safe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is avoiding activities because of my body a sign of an eating disorder?
Not necessarily. Body image avoidance can exist entirely on its own, without meeting criteria for an eating disorder. It's still worth taking seriously. Avoidance behaviors are associated with higher body dissatisfaction and greater anxiety and depressive symptoms, regardless of whether they occur alongside disordered eating.
Why do I feel like I need to lose weight before I can enjoy things?
This belief usually develops over time, shaped by cultural messaging that ties comfort and visibility to appearance. It's rarely a conscious decision—it's a pattern absorbed from years of subtle and not-so-subtle messaging that a woman's right to take up space is conditional.
How do I stop avoiding photos or social situations because of my body?
Start small and act before the feeling changes. Waiting to feel confident enough usually delays the behavior indefinitely, since confidence tends to build after you've practiced the action, not before. Therapy can help identify the specific beliefs driving the avoidance and build tolerance for the discomfort of doing things anyway.
When should I consider therapy for body image struggles?
If body image concerns are shaping your daily choices—what you wear, where you go, what you document, who you see— hat's a reasonable point to bring it into therapy, whether or not it's connected to disordered eating. You don't need a diagnosis or a crisis to deserve support around how you relate to your body.
Ready to Stop Waiting?
If you've spent this summer—or longer—waiting to feel "ready" before you let yourself participate in your own life, Melanie Maldonado and Kimberly Theriault at Her Time Therapy both specialize in helping women untangle self-worth from appearance and build genuine confidence, not the performance of it. You don't need to have it all figured out to start. Schedule a free consultation and let's talk about what's actually been keeping you on the sidelines.
About the Author
Meagan Clark, MA, LPC, NCC, BC-TMH is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the Founder of Her Time Therapy, a group practice providing online therapy for women in Colorado. She specializes in anxiety, trauma, grief, and women's mental health. Meagan integrates evidence-based approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and trauma-informed, feminist mental health care to help women reduce anxiety, build confidence, and improve their relationships. Her work focuses on empowering women to understand their mental health, develop self-trust, and create meaningful, balanced lives. She is licensed in both Colorado and Georgia and holds national credentials through the NBCC, including National Certified Counselor (NCC) and Board Certified Telemental Health (BC-TMH).
About Her Time Therapy
Her Time Therapy is an integrative group counseling practice comprised of licensed therapists in Colorado who specialize in providing convenient and empowering online therapy for women. We recognize that women experience a unique set of biological, environmental, economic, and social challenges that have a real impact on mental health — and that you deserve specialized, feminist-informed support. Schedule a free consultation to get started.
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