Learning to love your body as
it is right now
As a self-described (and self-loving) bigger-bodied woman, Rinsha Ballani is clear about the gift of the current body-positivity movement. It might seem obvious, but there’s power in being able to speak out loud: It’s okay to love your body, as it is, right now.
This cultural shift has humanized and normalized the many shapes and sizes that beauty comes in. It’s given permission for women to see themselves as sexy, desirable, and worthy of love, full stop. No “fixing” required.
But Rinsha is also noticing a troubling trend within the movement, especially online: there’s not a lot of room to talk about the desire to change your body. That seems to be a violation of the agreement — that if you want something different, then that means you don’t accept yourself, which means you must not love your body enough.
So in a cultural moment that’s all about cultivating self-love, it can actually feel weird and shameful to want to change our bodies — whether it’s by losing weight, gaining weight, working out, cosmetic procedures, or plastic surgery.
The result can be a kind of forced silence around the deep longings we might have, and a resistance to facing the shame we feel. So we might recognize we’re losing out on certain aspects of abundant, healthy, sexy living in our current bodies … but feel totally unclear on how to choose a new way of showing up.
With her signature honesty and vulnerability, Rinsha shares the pain, healing, and new freedom she’s finding in what it really means to truly love your body.
Aimee’s experience
Aimee offers her own experience with this, as well. Recently in Bali, she decided to hire a personal trainer. She wanted to feel less sluggish and more alive in her body — stronger, leaner, more powerful, more energized.
But she felt a hesitation to voice her desire out loud. Was it okay to want to hire a personal trainer?
Especially as a woman with a higher-profile Insta account who talks often about self-acceptance, learning how to let go of debilitating body insecurity and learning to love your body so you can truly experience intimacy …
… what role does working out to be leaner and feel sexier play in this messaging?
You’ll hear all about her experience, what she discovered, and how it felt to tend to her body in this way.
(PLUS — Aimee also shares another body-transformation desire that at first felt even more taboo … but that now she feels completely free around.)
Does desiring change
mean you don’t actually love your body?
That’s what Rinsha and Aimee discuss in this episode,
and wow — this is a nuanced, juicy conversation!
Together, as women and as sisters, they tackle the complexities of questions like:
- Is it possible to truly, genuinely, passionately love your body … AND also want to change it?
- Where does “positivity” cross over into “bypassing”? And how can that be disempowering for women?
- How can we discern our “come from”? Meaning — how do we know when our desire for change is coming from a place of not-enough vs. a place of soul-level desire?
- How can we practice continually tuning into and trusting our real desires when it comes to the choices we make around our bodies, regardless of where the cultural tides move?
Rinsha has been an integral part of Desire on Fire since the beginning, and she’s no stranger to controversial stances — and this conversation is no exception.
Bold, contrarian, and beautifully vulnerable, this is an episode for anyone who is walking the long journey to true body-self-love and embracing your worthiness, your sexiness, and your desires for your body, regardless of what shape or size it is.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- Why Aimee decided to hire a personal trainer in Bali
- The judgments we hold about others’ choices — and what those judgments are trying to show us
- Rinsha’s movement to genuinely love every inch of her body
- What the body positivity movement has brought us — and what it’s missing
- Working through our experiences of shame (instead of bypassing) to get to the deeper desire
- The plastic surgery Aimee really wants
- Learning to identify your “come from” — and why it makes all the difference
People and Resources
Mentioned in this Episode:
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Related Episodes
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A Deep Dive with Rinsha Ballani Part 1: Resistance, Resilience & Rock Bottom
A Deep Dive with Rinsha Ballani Part 2: Blowing Shit Up + Breaking Through
