Your Body Isn’t the Problem. The Standard Is.
Understanding how therapy can help you move beyond body shame, diet culture, and intergenerational messages about worth.
3 min read
Key points:
At Downtown Somatic Therapy, we often hear about people who don’t necessarily have an eating disorder, but they feel stuck in a constant battle with their body to be smaller.
In somatic therapy, the body is seen as the most vital source of information about our emotions and past experiences.
So many young people grew up watching their mothers and grandmothers critique and reject their bodies, both quietly to themselves in the mirror, to their partners, and sometimes to their children.
Therapy is a space to explore your relationship with your body in a new way without shame, judgment, or pressure to fix.
At Downtown Somatic Therapy, many of those navigating body shame or appearance pressure who reach out to us share a similar struggle. As Daniela Krausz, LMSW and personal trainer puts it, “they don’t have an eating disorder, but they feel stuck in a constant battle with their body to be smaller”.
This internal struggle shows up for so many people in different ways, and maybe that’s true for you, too. Maybe this looks like feeling guilty about the food you eat, comparing your body to others, or the feeling like you have to "make up" for something after a meal. Or maybe, you use movement to calm those feelings, which ends up feeling more like punishment than care.
This idea that something is wrong with our bodies shows up for people of all genders, gender expressions, sexualities, identities, ages, backgrounds, and body types. In her work, Krausz most often supports people who identify as women or were socialized to focus on appearance, including those in their twenties, postpartum mothers, and women navigating perimenopause and menopause.
Each stage of life brings hormonal changes like shifts in weight, mood, and energy. Yet despite this being an entirely natural and healthy part of aging, our culture still tells us to stay the same in size, shape, and more. And beneath that pressure are generations of messages that shaped how women learn to see themselves: that smaller is better, that control equals safety, and that self-worth has to be earned.
So how can therapy, especially somatic therapy, help you break out of this cycle?
1. Understanding the Body as a Living Record
In somatic therapy, the body is seen as the most vital source of information about our emotions and past experiences. In this work, clients learn to tune into the mind-body connection: how sensations, posture, and breath are reflections of their inner world. Krausz couples somatic therapy with relational therapy, which emphasizes the healing power of connection: “when we feel safe, seen, and supported, this creates a space for true healing and growth.”
In both approaches, we see the body and you as one and the same. The body is also something that is inherently perfect, something that needs to be understood, not changed. The body also carries memories of stress, shame, and belonging. Daniela often notices that “when a client says, “I hate my stomach,” that feeling can almost always be traced back to something deeper. Maybe it’s connected to the times she was praised for making herself smaller , when she was rejected for not, or that she felt love or acceptance based on the way she looked.
Through gentle awareness and creating a space to safely explore emotions, and drawing from modalities like AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) and IFS (Internal Family Systems), therapy can help clients reconnect with their bodies, and begin to view their body as an ally rather than an enemy. For example, a client who notices tightness in her chest when looking in the mirror might learn to pause, breathe, and identify the emotion underneath—grief, fear, or longing—and meet it with compassion and curiosity instead of criticism. You don’t have to “love” your body to begin this work; you can start by listening.
2. Recognizing the Intergenerational Messages You’ve Inherited
“I’m afraid I’m passing my body image issues on to my kid.”
Daniela Krausz hears this often in both the gym and the therapy room.
So many young people grew up watching their mothers and grandmothers critique and reject their bodies, both quietly to themselves in the mirror, to their partners, and sometimes to their children. Daniela works with clients to uncover these messages, both spoken and unspoken, that shape how we see ourselves. In therapy, she works with clients to trace how those beliefs took root and begin to release what isn’t ours to carry.
3. Navigating Hormonal Shifts and Societal Standards
Here’s something few people realize: the modern world is built around a male hormonal cycle, which resets every 24 hours. Women’s hormones, however, move in 28-day cycles—and change dramatically throughout our lives.
So when women and those socialized as women push ourselves to eat, work, and exercise the same way every day, we’re ignoring our own biology. Somatic therapy helps you tune into your body’s rhythm, and honor fluctuations in energy, rest, and desire, which allows movement and nourishment to feel supportive rather than forced.
4. Reframing Toxic Thoughts About Food and Exercise
| Common Thought | Gentle Reframe |
|---|---|
| “I need to work out because I ate too much.” | “Movement can be a way to care for my body, not punish it.” |
| “I’ll be happier once I lose weight.” | “I deserve to feel good now, not only when I meet a goal.” |
| “I hate my (insert body part here).” | “This is the body that carries me through my life.” |
| “I’m lazy if I skip the gym.” | “Rest is part of honoring my body, too.” |
| “My body is changing and I can’t control it.” | “My body is responding to life. Maybe I can learn to listen.” |
5. Creating a Kinder Relationship With Your Body
Therapy is a space to explore your relationship with your body in a new way without shame, judgment, or pressure to fix. Together, we can:
Unpack intergenerational messages about food, size, and worth
Explore how body shame connects to relational safety and attachment
Loosen internalized rules that fuel comparison or control
Learn to move, eat, and rest in intuitive, sustainable ways
At Downtown Somatic Therapy, many of our therapists help women in New York reconnect to themselves through somatic and relational approaches that bridge the mind-body divide.
Your body isn’t the problem. The standard is.
When we start living in our bodies with curiosity instead of criticism, we make space for something radical: peace.