The Most Radical Act of Healing Is Loving Your Body

Janine Alonzo
Aug 17
3 min read

It begins with the body.

In a world where our worth is still measured, at least in part, by the size of our bodies, loving the body you live in is an act of rebellion. This pressure touches everyone — men and women — but it has been especially sharp for women, woven into the way we are raised and taught to see ourselves.

We grow up with the message that to be lovable, we must fit into a very narrow size — usually on the smaller end of the scale. Yet only a small portion of the population is naturally that size. For most, trying to achieve it means fighting your own body, often at the expense of health.

What Real Health Looks Like

True health is not about forcing your body into a shape it was never meant to have.It’s about eating, moving, and living in a way that honours your own body type.

When you do, your body reflects vitality — the kind of attractiveness that comes from real health, not from deprivation. This vitality can’t be manufactured through restriction. It’s the natural glow that comes from being nourished, rested, and connected to yourself.

Holistic Healing Starts Here

You can follow every protocol, take all the supplements, and work with the best practitioners — but if you remain disconnected from your body, your healing will only go so far.

Holistic healing is not something done to the body.It happens through the body.

To heal, you have to land here.To feel safe here.To listen to the body’s yes and no.

This is the foundation. Without it, everything else is just maintenance.

The Body as the Bridge

Your body is not an obstacle to overcome on the way to health — it is the way.It speaks in sensation: warmth, tension, hunger, desire, resistance.When you listen, you learn exactly what supports you and what drains you.When you ignore it, you end up chasing someone else’s version of health.

This is why embodiment — the practice of being fully present in your body — is the missing link in so many healing journeys. Without it, we stay in our heads, disconnected from the very signals that guide us toward balance.

Why This Is a Feminist Act

While the pressure to conform to body ideals affects all genders, women have been disproportionately shaped by the belief that smaller is better. Diet culture, beauty standards, and media messaging have been telling women for decades — centuries — that they are more valuable when they take up less space.

Choosing to eat for your unique body type, to move in ways that feel nourishing rather than punishing, and to wear clothes that allow you to breathe is not just self-care. It’s a quiet act of defiance.

Because when you stop fighting your body, you reclaim the energy that was spent on shrinking yourself — and you can direct it toward living, creating, loving, and contributing.

Living from the Inside Out

Holistic healing is a return to your body’s own wisdom. It asks you to be curious about how you feel after you eat, after you move, after you spend time in certain environments or with certain people.

It’s not about following someone else’s list of “shoulds.”It’s about building an intimate, trusting relationship with your own physiology.

When you are connected to your body, you are less likely to override its messages in the name of productivity, aesthetics, or fear. You start to make choices that are deeply supportive — not just for your health markers, but for your whole being.