{"id":76246,"date":"2022-08-14T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T18:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=76246"},"modified":"2022-08-23T16:10:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T20:10:38","slug":"bad-body-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/bad-body-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupi Kaur on Bad Body Image: “My Body Cries”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can poetry explain having a bad body image? What did Rupi Kaur’s negative self-image teach her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she explores the struggle of having a bad body image, Rupi Kaur’s poetry in her book, The Sun and Her Flowers<\/em>, expresses feelings of depression, envy, and longing. Kaur’s poetry gives intimate details of how women, especially women of color, come to terms with negative body image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn about Rupi Kaur’s experience of having a bad body image, expressed through poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Rupi Kaur’s Poems on Body Image<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even after leaving her abusive partner and beginning to recover emotionally, poet and visual artist Rupi Kaur still had a long road of healing ahead. Some of Kaur\u2019s empty feelings and longing to feel love came from her bad body image.<\/strong> After describing her abusive relationship in the \u201cWilting\u201d section of her book of poems, The Sun and Her Flowers<\/em>, the \u201cFalling\u201d section then reflects on the root causes that led Kaur to that relationship in the first place. Many of the poems in \u201cFalling\u201d explore Kaur\u2019s struggle with bad body image, including feelings of emptiness, depression, and anxiety stemming from deeper traumatic events and powerful insecurities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Rupi Kaur’s poems, she often feels like her physical appearance is inadequate, or that she\u2019s lacking the traits of a \u201cbeautiful\u201d woman\u2014thin eyebrows, little to no body hair, an hourglass figure, and so on. Kaur explores how bad body image is a particular challenge for a woman of color living in the West, which she says bases beauty standards on white women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaur recognizes that these aren\u2019t objective standards of beauty<\/a> and that they\u2019re created by her society, but she still can\u2019t help but judge herself by them. Kaur positions her negative body image\u2014and her subsequent need to feel attractive\u2014as one of the root causes of her anxiety, depression, and feelings of emptiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Some psychologists suggest that to address bad body image (and the negative feelings it often inspires<\/a>), people can think about their body in terms of action <\/em>rather than appearance<\/em><\/a>. Instead of judging their body by how beautiful or ugly it is, they can appreciate everything that their body does<\/em> for them\u2014feeling gratitude for their physical abilities, talents, or simply the fact that their body is crucial for getting through daily life. Proponents of this strategy suggest that if someone tries to see their body as beautiful, they\u2019re still focusing on what\u2019s good or bad about their appearance\u2014but by focusing on action, they can break that cycle of thinking.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can poetry explain having a bad body image? What did Rupi Kaur’s negative self-image teach her? As she explores the struggle of having a bad body image, Rupi Kaur’s poetry in her book, The Sun and Her Flowers, expresses feelings of depression, envy, and longing. Kaur’s poetry gives intimate details of how women, especially women of color, come to terms with negative body image. Keep reading to learn about Rupi Kaur’s experience of having a bad body image, expressed through poetry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":76275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,43,24],"tags":[723],"class_list":["post-76246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-self-improvement","category-society","tag-the-sun-and-her-flowers","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nRupi Kaur on Bad Body Image: "My Body Cries" - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having a bad body image affects many people, especially women. 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