Bad body image day songs

Some days, I don’t feel that great about my body. Some days, I’ll wake up and look in the mirror as I get into the shower and wish my body were different. Some days are just bad body image days. Almost everyone has them, and the people who don’t are people whose resilience and realistic view of the world I hope to share one day.

One of the things I’ve learned over time, though, is that bad body image days don’t have to last all day long. There are things I can do to cheer myself up and shake myself back into reality – because, in reality, my body is fully functional and beautiful and can do the splits on both legs. And one of those things is listening to music. I’m one of those people whose moods are very easily influenced by music; a sad song can ruin my good mood, and an upbeat song can often pull me out of a funk.

Yesterday was a bad body image day, and since I had a lot of work to do and couldn’t afford to spend time thinking about my thighs, I decided I had better put together a playlist that would turn the day around. I dragged and dropped a few songs from my iTunes, and I solicited the advice of my friends and Twitter followers. Here is what we came up with:

Bootylicious by Destiny’s Child, Video by India.Arie, Real Girl by Mutya Buena, Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars, Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall, Endangered Species by Dianne Reeves, Present/Infant by Ani DiFranco, I Am Not My Hair by India.Arie ft. Akon, Beautiful by Christina Aguilera, Man! I Feel Like a Woman! by Shania Twain, Unpretty by TLC,  Respect by Aretha Franklin and Superwoman by Alicia Keys.

And my favorite, Affirmation, by Savage Garden:

Do you have a bad body image day playlist? If you do, what’s on it?