Dear selizabeth1996:

Young women unhappy with their appearance- so very common, unfortunately. It often has nothing to do with the actual appearance and it doesn’t matter how many people will tell you that you are beautiful, it doesn’t change what you think when you look in the mirror at times, does it.

The Core Belief underneath such dissatisfaction is: I-am-not-good-enough or something-is-wrong-with-me, something like that, is it not?

anita

Hi Selizabeth. Firstly, I want to say well done for having the courage to speak out about your thoughts and feelings and seek help. It is not an easy thing to do. I also want to say well done for taking the first step and wanting to be able to appreciate yourself for who you are based on your own feelings. You are not alone when you speak of feeling this way. There are many other people with the same beliefs about themselves. I myself, had the same beliefs a few years ago. I now love and appreciate myself for who I am and am so grateful and blessed for everything I have in my Life. And most importantly, I am now able to love myself unconditionally, even with flaws that I may feel have. I am telling you this as I want you to see that it is possible to totally change your mind set and thoughts about yourself and your life.

If we base our self esteem on others, we will never truly be happy or feel that feeling of gratefulness about ourselves. This does not come from outside sources, only from within. Another thing that I want to say is that nothing that goes wrong, is because of your appearance. There are many many reasons why things can go wrong, sometimes its because of outside reasons and sometimes they just do. It is not aways our job to understand this.

Have you ever tried a Gratitude Journal? These can help you notice things that you are grateful for every day and help shift your thoughts into a more positive place. Another thing that you could do is Visualisation exercises. They consist of picturing your life the way you want it, (it helps to write these things down also so you can clearly see it in front of you). Picturing important scenarios turning out successfully and also repeating Positive affirmations to yourself daily. Also, every time you have a negative thought about yourself, replace it with a positive one. Something about yourself that makes you feel happy. If you can’t think of anything, just say the opposite of the thought that you had. You don’t have to believe it at the time and you may feel silly saying it but just remember, no one can hear you. You are just reaffirming to yourself, something positive rather than something negative. This will help you shift your negative thought patterns into positive ones. Another good exercise to do would be an “Allow and Release Exercise”. This consists of you being fully in your emotions so you are able to work through them rather than bury or fight them. I think you need to get to the core of why you are feeling this way. You will then be able to positively change your thoughts permanently about your self-esteem.

I am a Mindfulness/Life Coach. I can help you with this free of charge if it is something you would like.
You can contact me on:
Email: trucolours@hotmail.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruHigherVibeLiving
Instagram: trucolours_on_insta

Good luck on your journey Selizabeth

Natalie

Dear selizabeth1996:

In response to your last note to me: “I find it easier to put the blame on myself because it gives an answer to why the relationships or situations don’t work.”-

It happens every time: children take the blame to what goes wrong. If a parent is unhappy, for example, the child will feel responsible: something about me must have caused it, the thinking goes.

This thinking often extends into adulthood: something is wrong? Must be my fault.

It may be easier, to think this way, as you wrote, but it is not correct thinking. What causes a relationship to end is not all in you. At best it is a shared responsibility between the two people in the relationship.

anita

Hi Selizabeth!

I reckon, by your username, we are around the same age group. I think this is natural–after all, we’ve been bombarded with the media and society on what beauty should be.

I currently am in the same journey! I would like to share with you what I’ve done so far; but as I am a student myself please do take everything I say with a grain of salt.

A man sees the world what he carries in his heart. (Goethe)

People who are closest to us would tell us we’re beautiful. We would often reply, oh, we’re not, they’re just saying that because they love us. And I realized that that is exactly the reason why. When a person is full of love for us, it means they are also full of compassion for us; and because of compassion, they see us for what we truly are – and they express it as ‘beautiful.’ I can recall how I caught my own mother randomly staring at me. When I ask her why, she’ll say she has never seen a person so beautiful. Of course I shrugged it off.

If we ask this same person who told us we’re beautiful whether they also find themselves beautiful, it might be a different story. Loving other people does not mean we love ourselves, and I believe this is where we are, and this is what’s wrong.

This realization has changed me so much. So first, instead of seeking self-esteem, I sought self-compassion. I have learned that everything in the world is unsatisfactory because nothing is permanent and perfect. I teach myself this, and I do my best to accept that the reason I suffer is because I desire to be perfect. I do not suffer because of what I am, but because of a desire to be what I am not, and because I do not accept myself. In knowing this truth, I have become compassionate to myself. I think that is the first step in my journey.

Next, I practice. This is the stage where I am in now. Simply ‘realizing’ the truth isn’t enough–especially that the mind has gotten so used to the idea that we are inadequate. It must be paired with practice. I try to be mindful of my own thoughts. I do this by practice of meditation as it helps me be more in control of my mind. When I catch my mind being unkind to myself, I pause, take a deep breath, and remind myself of the truth. Reading and reciting the Heart Sutra has helped me so much – it teaches that all phenomena in the empirical world is empty and impermanent; thus, nothing is worthy to be held on to. Sometimes I even catch myself being impatient with my self-compassion. When that happens, I stop again, take a deep breath, and tell myself that I’m a work in progress.

These are my thoughts on the matter. Again, please do take it with a grain of salt – take it as you would seek an opinion from a classmate. Good luck! 🙂

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Moon.

Hi. Just wanted to share that the way I see it is.. when we believe the opinions of others to be true, we are giving weight to those opinions. When someone tells us something nice and it feels good, they could turn around and say something mean and make us feel bad. We lose either way when we give substance to other’s opinions! We let them control how we feel. One thing you can do is realize that opinions are just that. Someone could see a rose and think it is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen before, but someone else could see it and curse the rose for its thorns. Everyone’s own perception and reality is only seen through their eyes. You can’t change that. The only person’s perception you can change is your own. The only voice you can reframe is the one inside your mind that is criticizing you so much. We are all human. We all make mistakes, we are all imperfect. Embrace your imperfections! Get to know yourself. Get to know your strengths and weaknesses. Get to know that voice inside your head that is always criticizing you and realize that it does not always hold truth. And that sometimes, that voice is just trying to protect us. What I mean by that is this voice is there to help you to strive to be “better,” because maybe one day if you are “good” enough, you will feel good enough. But we can’t ever feel good enough if there’s always this voice hating on everything we do. So sometimes we just gotta tell this part of us to relax a little bit – we got this.

Mindfulness/meditation and positive self-affirmations are a great way to start on the journey to self-acceptance. (this is all coming from someone who has really struggled with self-esteem!) I also recommend watching some of Noah Elkrief’s videos on youtube. Here is a good one to start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn1rv7BZvvw he is a therapist and meditation expert.