TYPO Correction: It took me endless nights of purging, crying, and literally feel like it is the end of my life so many f-ing times, so many difficult conversations with my partner, so much death and discomfort, to acquire all this shifts in my emotional body and mindsets. *

Dorothy, thank you so much for sharing your journey with me and I am genuinely happy to hear you have found more peace around this issue. I will definitely start with not feeling the need to “fix what’s wrong” and fixating on why I feel this way so much, and embrace the journey and console to my partner about it as well for when sensitive times do come up. And thank you for giving me perspective with the old vs new mindset, and it touches my heart that you, and others in this thread, care so much about my journey too. I will maybe try to reach out. I will have to reread this information again , sit with it and see what I want to do.

hello there, I was just searching on how to love myself more regardless of what the world says, and let go the desire of wanting to be pretty or attractive. i’m 16 years old, and i’m really struggling with self image, especially with all the internet and eurocentrism of beauty. i don’t feel like i’m too imperfect to be loved, in all modesty, I’m a fairly good looking girl. my relatives, friends & parents compliment me on my appearance. but once when I was 12, one of my teachers made a comment on how my nose is kinda wide. and I didn’t take it personally back then, but two years later, at 14, in quarantine, it hit me and I have been insecure since. sometimes I even feel as if I don’t deserve to have fun in life because I am not perfect enough, and only the people who are good at dancing, mimicking, socialising & are overall perfect and pretty, get to feel good about themselves. which I know is utter nonsense, and that is the reason why I wanna bash the idea, but my brain needs solid reason to accept why, and I can’t seem to explain that to myself. i have tried a lot, and this self acceptance journey I started last year seems harder that I wanna give up & it seems to only be making me feel more insecure. is there any advice on what I can do to not care about other people’s opinions, and not care about looking attractive & finally love myself truly? atleast as much that I don’t constantly think about how that one flaw of mine makes me less lovable regardless of the inner beauty I hold (and also modestly, external). and how can I also stop feeling the need to compare my physical appearance to other people and belittle myself? i don’t wanna alter myself, but I also can’t seem to accept myself here.

also please don’t mind any typos, I can’t see half of what I wrote because of the tiny box here.

Dear taytay:

“Once when I was 12, one of my teachers made a comment on how my nose is kinda wide. and I didn’t take it personally back then, but two years later, at 14, in quarantine, it hit me and I have been insecure since“-

-this sentence should be the topic of at least 10 classes that all teachers have to take as part of their training before and after certification. It is so very wrong for teachers to make any comments in regard to students’ physical features, neither positive nor negative comments!

“This self-acceptance journey I started last year seems harder… Is there any advice on what I can do to not care about other people’s opinions“-

– What I found out in life is that as the social animals that we are (humans) we can’t help but care about what other people think of us. So, if your goal is to not care at all about what anyone and everyone thinks of you, you will not succeed. The key is (1) whenever and wherever possible, do not make yourself available to negatively critical people, (2) aim at not care too much about people’s negative opinions of you.

To achieve the latter, when a person expresses a negative thought about your looks or your behavior, look at the person making the criticism and ask yourself: if I wanted to criticize this particular person, could I find something to criticize, physically and behaviorally?

I am sure the answer would be Yes. This means that we all can be criticized by anyone who wishes to criticize, but good people are careful to criticize only when the criticism is valid, and when it is, deliver the criticism (in most cases) very gently, so to minimize the person’s hurt and to not turn the person off to the valid criticism. This very thing that I am writing to you here, is something that I personally need to work on further, because of my tendency to harshly criticize people.

Next (when calm, and over time) ask yourself in regard to a criticism that you received: was I criticized for something that is impossible for people to change? If the answer is Yes, then say to yourself: the criticism is invalid because it is cruel. If the criticism is about something that you can change, ask yourself: is it something that I should change? Would I be a better person if I change this or this one thing? If the answer is Yes, then plan a way to change it.

Is my reply so far helpful to you?

anita