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I need to let go of the need to be the most beautiful

Homeā†’Forumsā†’Relationshipsā†’I need to let go of the need to be the most beautiful

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Viewing 8 posts - 16 through 23 (of 23 total)
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  • #403488
    dorothy
    Participant

    Hi Brianna,

    I hope you see this. I just checked my mail and realised that this thread is alive!

    I hear you, and i truly hear into your pain. It has been a year since i consciously work on this deep pain within me. And i have to say right now it feels so much better.Ā Perhaps sharing with you some realisations and insights could help.

    Even though it is really painful and frustrating, this journey is one towards your inner wholeness.

    1. My partner deeply triggered a core abandonment wound within me. At the beginning of the journey, because it is so painful, it is so easy to want to find solution ASAP. One important thing i learn is: I do not need everything to be solved in order to hold myself. I went for therapy sessions and it helped me understand what grounding myself means. In face of trigger, I used to dissociate and just go into panic mode. Hence i want to find solution to this pain ASAP so that i dont have to face trigger. But as i grow and learn, i realise it is about how i could really be present with my emotions and all pain in all my triggered moments. And somehow that made everything better. Grounding tools is what you need if you’re desperately needing a solution. Grounding will also help you see that you can take time for this journey, you can feel triggered, you can feel all sorts of things but still really safe. This is the part of my journey where i learn safety.

    2. You have to engage your partner’s help to create safety for you in the relationship. I used to feel like it is all my issue that i am just jealous and am afraid to get my partner’s help on this journey. My partner and I now have reached a point where we are both clearly aware of what triggers me, how to deal with triggers, how to hold space for emotions, instead of wanting all these to go away or be okay asap.

    3. For this issue you’re facing, 80% of me am sure that it is a core wound surrounding abandonment. For myself, i came to realise that i needed to be the most beautiful in the room because if i perceive myself to be not the most beautiful, i am abandoned. I didn’t know i actually felt that way until i really dive deep into the real emotions that exist in my body. Since young, i’ve been compared for my appearance, my sister has emotionally abandoned me by telling me that i am ugly and i can never be prettier than her. I grew up with unhealthy feminine figures who make comparisons with other feminines a coping mechanism. But it is really sad because all of us want celebration instead of comparisons. So if anything, i am here to let you know that you’re beautiful and i want to celebrate you. It is indeed difficult to grow up with our masculine figures also being unhealthy and having sexual objectifications. I faced that too. All these contribute to so many layers of abandonment in our psyche, that’s why it feels like such a difficult puzzle to understand as much as you want to reclaim yourself.

    4. Right now i feel much more okay because i’m starting to feel like i don’t have to be conditionally pretty in order to love myself.
    I needed myself to look a certain way just incase there could be other attractive women. This act is driven from the fear that if im not up to standard (esp appearance), i WILL be abandoned. But as I continue to ground myself, love myself, and engage my partner’s help to show me that it really doesn’t mean a sh*t whether other women are pretty/attractive, things really gets easier.

    The old mindset goes like this: Other women are attractive to my partner = my partner will forget about me/abandon me in that moment/go back to porn/ fantasise about her/ make his life about her. (just a note, my abandonment wound also involves my partner’s decades long porn addiction. which help me realise that my fear of abandonment is also largely linked to whether he is able to stay grounded in himself to not abandon his life and escape into porn/women)

    The new mindset goes like this: Attractiveness is just a thing that exist in the world, it does not equate to abandonment. Other women are pretty/attractive but my partner is grounded enough to not abandon himself, me and our relationship for it. Other women are pretty =/= i am abandoned. Other women are pretty =/= i am ugly. Other women are pretty = the beauty i see in them also exist in me right here right now. Other women are pretty, and it does not mean much more than the fact that they just look aesthetically nice. Even when i grow old and no longer considered pretty in the societal norms, I am still able to feel my beauty within because it is something that i was born with and something that can never be taken away from me. Beauty is an experience of immense love within, it is a gentle feeling that whispers “i am my own goddess, i am beautiful not because of how i look but because of how i exist in life”.

    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 boy and mindsets.
    I have alot more to say and if you’re interested please reach out to me, because i can safely say that i really know how you feel in your journey and if i am able to be where i am now, you can too. I’d love to support, you can reach out to me on instagram too, itssunshinedorothy.

    You will be okay. Your heart is mending, it will take time, but you will emerge more alive, more authentic, more yourself than before. This is here to crack you open to what life really is, to see life with a completely different lens, to love yourself on a much much much much more deeper level that you never could have thought that it is possible. I love you, i celebrate you. Take care.

    #403489
    dorothy
    Participant

    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. *

    #403498
    Brianna
    Participant

    Anita, thank you again for the information. I especially find the idea of ā€œself objectificationā€ interesting. Before my current relationship and the current part of my self esteem journey, I think I used to be more self objectifying. I would constantly think about how my appearance affected other people and my impressions on them, including catering to the male gaze and constantly thinking/wondering if a stranger is looking at me finds me pretty/sexy/whatever the case, even if I truly didnā€™t care about their thoughts. I noticed I still did this even in the beginning in my relationship (6 years ago). Thankfully these habits and thoughts have faded and has evolved into this other one with my partner. But this behavior I had definitely relates to and is an extension of the underlying reasons of those behaviors too.

    #403499
    Brianna
    Participant

    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 ā€œfix whatā€™s wrongā€ 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.

    #403500
    Brianna
    Participant

    and Iā€™m also so glad you were able to see my message even though it was old šŸ˜€

    #413493
    taytay
    Participant

    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. iā€™m 16 years old, and iā€™m really struggling with self image, especially with all the internet and eurocentrism of beauty. i donā€™t feel like iā€™m too imperfect to be loved, in all modesty, Iā€™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 didnā€™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 donā€™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 canā€™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 peopleā€™s opinions, and not care about looking attractive & finally love myself truly? atleast as much that I donā€™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 donā€™t wanna alter myself, but I also canā€™t seem to accept myself here.

    also please donā€™t mind any typos, I canā€™t see half of what I wrote because of the tiny box here.

    #413495
    taytay
    Participant

    correction:

    i donā€™t feel like iā€™m too perfect** to be loved

    #413521
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear taytay:

    Once when I was 12, one of my teachers made a comment on how my nose is kinda wide. and I didnā€™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 peopleā€™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

Viewing 8 posts - 16 through 23 (of 23 total)

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