Love Thyself

Love Thyself:

We are bombarded with images of celebrities and models with perfect skin, shiny hair, svelte figures and an overall aura of impossible beauty standards.

Well, hang on. Perception is not reality!

First, celebrities, models and actresses invest way more time than a regular person into their looks. It’s their business. And they achieve this by employing a legion of specialists that help them with their meals, exercise, skin care, they have wardrobe stylists, hair stylists and makeup artists and plastic surgery.

Second, there’s massive image manipulation…Photoshop and other programs that media use to turn regular looking skin into porcelain, and a lovely bodied model into a human Barbie of inhuman proportions. (check out this video of a complete Photoshop transformation)

Third, social media. spirational selfies that create this perception of perfect lives with perfect hair and perfect makeup and perfect trips and meals and perfect experiences with perfect friends. That’s not reality. Just like regular media, social media is used to project an image that is a better version of reality. Disclaimer here: we know that many or most social media users are happy posting real stuff, we are referring to those that potentially create the wrong aspirational reality for impressionable followers.

(interesting article about this successful influencer who decided to quit social media: www.theguardian.com)

Here are 5 steps to combat this:

1. Don’t compare yourself to others. Compete with yourself. You can grow, and develop. It doesn’t matter what others do. It matters what you do and how you feel. 

2. Be gentle to yourself. Self doubt and self criticism are pesky little witches that flare up often and unannounced. Learn to shut them down quickly. Studies show that it takes about 7 seconds for a negative thought to take firm place in our minds. So the moment those witches start rearing their ugly heads, shoot’em down.

3. Love your body. It is your vessel. Treat it right. Exercise, eat healthier.

4. Do it for health. Speaking of change, the best reason to get in shape or stay in shape, or to eat more organic veggies is health. Looks are not unimportant to our self-esteem, but with age we all go through changes. It’s inevitable, and a health body will always feel (and also age) better.

5. You are great just as you are. No, seriously. You are. Do you function more or less consistently in society? Yep, you’re good.

PS: we are not presumptuous to think that loving oneself is as simple as the five steps above. But it’s a start. :-)