Shift Your Negative Self-Talk and Be More Self-Accepting and Start Loving Your Body
When we compare our “insides” to other people’s “outsides”, we are going to lose in the comparison. Often we project positive attributes on to others, such as happiness and/or confidence, while we feel insecure and negative about ourselves. As a result, we women often don’t feel good about ourselves. When we speak negatively to and about ourselves, we lower our self-confidence and self-esteem. As a result, I believe our “attraction quotient” is lowered because we don’t feel as attractive and therefore, we are not attracting. Men find confidence in women an attractive influence. The reality is, everyone has feelings of insecurity. The challenge (and our goal) is to focus on what you do like about yourself. Often we highlight what we don’t like about ourselves, bringing other’s attentions to our (perceived) flaws, instead of directing people’s attention to our strengths.
One of the challenges of feeling undesirable and unattractive is on the occasions when you are told the opposite … that you ARE desirable or you ARE attractive; you will not believe it. So even if someone were attracted to you, you are not available to receive it. When we have negative beliefs and self-talk, we create/ reinforce filters that receive only matching data (i.e. negative comments). When we hear something negative about ourselves, we think, “of course I am!” or “exactly what I have been saying!” and unfortunately, as previously mentioned, when we hear information that does not match our perceptions, in this instance, something positive and supporting, we tend to dismiss, ignore or devalue the comment (for example, “You are my mother, of course you think I am beautiful”).
Often former high school classmates will post teenage pictures of themselves and remark, “I can’t believe I thought I was fat then. If only I could be that “fat” now.” Unfortunately, there might always be some part of your body you don’t like, much less love … but think about all the time and energy you are wasting on those negative thoughts …to only have a different/ renewed perspective about it later. Why not gain that perspective now? There is a reason magazines keep promoting “40 is the new 20” … well all know that aging is a part of life, but many have not embraced it. What are you giving up in your life, in your self, when you reject your body?
Stop the negative self-talk! Start the self-love and work towards self-acceptance.
Start with positive affirmations and create a mantra for yourself. You may choose to focus on your body, personality or values/worth
(for example, “I have an open and loving heart”; “I have worth and want a partner who nurtures me”).
Work on gratitude and focus on unconditional love. Repeat to yourself, “Even though I have this (insert problem or issue here) _____________________, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Find what you love about yourself; figure out what makes you feel beautiful (and then focus on/ emphasize that!)
These actions might feel uncomfortable and awkward initially, and that makes sense that it would. Do it anyway. Do it when you feel good about yourself; do it when you are grocery shopping, and especially do it when you notice you are talking negatively to yourself. Catch the negative self talk and replace it with your affirmations -replace it with gratitude.
