What is your best advice for self love?

[bettydaviseyes1]

I dont know how else to phrase it, hope it doesnt sound... dodgy

I just dont like myself very much and I cant help but think that I'll like myself when I'm thinner, more toned, better dressed etc I know I'm not fat (5ft 4, 9 st 1lb) but I feel like everyone else heavier/lighter looks better and I'm just a big mess.

I nearly dont feel acceptable to look people in the eye unless I've got makeup on and feel inferior and as if people will be shocked that I think it's acceptable to look like I do without make up on. I just dont like myself very much.

I could go on but I hate to read my self pity/wallowing, what can I do to feel better about myself/like myself more.

I've concentrated on physical appearance because that's where I have the problem, I know I'm a good person so I think my personality is okay.

Perhaps you could be a good person to yourself too and draft in the time for make up and exercise? You deserve your attention too.

I’ve felt like this a lot in the past, I still do on bad days. For me a lot of it stemmed from anxiety issues and just general low levels of self-worth. Working on my anxiety has helped me a huge amount. My self-confidence increased when I started to feel like I had some more purpose in my life. For me that meant going back to university and getting a couple of volunteering roles where I could feel useful and getting into exercise. I still don’t feel confident in my looks but, unless I see photos of myself, it bothers me a lot less on a day to day basis now that I feel like I have more going on. Are there any changes you could make to give you something to focus on?

For me it was focusing less on myself and more on other people. Introspection is not the answer, in my experience.

@PoxyPixie it's good to hear that I'm not alone! But not glad to hear anyone else ever feels like this.

I am studying, my job is one that helps people, I meet up with friends 1-2 times a week and family once a week, I'm married to a lovely man, we have a dog who I love to bits, we do a lot of walking/hiking (I'm not really into the gym/other exercise but I'm always on the go) and the worst bit is I know I'm not that bad looking. I just feel repulsive sometimes and beat myself up when I eat something I shouldn't or when I'm lazy. I literally cant sit down to read a book for an hour without feeling guilty.

I dont think I'll ever be happy with myself so I know it needs to come from within.

@GoshHashana what kind of thing did you do? I volunteer twice a week and my job is a helping role, as awful as it sounds I dont know if I have more free time. Maybe you mean thoughts wise? Focus on others more?

It's a really good question.
So often posters are told to work on their self-esteem without having any guidance on how to do that. I like Marisa Peer on youtube, her central idea is that you are enough as you are. You're not obliged to be anything else. She has a lot on youtube including guided meditations, and I ordered her book for my daughter who also believes she owes it to somebody or something to be even prettier, even thinner..........
It's an oldie but i really love nathaniel branden's six pillars of self-esteem. It's on youtube as an audio. You may think, what has this got to do with not being happy about my weight but we all beat ourselves up for some reason when our self esteem could be better.

[quote bettydaviseyes1]@GoshHashana what kind of thing did you do? I volunteer twice a week and my job is a helping role, as awful as it sounds I dont know if I have more free time. Maybe you mean thoughts wise? Focus on others more?[/quote]
I think you owe it to yourself to look after yourself now.

Volunteering is great if you have enough fuel in your tank and I do believe that giving back to the community can be a great way of feeling good. But if you're so depleted right now that you haven't got time to work through your own sense of inadequacy, I would step back from the volunteering for a while. And if you feel guilty about that, even more reason to step back. You need to look after yourself. Think about why you feel repulsive. That is a distorted mindset and you owe it to yourself to go through your one and only life feeling good about yourself.

@BeChuille that's really useful and practical information. Echo the Six pillars of self esteem recommendation

@BeChuille I think you're right. I definitely use focus on others as a distraction from the focus on me, I hate talking about myself, hate talking about my feelings, it's much easier to keep busy and when talking to someone to direct the conversation to be about them. I am genuinely interested though, not just asking qs as avoidance.

The guilt of stepping back from anything would just be too much. Also the little I do to help others, if that was gone, what would be the point of me?

I nearly, on some level, feel that being kind to myself might make me lazy and I wint push myself as hard/far. I dont feel deserving of the niceness neither.

Honestly if you met me youd think I was a little awkward but confident, happy, chatty and always dressed/make up on, people have said "always put together" but on the inside I'm crumbling and I dont know how to fix it.

I'm going to check out that YouTube some have suggested.

Sometimes you need to ''sit with the discomfort''.

eg, you step back from volunteering and you feel some uncomfortable feelings. Don't push them out of your head instantly. Dialogue with them. You hear a voice saying ''you shouldn't have stopped volunteering, you're lazy''. Train your critical inner voice. Argue back with yourself. No, I need to attend to my own oxygen mask first and I am taking time to do that now

I used to have a very critical inner voice and a few psychotherapy sessions over a decade ago got me in to a good habit of dialoguing back with my critical inner voice.

If a voice comes in to your head telling you you're lazy, defend yourself like you were cheer leading a friend! Because as you're a caring person, I bet you would do that!

Some of us are hardwired to help others. Like when I left my abusive x over 14 years ago, the first job that I went in to was being a carer. Which took the spotlight off the work I needed to do on myself. It is a very common response apparently.

And learning to sit with the discomfort has many other applications too!

I used to need my mother's approval. If we argued (ie, if she tried to manipulate me in to some course of action and I resisted and she withdrew her approval) I would feel sick with discomfort. Unsettling feelings of awkwardness and discomfort would just sink me in the pit of my stomach.

But when I started to resist the urge to get rid of those feelings by initiating contact, or by defending myself to her, and instead to sit with those feelings and allow them in and then digest them, dialogue with them, and switch from defending myself to her to defending myself TO ME, I found that the feelings of awkwardness and discomfort following any sort of awkwardness at all just greatly diminished.

I hope this makes sense.

Oh yes, and your new inner voice, the one that is going to silence the voice that says you're '''lazy'' for giving up volunteering, that new inner voice, she is ALWAYS on your side. She gives everything you do a positive interpretation. She is on your side. She wants you to grow and heal and be happy. She doesn't want you to conform for the sake of it.

@BeChuille Rachel (my therapist's name) is that you?? lol That's exactly what I'm working on in therapy, sitting with the uncomfortable feelings but I never really tied that into my self-esteem issues until reading your messages. I don't sit with discomfort at all which also means I don't deal with my issues, I just whack on a big smile and chipper personality and get on with it. It's the quiet times of reflection that drive me insane but maybe that's when I need to lean in because I can't get over an issue if I don't give it any airtime.

Everything you've said makes sense and I could use the mother example myself. What I do when she "disapproves" (which can be for any small perceived slight) is rush to make it up to her, tell her how wonderful she is and arrange to do something nice. Then I go feeling anxoius and on eggshells and she probably feels that all is right with the world, her horrible daughter is rightfully making things up to her. When I say perceived slights, I mean perceived... the most recent slights have been looking at her in the wrong way, apparently I gave her a dirty look and my smile is fake.

I think I grew up having to "manage" other people's feelings in order to feel safe and now I'm still doing that but it's exhausting as it's no longer just parents but colleagues, friends, husband etc.

I'm not convinced i can do this with the voice but I'm going to give it a try.... my first thoughts this morning are "you're so lazy, you woke up at 9 and sat on your phone for an hour, that's so unproductive and you should have been out walking the dog, that poor dog, he's so lovely and you're a terrible owner. Breakfast? After everything you ate on Friday? You are a fat disgusting mess. And you feel anxious about doing the grocery shop? So you're not going to do it? Pathetic! Your poor husband always has to pick up the slack for you. Probably best you don't go, you'll just have a panic attack in the aisle and be a little attention seeker."

Wow.... I really went to town there, it's actually quite horrible to see it all written down :(

Nice thoughts "what a lovely lie in you had, lots of people enjoy lie ins on Sunday. Sunday's are for resting. You're going to take the dog out in the afternoon when you've got company to because you're feeling a little anxious today, he always gets a walk, you love him to bits and he is thrilled that the lack of morning walk resulted in a guilt treat. You've had a very anxious weekend and a trigger for you is going outside alone, let DH do the shop, he never minds and you're going to cook a nice dinner for this evening. You also cleaned last night, it's a partnership, it's okay for you both to chip in. As for food, you got some issues there but we're going to work on them."

It's been very therapeutic writing this down, thanks for taking the time to write to me.