What is your relationship with yourself?
It may seem like an odd question as most people focus on their relationships with their loved ones or friends. Yet, believe it or not, according to expert therapists, our relationship with ourselves is disintegrating at an alarming rate. Self-esteem issues are more and more frequent, with approximately 85% of people worldwide struggling with low self-confidence. In other words, the relationship you have with yourself is likely to be wrong, according to statistics.
Why don’t we love ourselves more? According to Baumeister, our concept of self is our understanding of our personal attributes. The better we understand ourselves, the more likely our self-confidence and sense of self-worth will remain intact.
Unfortunately, self-confidence develops in young age, during childhood and adolescence. Therefore, your interactions with your parents and social circle at that age will impact your perception of yourself and, in turn, your self-confidence. Children who receive recognition for their mistakes and achievements are likely to develop into confident adults with healthy self-esteem. On the other hand, if parents expect their child to achieve an impossible level of perfection and are fast to criticize any mistakes, the child is prone to feel inadequate, not good enough, and not worthy of self-love.
If you’ve grown up in a situation where you have received unfair criticism, you probably find it tough to make peace with some of your personal attributes. But it is never too late for a wake-up call. Learning to love yourself starts today.
Recover from criticism about your physical appearance
Have you grown up being the chubby kid or the one with the uneven smile? Being at the receiving end of hurtful jokes, even from friends and family, can make it hard to make peace with your appearance. So, finding an objective interlocutor to discuss your worries is essential. I was that kid that others joked about, and it hurt. In middle school, I tried to laugh it off like it was no big deal, but in truth, it was, and it impacted me for years afterward.
Indeed, if you have experienced people making fun of you for some of your physical features, it can be tough to see the real you behind the painful comments. For example, someone who might have been on the heavy side during their school years may still see the image of their old overweight self in the mirror, even though they have long lost all the excess weight. So, the first step in healing your self-esteem is to find someone who will be honest with you and help you. Reaching out to a specialist, such as asking a dentist about your smile, is the surest way to hear an objective answer. More importantly, a specialist can also help you understand your options if you wish to improve features you are uncomfortable with. For example, a dentist could recommend using composite bonding to cover chipped teeth. Or perhaps finding help with getting fit and losing weight from Thetribestm.com is the best option for you. Think about what will help most and make a move in that direction. Making peace with your appearance doesn’t necessarily mean accepting traits you are unhappy about. Things can be changed, and transformations have proven instrumental in re-learning self-love.