Women are own harshest critics and worst enemies when it comes to our body image. Do you find yourself saying, I'm so ugly, fat, stupid etc. If you do, you are not alone.Women on the average make thirteen "I hate my body" statements a day. We women speak brutal words that don’t affirm us to ourselves. We don’t speak the regular garden variety, "My butt just looks too big" or "This pimple on my face makes me look hideous" words, we speak really cruel words that shouldn’t be written to ourselves. We are downright cruel to ourselves.
If a man spoke to us like we sometimes do to ourselves, it would be considered verbal relationship abuse. Yet we talk this way to ourselves. We speak words with this kind of venom to ourselves. More often than not, our body is a screen to project our negative feelings on. We project on our body negative feelings we have about ourselves in other areas of our lives. If a man isn't interested in us, it's because we are ugly. If we fail at something, we say we are stupid or dumb. We create mean girl mantras in our own heads and recite them to ourselves.
The world is especially a harsh place for women. We are at least second class citizens but in most cases we are third or fourth class citizens depending on our race. The world beats us down enough so we don't need to join in.
Luckily there’s a way out of our negative self image rut by doing the following:
1. Never focus on the negatives about yourself. Remember that neurons that wire together, fire together.
2. Slow down and hear what you say to yourself and your body.
3. Speak positive words of affirmation and love to yourself. Remember that neurons that fire together, wire together.
4. Ask yourself if whatever you feel so badly about is really true or a composition of a myriad of other issues. Ask yourself this question, "Is this really about my body or something else." How you feel may be due to feelings of inadequacy or frustration in on other areas of your life.
5. Write down your negative thoughts and think about them one by one thoroughly. Ask yourself if your negative thoughts are there to distract you from something else.
6. Focus on the issues in your life that need to be addressed.
7. Take time to exercise because the endorphins released will make you happy or at least less sad and will remove or calm down the mean girl loop playing in your brain.
8. Verbally tell yourself to stop with the negative messages or condemnation of yourself.
9. Stop obsessing over your body because it won’t change a thing. If you don't like something about your body take proactive steps to change it.
10. Remember that overweight or not you are beautiful. Forget the media's silly skinny image ideal. However, you should strive to be a healthy weight for your body type.
11. Play up your strengths instead of downgrading yourself by focussing on your weaknesses. Show off your good features. Be proud of yourself and show yourself off. Also, try to work on your weaknesses at your own pace. Remember slow but steady wins the race.
12. Keep a diary to keep a record of your thoughts and feelings to open your eyes to what you are doing to yourself.
13. Remember to eat right, exercise, get adequate restful sleep and meditate.
14. Be still and know that God is God. He is ultimately in control of your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment