When you stand in front of a mirror who do you see staring back. Do you like the person that is there, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Would you choose to live the rest of your life with them? Ultimately it is this bargain in our heads that is important for how others see you is unimportant, even insignificant in the long run, yet how you see yourself means everything for it will shape your world and how you live your life.
Daniel Radcliffe once confided to an interviewer that he had doubts about his self-image: “I used to be self-conscious about my height, but then I thought, fuck that, I’m Harry Potter” and if we can have such a moment of realisation we can sweep doubt aside and value ourselves faults and all for who we are.
Often our self –image has been created either by other people or as a result of our own comparison to other people. In recent years much has been made of the media and the body image of particularly young women but people in general, but the principle applies to a wider range of activities. Is your marriage deliriously happy, have you got all the latest gadgets, are you achieving all that you can be, if not what is wrong with you?
We are influenced by parents, by the bad decisions we may make, by decisions we make that affect others. The feelings of stress and anxiety can be overwhelming and we can begin to question what we are doing wrong. We don’t feel that we are good enough when held up to the lofty ideals that come from all of these comparisons. We begin to feel insecure about our self-worth and self esteem and when we stand in front of that mirror we are no longer quite as sure as we were when we were younger.
Perhaps you understand this feeling, perhaps you feel that you are in that place now. Yet there is a way back you need to understand that the main (and possibly harshest) critic is you. Of course everyone needs to take responsibilities for their mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes not bring our lives to an end because of them. Perhaps the greatest technique you can use is to ask you what you would say to your best friend were they to have done the same as you and found themselves in the same situation. Would you call them stupid or tell them to stop trying. Perhaps if you can be compassionate to yourself then you can make the progress that you need to make a real difference to your self esteem.
Accepting yourself for who you are means accepting the bit of you that gets angry or has the slightly squinty nose, for that is who you are. If others cannot deal with that then that it their problem and their loss for it is part of the real you and the real you is who stares back from the mirror and who wants to have relationships in the real world.