Self Image – The idea one has of one’s abilities, appearance, and personality.
Maintaining a positive self-image can be really difficult. I know, personally, I have always struggled with this. I say “self-image” instead of “body image” because I believe it’s important to love all of yourself. Your style, your taste, your views, your abilities, your personality. There is a word that I feel has maybe fallen on the back burner these days and that word is INDIVIDUAL. You are you, and there is not a single person out there who is exactly like you. That is something to celebrate, not something to shy away from.
Have you ever let someone else influence how you feel about yourself or how you act?
For example, maybe you use to love Japanese food, but now, since your partner hates it, you haven’t actually had Japanese food in a very long time. Or maybe you use to love the color red, but someone once said “Red is so not your color” and now every time you go to put on something red, that voice is in your head and you end up changing your mind… Now imagine if we let everyone else dictate everything about us. We would all be an absolute mess. It is important for you to really know yourself. Know what you like and dislike and stick to it. This saying is one that I keep in mind and try to live by.
Know what you stand for or you will fall for anything.
I can’t stress how important it is for us to love ourselves and see value in what we have to offer. If we don’t, then how can we expect anyone else to?
I believe social media certainly plays a role in our mental view of ourselves. How we dress, decorate our home, exercise… social media can even influence something as simple as how we feel about our cleaning routine. I know this first hand because I have allowed other people on social media to make me feel small or inadequate before. Maybe because they have a perfectly organized kitchen or they vacuum their carpet every day and I don’t.
Let me repeat – I ALLOW myself feel to small or inadequate. These other people do not in any way TRY to make me feel this way.
Maybe I don’t dust my blinds, or wipe down my fridge every single day – Does that make me a bad mom or wife? NO it doesn’t. Another example from my personal experience is when some moms on social media look so “put together” and flawless in every Instagram photo, whereas I’m almost always wearing leggings and t-shirts that usually have the ever-so-glam spit-up stains on them. And let’s not forget the mom bun hairstyle that seems to be an every day occurrence. Maybe it’s just me, in this phase of life I’m in, but I have definitely allowed the perfect realm of social media to affect how I feel about myself and how I take care of my little family.
Girl, you have to pick yourself up out of the slump that is comparing yourself to others.
You have your own taste, your own style, your own way of doing things. I wonder, if you spent an entire week off of the socials, how would that make you feel? What would change? Like seriously… would you dress the way you wanted, would you play with your make-up and maybe find a new look that you like? Would you cook or bake something you haven’t had in a while simply because you want to? Would you sit down and read a book? Would you start to fall in love with YOU again?
To kind of wrap all of this up, let me leave you with this.
Having a positive self image is one of the absolute best things that you can do for yourself. I urge you, if you don’t already, get to know yourself. Who are you deep down in your core? Without influences, without outside voices, WHO ARE YOU? Once you know the answer to this, ask yourself.
If you don’t like who you are, what do you need to change in order to like yourself a bit more? Now, GO DO IT.
Be more thrifty, give to charity, de-clutter your home, REALLY dance like no one’s watching to your favorite song, whatever it takes.
Thank you all for your wonderful comments and for reading my post!
Writing this post was a process and I’m happy to have discussed a topic you all seem to have enjoyed. I would love it if you would visit my blog and check out some of my other topics!
I am so grateful to Lavrax for publishing my post for all of you lovelies to read.
Being positive about your uniqueness is such a good thing. Thanks for sharing.