“I’m fine”: 3 steps to accept yourself for real
“Love yourself the way you are.” It is easier said than done because there are so many criteria that we do not meet: both the appearance is not the same, and the character is not the same. But even as we change, our self-loathing does not go away. What is the reason for this? Explains a clinical psychologist.;
When Marina came to me, it was as if all her 36 years of total self-rejection stood behind her slender shoulders. At first, she did not accept her appearance: “I have the thickest legs in the world.” Then not only appearance but also emotions: “I can even yell at a child.” And then the appearance, and emotions, and habits, and even the very fact that she does not love herself.
Before visiting a psychotherapist, Marina, like most patients, tried many other ways to come to terms with herself and her body. She did fitness, spent large sums on cosmetology, read blogs about psychology.
But even if the hips became slimmer (by the way, she did not have any excess weight), Marina continued to see them still imperfect. The same thing happened with her emotional background. She reproached herself for her irascibility, it was hard to get out of stress and in everything that was happening around, she saw painful hints for herself.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
Everything we live with has been formed for a reason. Reactions, emotions, sensations are like a stone on the seashore, whose shape has been carved out by a wave for a long time. Therefore, before trying to give up what worries us — from a critical attitude to our appearance, from a tendency to blame ourselves for everything — we need to understand where this came from in us.
Adult attitude
Mom and dad, grandmother and grandfather … Those who raise us in childhood are the main authorities for the child. How they treat him, what requirements are made, the little person reads like the only true criteria for how he should relate to himself.
“Four again. You won’t be an excellent student anymore, ”the mother shakes her head, and the child hears:“ You are not trying well, you are not doing enough, you don’t deserve love. ” And he can fix this in his memory for many years.
Lack of confidence in their abilities
It happens that a child tries to take on much more than he should: for example, to cheer up a sad, apathetic mother and to reconcile conflicting parents. But if even two adults cannot resolve the conflict, how can a child do it? As a result, he gets a traumatic experience: “I am not coping with the situation.”
Stressful situations
If a child has a warm and trusting relationship with his mother, then he is able to survive any stress by sharing this burden with her. But often children have to cope with emotional stress alone.
At home, adults constantly quarrel, but you have to go to school and pretend that nothing has happened. Someone close to me is gone, but at home again they pretend that everything is as usual. Become a victim of injustice — go silently to your room. It is at such moments that we develop the habit of turning away from ourselves.
First, we do this because we see no other way out. And over time, a destructive template is formed in consciousness: within its framework, in particular, women live, who remain in relationships where there is neither love nor respect.
MY OWN LAWYER
Marina and I found those situations that determined her attitude towards herself and reactions to the behavior of others. After that, I suggested the girl become her own lawyer — to defend everything that does not accept in herself: “Yes, now you are hot-tempered and you don’t like it, but at some point in your life you needed to protect yourself. Yes, now you often feel like crying, but you have experienced many situations in which you did not receive support. You just couldn’t help crying. “
