Dear Teentalker,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing your concern.
Life is an exciting time! You are breaking free from the rules and regulations of school life and discovering a new independent phase. You are riding a new wave. While we all go through this transition, for some of us it can be hard. I understand you have a strong desire to be in a relationship, but at the same time, you should not give less importance to self-worth and self-respect. Worth only comes from Self, so no one can decide it for us. There is a saying that if you can respect and love yourself, then only the whole world will do that. So try to be.....
Dear Teentalker,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing your concern.
Life is an exciting time! You are breaking free from the rules and regulations of school life and discovering a new independent phase. You are riding a new wave. While we all go through this transition, for some of us it can be hard. I understand you have a strong desire to be in a relationship, but at the same time, you should not give less importance to self-worth and self-respect. Worth only comes from Self, so no one can decide it for us. There is a saying that if you can respect and love yourself, then only the whole world will do that. So try to be confident about yourself.
A few tips to help you build your Self Image:
- Embrace your individuality: Each one of us is unique and has something special. Try building on those aspects. Beauty truly lies in the eyes of the beholder and is subjective. If relationships are purely based on the way we look, we need to look inward to check on how we truly feel about ourselves rather than what is lacking that we are unable to go beyond the upper layers.
- Changing negative thoughts by challenging them and then to replace them with healthier ones
- Take baby steps by learning to tolerate a little discomfort.
Societal expectations, life experiences and negative thoughts can fuel a poor body image. Our conditioning to believe that one must be attractive in a particular way has more damaging effects.
Negative thoughts are due to errors in our thinking so they tend to distort the truth. The trick is in realizing at some point most of us would have faced rejection. There's no shame in that. We end up catastrophizing it, the idea is to know that you can cope regardless and it isn't the end of the world. Fear of rejection is a sign of an unhealthy self-concept. The great part about this is that we can learn to overcome these fears and improve the quality of our life by changing our thoughts. It's human for people to want to feel loved and accepted but we also need to prepare for rejection Always remember no one can make you feel 'lesser' or inadequate unless you give them permission to do so.
Please go through the helpful resources.
https://www.teentalkindia.com/explore/body-image-selfesteem/models-of-their-skin
https://www.teentalkindia.com/explore/body-image-selfesteem/ways-to-feel-body-positive
https://www.teentalkindia.com/explore/body-image-selfesteem/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who-is-the-most-beautiful-of-them-all
Hope this helps, If you have any other query, feel free to come online for chat from 11am - 7pm(Mon.-Sat.) or drop us an offline message.
Regards,
Expert Teentalkindia
