WHAT DOES "SELF-IMAGE" MEAN?
On the one hand, self-worth measures how we feel about our unchangeable essence--important, essential aspects of ourselves. On the other, self-image is more about how we see ourselves in important, but NON-essential aspects of ourselves. The self-image is a collection of sensory images, beliefs, thoughts, and attached feelings we have about ourselves. It includes both the ideal self-image and the perceived self-image.
The ideal self-image is the complete set of goals and expectations for what we want to be like. The perceived self-image is based on our observations of what we are really like. Guilt is caused by the gap between our ideal self-image
and our perceived self-image--between our self-expectations and our self- perceptions. The larger the gap, the more guilt we feel.
To overcome guilt we must reduce the gap between our self-expectations and our self-perceptions. We can either change ourselves to become more like
our self-expectations, or we can change our self-expectations (self-concept) to fit reality.
It is important to remember, that in many situations we cannot change ourselves overnight. We may never be able to change some aspect of ourselves! How do we stop feeling guilty about something we can‘t change?
The self-acceptance process (described later) is a step-by-step method for overcoming guilt associated with your body, your past, and your dysfunctional subparts. But first, it‘s important to understand more about your self-image and how to change it.
SELF-ACCEPTANCE IS A PREREQUISITE FOR SELF-LOVE AND SELF-WORTH
To the degree that we do not like or accept some part of ourselves, then our self-love is affected. If I will not even admit to myself that sometimes I talk too much, do dumb things, have not met all my career goals, or bore people, then I am disowning those aspects of myself (and feeling guilty about them).
Learning to love or at least accept every part of ourselves is a fundamental part of developing self-worth and self-love. One of the first steps is accepting our bodies and our basic physical limitations.
ACCEPTING OUR BODIES AND OUR BASIC CAPABILITIES
IMPROVES SELF-WORTH
Roger Crawford was the keynote speaker at a professional conference in San Diego that I attended. Roger is an amazing person who has overcome what could have been a disabling physical condition. When Roger was born, the physician took Roger's father back to see him. His father saw a baby with one leg crumpled beneath him and hands and feet that ended in pointed stumps instead of fingers and toes. The doctor warned him that his son might never be able to walk or participate in normal activities.
Yet Roger's parents kept a positive attitude and always believed that their son could learn to do almost anything anyone else could do. Roger said that they never let him use his disability to get away with anything. Eventually, one of Roger's legs was amputated below his knee and replaced with an advanced artificial limb.
Then Roger learned how to play tennis. His "hands" each look as if he has one giant finger--with no thumb. He learned a two-handed grip. He put the "finger" from one hand into the end of a tennis racket and wrapped the other "hand" around the throat of the racket. Roger would not allow himself to believe that he was limited by his disability. He played his hardest.
He got so good that he began winning tournaments in high school and college and became a tennis professional. He got so good that he once played John McEnroe, when John was advancing in his career. Roger says that the night
before the tennis match, "I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried." Eventually Roger won a special award for his tennis and he was given the honor of carrying the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Los Angeles.
Roger said that one of the hardest times in his life was as a child in a Chicago school. Many of the other children said cruel things about his limbs and shunned him. Some even tried to harm him. He felt hurt and angry. He kept his hands in his pockets so that no one would see them. It seemed unfair to be given these distorted hands and feet. Sometimes he felt sorry for himself.
However, other people--like Dr. Norman Vincent Peale--helped him understand that it was not his body that was his problem, it was his attitude about his body that was important. Once he began to accept and love his hands and feet for what they were and see the possibilities in them, he began to feel much better.
Part of accepting ourselves is accepting other people's reactions to us. Roger
began to understand and accept other people's reaction to his hands. He understood their curiosity, fear, and even disgust at seeing them. He accepted these as normal reactions and learned to focus on helping other people feel as comfortable with his appearance as he was.
For example, he "warned" the audience that after years of dreading to shake hands with people, he now really enjoys it and would offer his hand if they came up to talk. Being comfortable with his appearance and other‘s reaction to it changed his life.
Roger has been successful in his career, his marriage, and seemed to be a happy person on his journey toward self-actualization. He said that he would never trade his positive philosophy for "normal" feet and hands.
YOUR SELF-IMAGE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOUR ACTUAL IMAGE
Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon who became interested in "self- image psychology" because of his confusing observations of patients who had undergone plastic surgery. Some patients who only received minor facial changes changed their personality and life dramatically while others with greater facial changes didn't seem to change at all. A boy with large ears had been told he looked like a taxi cab with both doors open and had been ridiculed all his life. He had become withdrawn and shy. After surgery he became much more outgoing.
Yet others, such as a shy Duchess who was given a truly beautiful face in surgery made no noticeable improvement in her personality. Maltz concluded that the reason was because these people continued to think of themselves as ugly, different, abnormal, or defective people.
It was their self-image that was the main problem--not their actual physical appearance. His conclusions caused him to begin to focus on improving people's self-image and eventually write books such as Psychocybernetics. For years this was one of the self-help books most frequently cited to me by clients as a book
that had helped them change their lives.
One of my clients came in because she lacked confidence in herself-- especially in meeting men and relating to them. Through her teen years she was 50 to 75 pounds overweight. Only in the past few years had she taken good care of her body and lost weight. She was happy about that, but she said that she still saw herself as fat and ugly. In fact she was beautiful--she could have won a beauty contest.
I was amazed that she still saw herself as fat. We discovered that a subpart of her had learned from her mom that it was wrong to show off and stand out. This part produced feelings of guilt whenever she tried to dress well or attempted to appreciate her own appearance. She would not even accept what she saw in the mirror.
It became important to reject these beliefs about being a "show off." She had to overcome those thoughts that interfered with her self-appreciation. To overcome her fear of self-appreciation, her repeated thoughts like, "It's wonderful to look at a flower and appreciate the beauty in it, and it's just as wonderful to look at myself and appreciate the beauty in my own body."
A PROCESS FOR ACCEPTING YOUR BODY AND APPEARANCE
Loving ourselves unconditionally means accepting all of the realities about ourselves and still loving ourselves. A good place to start is with our body and appearance. Most people do not love and accept every part of their body.
Looking at ourselves in the mirror. In his book, Your Erroneous Zones, Dr.
Wayne Dyer suggests that one way to increase our self-acceptance and self- worth is to examine each part of our body and each bodily function in detail and observe our own thoughts and feelings about each. Do we feel disgust at certain normal body functions or products--such as bodily fluids or waste? If so, we do not accept all of our normal, healthy parts and functions. Try understanding how these basic functions work and how important these basic functions are to our health and survival. Try loving each function because it helps keep you alive and healthy. Some people can become phobic about such normal processes.
Our physical appearance is stressed so much in our society that we may be very sensitive about any part that does not measure up to our ideal. Try Dr. Dyer's exercise. Stand in front of a mirror naked and look at yourself. What parts do you feel good about? What parts do you not feel good about. How can you love and accept that part as it is right now.
Don't say to yourself, "I'll love that part after I change it." That is not accepting that part as it is now. You can still improve the part later if you choose. Ironically, changing the part may be easier after accepting it; because you can face it without guilt.
Learning to love and accept our "most unacceptable" parts. My wife, Sherry,
accept every part of her body except her tummy. She has felt most of her life that her middle was too big. She always wished that she could have a tiny waistline. For years she had chosen clothes partly because they hid her tummy.
She consciously worked on looking at her tummy, developing positive thoughts about it, and loving her tummy instead of disowning it. Her attentiveness worked: she felt better about her tummy and accepted it.
This new tummy-acceptance had a number of effects. She bought and wore clothes that allowed her tummy to be seen. She started tucking in her blouses and wearing dresses with belts. Previously, if I was being affectionate, she would not allow me to even touch her tummy. Now I could love her tummy too. The most interesting thing is that her tummy began to get smaller!
PRACTICE 1: Learn to accept all aspects of your body as they are. Try this
exercise on yourself and see what happens as a result of learning to accept and love the formerly disowned parts or functions of your body or your personality. You can start with the aspects you dislike the most, or if you would rather, start with less odious ones and work your way up to the worst aspects.
PRACTICE 2: Take care of your body. If your value yourself and your body, you
will naturally want to take good care of your body. Similarly, paying loving attention to your body and its needs will increase your valuing of it.
(1)Assess your body and your care of it in each of the following areas:
nutrition, exercise, substance abuse, weight, muscle tone, sleep, and appearance.
(2) Develop a plan to improve any needed areas. If you are not knowledgeable
in an important area like nutrition, get help or start studying ASAP.