Seeing Yourself II

Published August 16, 2019 in Mental Health / Wellbeing - 2 mins to read

I feel a similar urge to Polly to disregard other’s opinions of myself - as acknowledged, it is widely touted as ‘good advice’, and it’s even something I’ve written about before, for example when reviewing Models or talking about painting my nails. It seems a noble, admirable goal - to have one’s self worth defined purely internally, to be unswayable in one’s resolve to love oneself, to be… oh no. To be stoic. My least favourite.

As we learn to tune out criticism, it’s similarly easy to learn to tune out positive feedback about ourselves too. Whenever one of my friends offers me something kind and loving about myself, I simply think “they have an obligation to be nice to me, they’re my friend, they don’t really mean it” or “they obviously don’t know me that well or they wouldn’t say that about me” or one of a myriad of other rationalisations. With those thoughts, I pay their words no further heed. The only problem is that every so often, someone close to me will say something so genuine and pure to me that I am not able to dismiss it in this manner, and instead I burst into tears. I suspect this is rarely the reaction the other party was seeking or expecting.

In every scenario we’re faced with, we present some version of ourselves, which to a greater or lesser extent represents our ‘true’ selves. At work, or with strangers, we are very guarded, with a partner we are hopefully much more open. Some people put up more of a facade with their friends and family than other people, largely unconsciously keeping their walls raised, myself included for the longest time. As these defences start to come down though, the feedback I get from people around me is a much more accurate reflection of who I am as a person - because I am more authentic in my relationships with those people who I’m vulnerable with.

I’m going to practise telling the people that I love, that I love them, and why. If someone who I’m open and honest with says something nice about me, I’m going to practice listening to and believing that as well.