Just wow.
“Pause this video and take a good look in the mirror. If you hate what you see, know that you’re looking at yourself through someone else’s eyes not your own.”
My mom sent me the video through WhatsApp and honestly like many videos received each day, I paid no heed to it until she pressed me to watch it so persistently.
The line is nothing new to many people and we’ve probably even read it in a few feel-good articles on the web.
But it just changed the way I saw myself forever.
Always being compared to the pretty girls around me, my self esteem had taken a hit. I was a nerdy tomboy as a child and didn’t pay much heed to my physical appearance until I was bullied for it.
I had read thousands and thousands of articles from psychologists to therapists and other people struggling with body image issues but no luck.
But sometimes, you understand the truth in the most random way possible and it overnight changes the way you look at yourself and the world.
Doing this I also realized that it was impossible for me to hate myself through my eyes. Just impossible.
Its weird.
All the “love yourself!” “Accept the way you are!” “Body positivity” suddenly felt like a lot of work that required immense willpower.
But this method seemed like seeing something that is already there.
Like seeing the sun outside your window. Or focusing on your breathing.
It’s just there.
There is no action required to change yourself in a certain way.
It just is.
I could see how my brain was functioning.
First, it started to look from a good-looking celebrity’s perspective and felt ugly then suddenly it looked from my mother’s perspective and felt relieved and at home then it started comparing my face to extremely beautiful K-pop girls and felt like an ape.
It was a roller coaster ride. I couldn’t believe I had so much BS running through my brain 24/7.
SO.MUCH.NOISE.
Then I looked at myself through my eyes then everything felt so normal and average.
Not beautiful, not ugly just average.
With so much noise in my head, I figured it was not an overnight process. But I did got the answer to my dilemma.
I saw the truth and my eyes didn’t lie what it saw. So the only thing I needed to do is catch myself whenever I felt ugly. And repeat.
Repeat until my brain blocks out all the garbage of comparing myself to some girl or seeing myself from some hot guy’s perspective.
Nah, don’t need that.
And if I got a penny every time I caught myself feeling hideous, I could employ Jeff Bezos to my company.
But with time it got so much better.
That is not to say I don’t feel like shit, I do. I do have days like that. But its wayyy better than the endless loop of;
“If I could just have hairs like this”
“If I was just a little fair”
“If I just looked like Lisa”
“If I just had a pretty nose”
“If I just had (insert whatever you desire)”
No one is perfect. And I realized I didn’t need nor wanted to be perfect. I just wanted this noise to go away so I could focus on the things that mattered to me.
I didn’t want to look pretty.
I just didn’t wanted to feel ugly.
