BODY IMAGE

Q = Question asked

A = Typical answer

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Q: What is your Body Image on a scale of 1-10?

A: 5

Q: How much time do you spend on improving your body image?

A: As much time as I can.

Q: How often do you worry about the battle of the perfect body?

A: Whenever I see another women I feel threatened by.

Q: What is your idea of a perfect body?

A: Someone tall, thin with good proportions. (not too big breasts, firm butt)

Q: How badly do you want to fit in?

A: So badly that I would have cosmetic

Q: How do you picture yourself?

A: Boring, not attractive by society`s standards. Definitely overweight.

Q: How do you feel being in your body?

A: I feel good being me until I see someone out there that I would much rather be.

Q: How do you think others see you?

A: They see me as I see myself.

Q: Do you want to look like Society's picture of the ideal body?

A: Yes, who wouldn't?

Hmmmm, do you feel this way about your body image?

Why are so many women in today's world so confused at how they should feel? Where have we lost our desires and contentedness in just being who we are? Why do we go over the line in our need to be perfect at what we do or how we look? The answers to these questions can be many.

Lets start with pornography, and media's idea of that perfect body image. These are two of the strongest body image addictions off our world and they both focus on the female body.

Pornography is giving the illusion of being desired, of importance and of acceptance; all of the wrong attention a women should desire. It Leaves them feeling used and worthless. When did we as women lose our control in how we see our bodies? When did we begin to hate our bodies to the point of paying huge amounts of dollars to cosmetic surgeons? With all the freedoms of our world today in our society, why do we allow ourselves to be slaves to this myth that only beauty can determine our self-worth? Still so many questions and so few answers.

Women are starving themselves and their children. They are bouncing from diet to diet, practicing gorging and purging. They are becoming even more obsessed with getting rid of what makes them a female by nature, their voluptuous bodies with it's curves and suppleness. Are we dieting ourselves literally to death? The phrase of , "Dieing to fit in" comes to mind. As I mentioned in the beginning of this paragraph, children are being starved. Yes our own negative body image is corrupting our children's ideas of what body image is all about. Our children do not even have a chance to overpower what we ourselves have allowed to control us. They will only know what they are taught. They will be bred into "the world of fashion" and "to be thin is in". Do we want our children to grow up in the miserable prison of low self-worth that we are battling with even now? I think not.

In a recent poll by People Magazine, it is said that 80% of women stated that women on television, and magazines ads make them feel very insecure about their body image. It is also said that approx. 10% of females (all ages) in the USA are suffering from a diagnosed eating disorder ranging from, body isomorphic, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and another very horrible illness know as severe depression. Lets not forget that these illnesses lead to death for many of the victims.

A very sad picture, is what I am seeing. I have mentioned so many times in my articles that our world today has turned into a money sucking machine. Money is so the root of all evil! We are told that if we want to be the perfect body image, we have to look like this or walk like that. Grrrr. Makes me crazy.

When are we, as women, going to wake up and stop allowing someone that has never met us, to dictate to us what we should look like to feel better? When are we going to say no to the world that is working over time to sell, sell, sell? They are selling us, right down the river. We are buying into their game and they are winning. Every where we look our minds are brainwashed with images of the perfect body . How are we ever going to overpower this corruption of our minds? Every time I read a woman's desperate cries regarding how depressed she is because she feels that her husband is comparing her to a perfect body image, all I can feel is that again we are losing the battle. Women continue to fall victim to the lies and misinterpretations of what real beauty is. We must end this world of total bogus idealism's and do our own thinking.

Let us get back to basics. The basics of just being a unique person. The basics of feeling good about who we are no matter what others think. The basics of just striving to be healthy. The basics of knowing that we are all here for a reason, and that alone makes us a very important person. A persons external beauty will never outlast their inner beauty. Our external body image will fall and age. It is what's inside of us that will continue to grow and live life as it is meant to be lived. Life is there for us to enjoy. No one else on earth can be you! You are a very special individual. Your lips are yours and no one else's. Your hips are also yours and no one else has them. You are your very own body image!

You are a beautiful woman and you can feel good about you, if you would just start to understand that all the hype about the perfect body image is just that, Hype, to sell. Hype to take our money and fool us into believing what they want us to believe. It is pure garbage! So every time you see these so called perfect body images, smile and say, "Yes, but I am the real one and there is no one like me, there are thousands like you". Save your worries and your money and say NO to the media and its so called 'perfect body image'. Say YES to holding your head up high and walking with confidence. A confidence that will raise your self-esteem to its highest peaks. A confidence that will reveal a whole new sexual you. Ladies every time we do not feel good about our bodies, we are denying ourselves the freedom of dance, the taste of good food, and the ability to be a free spirit. To live, laugh and love. How can we do any of that when we waste so much of our time on earth worrying about our body image?
So lets change the world that we live in and remember, There is strength in numbers. We just have to walk the walk!

Now go and respect yourself and be proud to be a woman!

~D~

Quick Fix es & Low Self-esteem

There are so many reasons for ones self-esteem to be weak and hard to rebuild. We have our parents way of raising us, peer pressure at school, pressures at our work place that expect us to succeed with speed of light, society`s view on the perfect person and body type, our children's expectations of a perfect parent and last but not least our partners wants and desires.

All of these are strong contributors in knocking our self-esteem around until we can barely find a hope to hang onto. Now we are at the bottom of our pit of weakness and we begin the search to survive. The search may be through a therapist, reading tons of articles or books, searching the Internet for a site that will answer all our problems in a heart beat, only to find that we are right back at square one in the first challenge to our strength.

Why is that? Why can we not find that quick fix we all look for? Why do we have to work at it? Why do we have to wait for it? Why is it not as simple as fixing ones computer or car? Why is it when I think about my past and I fill in the blanks with all the people that I have to blame for my low self-esteem, I am still weak and frustrated? Why is it when I have one good day and feel on top of the world, does it come crashing down the next? Why is it that when I read self-esteem articles they sound so convincing at that minute, but then again, I fall back into my rut? Why, when I go into self-esteem sites, do they charge for e-books and when I finally read them, they sound like everything else that I have read, or have thought of myself? Why does low self-esteem not happen to everyone? Why can`t I just wake up and feel good about myself?

Questions! Questions!

I have a real hard truth for you. The answer to almost every question that you have just read is YOU! You are the answer to every thought that runs through your mind. The reason that so many factors can be contributors to ones low self-esteem, is because YOU have learned to allow it. Some where in your life, somehow, you allowed your self-esteem to be put down and it really is as simple as that.

We all know that to be human is to naturally error at some point, even many points in our lives. This will also explain why a select number have fallen into the pit of low self-esteem. Everyone chooses different errors, so for the many of us that have allowed our self-esteem to be weakened we are now faced with how to strengthen it.

Again I go back to YOU, it is up to you. I can write 1000 articles and even build you a bridge with lights and arrows and signs to show you the way, but if YOU do not take that first step, then YOU will never find the answers. In order for you to battle all of the contributors that I have mentioned earlier, you need to strengthen your self-worth. You must know and feel that you are just as good as any other human being on this earth. I do not care what others may say about you or to you. If you know deep inside of you that you are their equal, then nothing they say can or ever will hurt your self-esteem.We have all had to bear the scars that we received through our lives, and we all have to learn to put them in the past. What was, is exactly that; past tense, gone. There is really nothing that we can do to change where we came from or what our challenges have been. What we need to focus on is right here and right now. This being the present YOU!

There are websites out there and many therapist that are selling you promises of quick fixes for cash. There are tons of books and e-books, all telling you how to create a new you. Just by the amount of women coming into my site, I can tell that none of these are working for them. Again the reason is YOU!

I can buy you the most expensive car in the world, but unless you can drive it, it is worthless to you. So learn to drive it, learn to rebuild your self-esteem. Do not wait for someone to offer you a gift. You have already been given that gift at birth. I have spoken of the gift of life and how so many of us abuse that gift. Allowing contributors to stomp on your thoughts of who you are is a total neglect to your gift of life.

Your self-esteem has taken a long time to fall weak. It does not happen over night. A heart attack rarely happens overnight. There are many contributing factors that set it up for the initial attack. Once a person has survived a heart attack, they have to work very hard and it takes a long time to rehab back to health and maybe, if they are lucky enough, they will reach half of their actual strength. Your self-esteem will take time and energy to rebuild. You must commit to yourself that you will work very hard to maintain a good feeling about YOU!

It is not hard, but it does take persistence and self discipline. If you do not care about yourself, then you will fail every time. That is a fact.
If you honestly want to find that good feeling about you again, then you can get back there. I say back there, because we were all happy when we were first born and somewhere along that life line, we lost our feeling of goodness. Being lost is a good thing because it means that it is not totally gone, just misplaced.
So together we can find that YOU that was so secure and safe just being YOU. Once you have reached that commitment then you will start to fall in love with yourself again.

You will look for and appreciate all of the little things that make you who you are, such as:
-the color of your hair and eyes -the shape of your ears, and your nose -the way your smile shows your teeth -the laugh lines that only you have when you smile -the birth mark that no one else has -the way you walk -the sound of your voice -your own very personnel laugh -how you feel when someone hugs you -how you smell -your little personality quirks but most of all - how you feel about you. This positive feeling will give you an internal glow of confidence!
These are things that make you special and set you apart from all the other people in the world. People that are no better than you. Different yes, better? Not a chance, unless of course you ALLOW yourself to think that way.

Just because you cannot control or fix everything around you, it has no bearing on who you are and how you feel about yourself unless you ALLOW it to.

Just because somewhere way back in your past, someone told you that you were not as good as someone else, does not mean you are not. It only means that, if you ALLOW it to mean that.

Just because your boss thinks that you should be farther up that corporate ladder, it does not make you a lesser person unless you ALLOW it to.

Just because there are younger, thinner, more educated, richer, taller, or even double jointed people out there, that does not make you less than them, unless you ALLOW it to.

Just because you might be having a bad day does not mean that you have to make it 2 bad days, unless you ALLOW it to.

Just because you spend hundreds of dollars trying to find quick self-esteem fixes and fail, this does not mean you should give up unless of course you ALLOW yourself too.

Can you see a pattern here yet?
Can you see how YOU are the operative factor here?
Can you see how YOU alone are in control of what and who you ALLOW into your thought control?

Remember who the most important person in your life is...it is YOU!
Never...ever....ever....ever let anyone take that away from you!

~D~

Even Pretty Girls Cry

As I was drying my hair, my brain started to work. (scary!!) I was thinking about a few comments that I had heard from guys here and there regarding, "Why Pretty Girls Cry". Of course I had to question them in order to get them to reveal their thoughts on the subject. I asked them a simple question- "Do you think that women that are pretty dislike other pretty women?" Hmmm, I received a lot of answers immediately, without any thought, seemingly. The answer that was the most popular was.."NO!!" I know so many women that are beautiful and the last thing that they would think about themselves, is exactly that. They cannot see what we see in them at all. They think every other women in the world has more to offer.

My next question was, "do you think that women constantly compare themselves to other woman?" This question took no time at all for them to answer. "Yes and no, they think that we (men) are comparing them to other women. And that's what gets them all weird". Additionally, "They think that we are lusting after them in our minds or wondering what they would look like naked. They compare themselves with other women, yes, but in more of a way to improve themselves for us. My girlfriend compares herself with women that do not even come close to her on a any scale and still finds reason to knock herself down".

Hmmm, I seem to be saying that a few times, but it's because women are so generalized. If one women is one way with one guy, he thinks all women are like that. When women generalize men, they call us male bashers, or feminists. What do we call guys that generalize us from their past experiences?

So whats up with the fact that pretty girls really do not look at themselves as pretty girls? Is it something from their past?. (seems like the bottom line for everything)

I, myself remember a guy asking me that exact question. "Why do all the pretty girls think they are ugly?". I shrugged. I really had no answer. I never put myself on that level, of being pretty that is, so I never really gave it any thought.

In all the research that I have been doing on this subject, I will tell you this, `beauty is in the eyes of the beholder`, nothing more, nothing less. If we look in the mirror and see no beauty, that is in our minds only. Not in our partners minds or a strangers mind. We are constantly supported by our spouses and we continualy mistrust their comments. Why? When are we going to start to see ourselves as a beautiful being? A UNIQUE being. A one and only being.

Ladies when you cross paths with another that you feel is way above you, for whatever reason, shoes, hair, dress, body, or just her smile, think this; she is also looking at you and seeing something in you that she lacks and would love to have.

Also, it's part of us, built into us, and born with it in our brain to compare.

Some will look for weakness or flaws in others just to make themselves feel good. That is a negative comparison. It is not a bad thing to want to be a better person. We just have to be very careful to not take it to an extreme that blinds others to our thoughts and intentions.

Men tend to automatically call us jealous when we reveal our thoughts, if another women is involved. Another mystery in my mind; Jeesh, we are not always that worried, OK. So get off your ego trip guys. Sometimes we are genuinely curious as to why we see and feel the vibes we get from you. Also as you read earlier, just maybe, we care and we want to improve ourselves. Maybe men should try and do that sometime. Then they will actually see where we are coming from.

Another thing I have noticed is that men are very good at making us believe that we are doing what they say. Why is that? Is it to win an argument and feel totally in control of our thoughts or is it that they themselves feel vulnerable at times and less than perfect to us. Men have told me that they do not look at other men and wish they were like them. Well duh! Would that not make them female? Why does everyone try so hard to give excuses to genders?. Why can't we just accept and appreciate each other for our differences? Why do we have to be so damn equal on everything?

Females are soft, sensual, sensitive, emotional, passionate, intelligent creatures. That's us, and we are tired of apologizing for how we were born. We work overtime trying to understand our male counterparts. We are what makes them tick. They are what make us tick. We want nothing more than to be their everything. What is so wrong with that? Men are strong, protective, sexual, and feeling beings.

Men and women together make a very nice song.

These are just my thoughts as you all know, so take them with a grain of salt. Has society totally confused what real people are all about, to the point that some do not even know they are pretty? That is a sad thought. Some may think that I have nothing good to say. Well I actually have a lot of good to say. I wish that life was a perfect world. It is not even close. My thoughts tend to deal with the real world and it is not all that great for some. One can not go up until they have gone all the way down.

We are all pretty in some ways. People think way to much about the outer physical appearance and I wish that I could meet the first person that started that negative seed. When did things get so out of proportion?

There are too many worries and too many unhappy women out there. If I can at least help one woman see how pretty she is, then my course is set. Ladies we are all a gift, one that is truly cherished by our loved ones. Never let that go neglected. Remember, you choose your thoughts. You are the pretty girl that your man wants, desires, and will spend the rest of his life with. It's who we are that makes us the perfect woman. Not just what we look like, because we are not always going to look the same. Everyone grows older and everyone changes their outward appearance. What does stay the same, is who we are inside. Our REAL person is what it's all about. I will end with this thought:

ONE ALWAYS THINKS OTHERS ARE HAPPIER!

DorothyL
womensselfesteem.com