Self Esteem and Body Image

Body image issues are hard. They have the ability to weigh on every second of your day, from the moment you wake up and try to figure out what to wear to going to bed at night, leaving you feeling exhausted and grey. Events like going to the beach, dating, and even everyday tasks like leaving the house can become difficult moments when you're constantly worried about how you look or what other people are thinking.

Self-esteem and confidence are terms that refer to two aspects of someone’s personality:

1. How much they believe themselves to be worthy of love, respect, and other good things

2. How willing they are to take actions to gain and maintain such good things.

Take for example, a romantic relationship. Someone with healthy self-esteem and confidence would know that they deserve love, respect, and intimacy from their partner. If it got to the point where they weren’t having these needs met, they would speak with their partner and ask for what they needed. If their needs still weren’t being met, they would likely leave the relationship to find something that better met their needs. Someone with an unhealthy self-esteem, however, may not believe that they are worthy of having a relationship. If they do find themselves in a relationship, they will likely feel undeserving of their partner’s love, respect, and intimacy. They may also accept harmful and sometimes abusive behaviour from their partners, staying in relationships out of a belief that they couldn’t find anything better.

This can also be seen in many other areas of an individual’s life, such as their career, friendships, their physical health, school, etc. When individuals have a difficult time making changes throughout therapy or accepting the therapy model, it could be assumed that part of that could be because they believe they are undeserving of happiness, joy and living an authentic life.

How I Treat Self Esteem & Body Image Issues

It is important first to know where body issues and unhealthy self esteem may come from. Body image issues are almost always linked to some kind of unprocessed negative experience like bullying, loss, parental neglect or abuse, or some shame we carry around with us from somewhere else. Not to mention, the ridiculously unrealistic images and messages about beauty and performance that are thrown at us daily through the media.

The belief about changing our body issues that I hear is often this: "If only I were thinner/more muscular/didn’t have ‘this’ or ‘that’/was more like this person (you see my point here), then I would be fine." Unfortunately, making external changes will never solve the problem and can often lead to very rigid and unrealistic thinking. Here’s the silver lining in all of this - making internal changes through therapy can help, if you’re willing to do the work. You are not born with an unhealthy self esteem and it is not just who you are. You don’t deserve to continue to live a life where that is your belief.

Therapy can be extremely effective at helping people to increase their confidence and self-esteem. With Over the Hill with Gill, you’ll first learn skills and self-care habits that develop your sense of worthiness. Second, you’ll work through unresolved issues that weigh on you and prevent you from living your best life.