How do you feel about yourself?

Relationships can make you very insecure and wondering how someone else feels about you is hard not to do. But the most important thing is how you think about yourself. I mean what you say to yourself when you look in the mirror or when something isn’t going your way. Are you kind and supportive as you would be to anyone else? Or are you critical and, negatively, tearing yourself apart? Your thoughts create your feelings, so what you say to yourself creates your self-image, which then influences how you behave. Therefore, self-centered, tough love is not good for your self-esteem or for your relationships.

Some of my clients have tried to reason that they are just “being real” when they mention things they find unattractive their appearance. That’s just proof that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. It all depends on how you define beauty. Some people like it long, others prefer it short; some like blue eyes, others prefer green. Is someone fat or curvy? Just because it’s not your first choice doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. The most important thing is that you think something that makes you feel good about yourself.

My own personal truth about that is that I started making a living as a model as a teenager. For the next twenty years, I struggled to keep myself lean for my bookings. I have many published photos of me in my swimsuit, like the one on the left. I vividly remember thinking I looked ‘fat’ when I first saw it. I’m the one in the middle in the white bikini. Even a few years later, I thought, “I look great!’I can’t believe I thought I was fat.

It helps if you don’t compare yourself to other people. Believe me, with my height of 1.80 meters, I always compared myself to taller models. I’m also the smallest girl in that old K-Mart ad. It just made me feel insecure. But I was chosen for that ad, so the client clearly thought I looked good. It’s really about perception. You are what you think you are. You have free will to think whatever you want. So why choose to think something means something?

At this age, I have now fully embraced my height. In real life, my size doesn’t matter, and I’ve learned to keep my internal dialogue positive. I don’t say anything to myself now that I wouldn’t say to someone else. I enjoy helping customers think about it more carefully, too. So I encourage you to try to be kind to yourself. So you feel good about yourself.

To clarify, I’m not talking about how you feel about your ability to do something; that’s confidence. Self-confidence is different from self-esteem. I have met and coached many highly successful people who had tremendous confidence in their work performance but had low self-esteem because they struggled to feel loved. They hate being alone because they are uncomfortable with their own feelings about themselves. Unfortunately, I feel like there is an epidemic of low self-esteem in this country.

Most of my clients come to me for help after a breakup because they feel bad about themselves because their partner left them. Trust me, I truly understand how painful it is to get over an ex you really loved. But the person you should love the most is you. That starts with the things you say to yourself.

When you look in the mirror, make sure you find the things that are beautiful about you. Everyone on this earth is beautiful, and we are all different. That difference makes us unique. Embrace your differences and tell yourself you are beautiful. Soon you will notice that you hold yourself a little straighter and that you walk a little happier. Because you feel good. Which, in turn, makes your partner feel good about you.