The physical changes that accompany aging don't have to make you feel bad about your looks -- but often they do.
Negative feelings about your body can lower your self-esteem, cause you to experience social anxiety and, as a result of your feeling unattractive, jeopardize sexual fulfillment.
Good news: It's never too late to transform the relationship you have with your body from a self-defeating, time-consuming struggle to self-acceptance and even enjoyment. Here's how to do it...
Assess how you currently see yourself. Set goals for changing the way you feel about your looks. Ask yourself...
How satisfied am I with my face, torso, hair, muscle tone and other aspects of my body?
What is my ideal vision of myself? How close am I now to that vision?
How often do I have negative feelings about my appearance? Negative thoughts?
To what extent do these feelings and thoughts limit my life? Social opportunities?
Understand the causes of your negative body image. Being good-looking doesn't guarantee a positive body image, just as being obese or homely doesn't guarantee self-loathing.
Body image is a state of mind. It's shaped over time in response to cultural influences, experiences with family and friends, and your own physical development.
Helpful exercise: Identify your body image ABCs...
- Activators are the specific events and situations that trigger your thoughts and feelings about your body.
- Beliefs include the thoughts, perceptions and interpretations that typically occur in your mind in response to the activators.
- Consequences are how you tend to react emotionally as well as behaviorally.
Also helpful: Keep a body-image diary to record present-day ABC episodes that perpetuate your negative body image. By recording these episodes, you'll gain insight that will help you change the way you think about your body.
Manage body image through relaxation exercises. Negative thoughts and feelings about your appearance lead to anxiety and stress. If you practice relaxation and deep-breathing exercises every day, you'll soon be able to relax before anxiety takes hold.
Helpful: Audiotapes can guide you through muscular relaxation and deep-breathing exercises. You can find suitable tapes at music and natural foods stores.
Challenge your assumptions about appearance. We all have these "appearance assumptions."
Example: "The only way I could ever like the way I look is if I change it."
Record the appearance assumptions you hold to be true and ask yourself: "What's wrong with this belief? What objective facts contradict my assumptions?"
Consider the assumption that physically attractive people have it all. Remind yourself of the following facts -- beauty can breed envy and jealousy... it raises people's expectations about a person, and those expectations aren't always met... it is a weak foundation for self-esteem.
Correct your private "body talk." Discover, dissect and dispute the negative messages your inner voice repeats about your body.
Examples: "Elizabeth Taylor and I were born the same year, yet she's aging gracefully and I'm not." Or, "I wasn't asked to see my grandchild's school play because he's ashamed of my weight."
Talk back to that voice with a new, positive message...
- Remind yourself that not seeing yourself as a "10" on a 10-point scale of attractiveness doesn't necessarily make you a "1."
- Consider how you think about other people's looks. Is it fair to compare yourself to them?
- Replace the emotion-charged language of your thoughts with more objective descriptions. Instead of referring to yourself as having "hippo hips," see yourself with rounded hips... instead of "chrome dome," see yourself as having experienced hair loss.
Don't overscrutinize your appearance. Appearance-preoccupied rituals are time-consuming actions that reinforce your discontent with your body image, so work on changing them...
Obstruct them. If you repeatedly pull a mirror out of your purse or pocket to check your appearance, leave the mirror at home until you feel you have broken the habit.
Delay them. Whenever you feel the urge to fix your hair or make-up, put off acting on it for a while -- a little longer each time. Soon, it will no longer be an urge, but instead a normal activity you engage in a few times a day.
Restrict them. Allow yourself to perform the ritual one or two times a day, or allow yourself to perform it only at certain times of the day -- morning and evening, for instance.
Treat your body right. Think of your body as your friend. Nurture it by keeping it fit and eating healthful foods. The better you feel, the better your body image will be. Other ways to befriend your body...
Write a letter in which you apologize to your body for prior mistreatment. Assure it you want to change the relationship, and thank your body for the good things it has given you.
Accept compliments on your appearance graciously and without negative self-talk.
Offer your own compliments to your reflection in a mirror at least once a day. Notice your smile, your energetic stance, the lively sparkle in your eyes.
Remind yourself daily that you are in the process of developing a satisfying body image and living a fuller, more satisfying life.
