Let's say you have two girls who are equally attractive, equally smart, equally successful and so on. The only difference is that one is supremely confident and the other is extremely insecure.
Now let's say these girls date the same guy. And let's say the guy makes the exact same comment to each girl, maybe he says something about her not being the hottest girl he's ever dated or something stupid like that.
In this scenario, the confident girl will laugh it off. She will instantly recognize that he's trying to get a rise out of her and she won't give him the satisfaction of a response.
Instead, she'll brush it off and will start to reconsider whether she wants to be dating someone so pathetic.
The insecure girl, however, will crumble and start to doubt everything about herself.
She'll stalk his Facebook profile endlessly trying to search for ex girlfriends to figure out what they have that she doesn't.
She may start acting passive aggressive towards the guy in an attempt to get compliments, affection, and apologies out of him. She'll start putting an insane amount of effort into her appearance in an attempt to win him over and prove how hot she is. She will whine to her girlfriends about how "ugly" and "insecure" he made her feel.
Now how can the same comment affect two people so differently? He said the same thing, shouldn't it have had the same impact? No, because the impact of an insult is in direct proportion to your sense of self.
If you feel amazing about yourself, nothing anyone else says will change your mind. If you stand on shaky ground, you will get knocked down time and time again.
I, like the majority of women, suffer from the occasional body image issues (this is something I actively work on, as we all should, and I am nowhere near as vulnerable to this kind of thing as I was in my younger years).
Several years back, I was at a (ex)boyfriend's place eating a yummy cake. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie and when I
leaned over to cut myself a second slice, he pinched a layer of my flesh and jokingly said, "You sure you want that second piece?"
Suffice to say I was furious and had to summon all the restraint I had not to take the cake and slam it in his smug face. Instead, I stormed out of the apartment, waited a few minutes for him to come out and comfort me, and when he did, proceeded to lash out at him for making me feel fat.
He apologized profusely, of course, but my anger took weeks to subside.
And during that time, I was constantly analyzing my body and complaining about it. I would also make a big show about how little I was eating in front of the guy in some twisted attempt to make him feel bad and get him to apologize again and tell me how thin and beautiful I am.
Looking back, the only reason his words had such an impact is because I was already insecure in that area.
Rather than accepting that this was my own insecurity, I blamed him for making me feel that way. (FYI- I'm not condoning what he did because it was pretty immature, I'm just using this example to illustrate a larger point.)
If that same thing happened to me today, I probably would have laughed and called him a jerk and said, "Yes, in fact I am having a second slice. I may even have a third," and that would be that. No arguing, no crying, no guilting, no resenting, none of the usual relationship killers.
I like my body as it is, so why should I allow anyone to make me feel otherwise? The choice is up to me and I choose to formulate my own opinions of who I am and how I look, rather than relying on outsiders to determine these things for me.
Another person's approval has no ability to affect your mood unless you think what he/she says is valid. If someone makes a comment and you have a reaction, it's because you already felt that way about yourself.
When you can truly internalize this, you will realize that there is no use harboring anger and resentment towards someone for making you upset or insecure.
When you allow your insecurities to dominate, you will be on high alert for anything that validates these feelings. Being constantly on the lookout for disapproval will guarantee you find it everywhere.
If you go into the world expecting to be rejected, then you will see rejection everywhere and in everything.
You'll interpret your boyfriend being distracted by something as him losing interest and not finding you attractive. You'll believe the grumpy man working at the bodega thinks you're a fat big because you bought a tub of ice cream. You'll think your boss is mad at you and thinks you're incompetent because he/she didn't smile at you that day. You get the point.
When you really think about it, it's kind of funny that people react so strongly to criticism. I mean think about it, why should it ever affect
you?
If someone says something disapproving, then whatever! They might have a point, but who cares? No one is perfect, we all have faults and the best we can do is either accept them or work on improving them. And if what they say isn't
true, then seriously, who cares? You know it isn't true!
The lesson here is to build a firm foundation for your sense of self to rest on. When you do this, no one will make you feel anything.
We are all works in progress, each and every one of us. If you can accept that and be kind to yourself, your quality of life (not to mention, the quality of your relationships), will significantly improve.
