The factor of body image is huge and actually always has been, not just now as we are seeing it in full display on social media. For example, in the 1600s, women were expected to have a small waist and large breasts. In the 1700s, this ideal shifted to a more slender figure. In the 1800s, women were expected to be healthy and robust. And in the 1900s, women were expected to be strong and muscular. And now in the 21st Century the idea of body image and what is accepted has blown up with many ideals and beliefs, such as being super slender with wide hips but still managing a ‘thigh gap’, super muscular and built but still skinny enough to have ‘shape’, or turning to the means of cosmetic surgery to change parts of the body such as nose jobs, boob jobs, butt lifts or implants and chin/cheek/jaw reshaping to name a few of the most trending procedures.
As a side note, there can be times where a form of plastic surgery can be true to the recipient, but here the focus will be that most of the time it is due to the affected perception of our true self and the issue with body image.
From young we are naturally taught to hate our bodies and this is due to the many reflections of adults around us. We are taught to look outside of ourselves for confirmation of what and who we truly are rather than looking within at our qualities that are naturally innate and unique to us in every way. Have you ever had a time where you looked at a child and thought to yourself, “Oh they would look great with some lip filler, or a larger butt, or bigger boobs, or a chin reshape” Naturally no, we do not. So why are we this way when we become adults? This is something great to ponder on.
The natural argument or excuse can be that it’s impossible to be out there and to be accepted with my larger nose, or my smaller breasts, or my smaller butt. But again, this reveals that we are still looking externally for validation for what and who we truly are. Naturally we all do this when we were not adored and confirmed by our parents constantly, as they were the first initial pilots of guidance for us, and as an explanation of this, they often aren’t in the place to adore due to the knock-on effect of family grievances and how the lack of adoration has equally affected our parents and their parents and so on.
Once we begin to look inwards, to our inner beauty and discover what that means for us and how it supports others, is when we can begin to feel and see the true beauty on the outside. If you feel like your body image has been affected by the ideals and beliefs of how we should look then this is a great moment to take a re-cap on our lives to start to see where this began. How were our parents with us? How were we with ourselves? How did our parents approach life and then how were we taught to approach life? As this begins to unfold, we will soon realise that having body image issues isn’t actually our issue, but something that we have taken on to fit in and to conveniently deny our own beauty so we no longer have to walk that for all to see.
From birth, we were all designed in a unique and natural way that is for us to represent and nobody else. So, when this isn’t confirmed, we get hurt and turn to what can fill the hurt rather than healing what we missed out on. And let’s be honest about how we feel about any kind of body augmentation, as when we do we realise that natural beauty is what is truly beautiful, just like nature. Would you give a tree a larger trunk? Or longer branches? Or different shaped leaves? Again, no we would not, and is quite stupid when we think about it. We are no different to this.
And lastly, to begin the end of this deadly curse, appreciating and confirming those around us in their natural innate qualities may just change someone’s perspective on themselves, so let’s not hold back from true confirmation of ourselves and everyone around us.
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