How can I accept the way I look, with or without making changes to my appearence?

[Aquarius]

Hello actualizers! It's been a while since I logged in. Hope all of you are doing well! ^^

Anyway so I have this problem with myself, like I feel not beautiful enough. I always see some minor deformity or flaw in my appearance and I feel terrible about myself...

I am 24 and I'm going through a phase in my life when I feel ugly, lazy, unmotivated, unsuccessful compared to my peers and I just keep wanting to change literally everything about myself, and while I know it is toxic, I know it is vanity...I can't help but feel worthless. And it's mostly about appearance, rather than success (both can get toxic, I know I know).

How can I feel better about myself? Should I just change my appearance to look hot (make up, law of attraction, perhaps even surgery), change my clothes to what society deems attractive, learn to be classy and well-behaved, instead of dressing how I like, being carefree about my face/body and being myself no matter what? Should I work my ass off just to earn money and get rich, instead of enjoying a normal lifestyle with a 5-9?

I'm looking for serious advice, please don't troll me. xx

 

[Preety_India]

Don't do anything. Just accept yourself. And drop all judgement. Everything is Self.. 

 

[Raptorsin7]

@Aquarius I used to think I was ugly and when I looked in the mirror I saw an ugly face. But i managed to change how I perceive myself and now I think I am handsome, and when I look in the mirror I see a good looking face.

I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I do remember spending a lot of time looking in the mirror and deliberately looking for something about my face i liked. For me it was my chin, I just would focus on that part of me because that's the part I liked. Eventually i saw my entire face as something posiitve.

Hope this helps 

[JonasVE12]

I always thought I was ugly when I was younger. I was even obsessed with it and took 10000s of pictures over the years to affirm I wasn't. Some sort of OCD.  It was only on psychedelics that when I looked at myself in the mirror that I saw that it had nothing to do with my appearance. Only about how I felt about myself deep down. As I released feelings of shame and fear, gradually I released all the shame about my appearance and started to genuinely feel good about my looks.

Insecurity about appearance is just projected shame. We always look outside for things that are the reason for why we are flawed while in actuality, it is just your embodied feelings that is driving all the stories, images, emotions. 

[Aquarius]

Just now, Preety_India said:

Don't do anything. Just accept yourself. And drop all judgement. Everything is Self.. 

 

Yes I totally agree with the Everything is Self part. I know what you mean.. beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. In indian culture there is no such thing as God of Beauty for example, such as Aphrodite for the greeks.. or maybe Helene. I am still spiritual and I tend to see things with the spirit's eye rather than being judgemental. I'm talking about social life. And the way I get treated..

What I actually wanted to express with my initial post is that it's so hard to live up to the expectations of men who judge you by your appearance alone most of the time, and also the western beauty standard for females.. By which I mean extremely long hair, feline/fox/doe eyes, small upturned nose, sharp v jaw and a body that is perfectly thick in the right places but also skinny enough not to have any belly fat and all that other body stuff...

Like I'm always told by men that they hate my short hair. I honestly by my own choice I'd have extra short hair because thats just what appeals to me. Also to dye it crazy colours... but everyone tells me to grow my hair.. and why only me? I bet other girls who are perfect and pretty dont get told to grow their hair in case they have it short.. They just get told how cute their pixie cut is. But when it comes to me, they are so inconsiderate. It hurts me when ppl tell me that I look better with long hair.. What if I told them they look better without glasses or they should lose 30kg? They would lose their mind! But when it comes to me, everyone allows themselves to hurt me directly. Or to be inconsiderate. 

Also people trying to shame me by telling me I look like a guy... so now I am scared to wear basic unisex clothing outdoors. Like black t-shirts and straight jeans.

So it's not just me judging myself, I actually feel victimized to the point I don't leave the house because I feel so bad about myself that I cannot feel ready enough to appear in front of other humans. And that just makes me cry.

[Aquarius]

17 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@Aquarius I used to think I was ugly and when I looked in the mirror I saw an ugly face. But i managed to change how I perceive myself and now I think I am handsome, and when I look in the mirror I see a good looking face.

I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I do remember spending a lot of time looking in the mirror and deliberately looking for something about my face i liked. For me it was my chin, I just would focus on that part of me because that's the part I liked. Eventually i saw my entire face as something posiitve.

Hope this helps 

I'm actually willing to try this myself. I also use affirmations and out-loud positive self talk. It's just feels weird to praise myself while being alone in my room haha..

9 minutes ago, JonasVE12 said:

I always thought I was ugly when I was younger. I was even obsessed with it and took 10000s of pictures over the years to affirm I wasn't. Some sort of OCD.  It was only on psychedelics that when I looked at myself in the mirror that I saw that it had nothing to do with my appearance. Only about how I felt about myself deep down. As I released feelings of shame and fear, gradually I released all the shame about my appearance and started to genuinely feel good about my looks.

Insecurity about appearance is just projected shame. We always look outside for things that are the reason for why we are flawed while in actuality, it is just your embodied feelings that is driving all the stories, images, emotions. 

Thank you, this post was really enlightening. I will try to work on myself more.

[Raptorsin7]

19 minutes ago, JonasVE12 said:

I always thought I was ugly when I was younger. I was even obsessed with it and took 10000s of pictures over the years to affirm I wasn't. Some sort of OCD.  It was only on psychedelics that when I looked at myself in the mirror that I saw that it had nothing to do with my appearance. Only about how I felt about myself deep down. As I released feelings of shame and fear, gradually I released all the shame about my appearance and started to genuinely feel good about my looks.

 

So did you release all those emotions during that one trip? And then you maintained the emotional release after the trip and your view of yourself were permanently altered?

I have been trying to understand how I changed my own view in the mirror and why I feel better about how I look now, but I never thought about the release of specific emotions. For me the change in appearance happened virtually over night and was pretty stable over time. I actually thought I looked better when I first changed my self image, but since then it's regressed a bit but I no longer view myself as ugly

[Nahm]

@Aquarius

These contemplations are pretty short, quick easy reads, and are a sharing for precisely this inquiry. 
 

Most simply put, perception can not be thunk, but believing thoughts makes is seem so, and that is the discord. 

[JonasVE12]

15 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

So did you release all those emotions during that one trip? And then you maintained the emotional release after the trip and your view of yourself were permanently altered?

I think tripping is analogous to skydiving in the sense that you get to see yourself from a higher vantage point. The unconscious becomes conscious. But as with skydiving, you come back down to earth and you lose the detailed vision of the sky after some weeks. As with a psychedelic experience, it makes you highly conscious for the duration of the trip, insights just come naturally and everything makes sense. But people often delude themself that they can be fixed with just one trip. I thought so too in the beginning. But you come back down. Your ego structure reforms. Your energy signature restores to homeostases for the most part. You might have released some feelings during the trip. But it is usually very insignificant and temporary.

The real trip happens after the trip, where you take all of those insights and actually decide on applying them without letting your mind and emotions take control again. You can change everything if you can be conscious and stop letting yourself be on autopilot. You have such a capacity to change all of it. For me the real change happened after the trip where I started my releasing journey. I have done a lot of different stuff and it is all just so nuanced. Too much to get into it here. 

15 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

I have been trying to understand how I changed my own view in the mirror and why I feel better about how I look now, but I never thought about the release of specific emotions. For me the change in appearance happened virtually over night and was pretty stable over time. I actually thought I looked better when I first changed my self image, but since then it's regressed a bit but I no longer view myself as ugly

It is like you described earlier. When you look in the mirror and you are looking for things to love about yourself, you are not thinking, you are feeling. You are introducing the vibration of love into your system. Love is one of the most powerful ways to release emotions. The more you feel it, the more you will be it. If you look in the mirror for a year and consciously try to feel love for yourself each time instead of generating more negative emotions, then that love will overpower and doubt will go away. It is law of polarity. Then you can use that love vibration to fix all of your other self esteem issues.

Love and acceptance are powerful vibrations that we can access by tapping into consciousness. We are all part of the same consciousness. If other people are tapped into the vibration of love, peace, courage, we can do it as well by understanding the law of oneness. We can tap into the vibration and attune ourself to it understanding that we are all part of the same field. People hear 'love and acceptance' but see it as empty words without meaning, or some cliche advice that goes something along the following lines 'Just accept yourself, Just love yourself' but there is some profound depth to be found when you explore the true meaning of those words in terms of the quality of the feelings. By experimenting with letting energy flow through your heart chakra for example. Doing this consistently leads to permanent releases and permanent embodiment of love in whatever context you which to embody it in. Exploring your energy channels is essential. 

[Leo Gura]

Psychedelics helped me a lot with that.

You have to see the underlying beauty of your body.

[Matthew85]

@Aquarius Have you made spiritual practices and expanding your consciousness much of a priority in your life? I often see tremendous beauty in people and the world that prior I would have been oblivious to. 

[Aquarius]

@Matthew85 hey guys I'm back again sorry for the late response..

Yes actually, I started doing breathing exercises, focusing on daily self-care routines and exercises including skincare. And a few days ago I checked out a few YouTubers that talk about feminine essence and I've been trying to follow some tips but I'm kinda new to it, but that's ok since those tips are mostly for women 25+

I don't need psychedelics, I naturally fall into trips. I actually got meds prescribed for these hightened moods, serotonine suppressants and whatnot..

Since my last login I tried lots of things like journaling, I also found out I don't want to change anything about myself other than smiling more and being softer in my approach with socializing, like just generally friendlier and being kind and open.

Right now I am focusing on physical health and diet.

What tips do you have for expanding consciousness, as you named it? What helped you in your journey and self-Image? Did you also have self-esteem issues before, and how did you handle it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Aquarius]

@Nahm They are beautiful and profound contemplations, I started reading them but I don't understand much, I must be really underdeveloped spiritually or something is wrong with me haha. But I saved it for later, I might just need to read them a few times to make sense. I might even message you later to ask a few questions. Thank you.