it is our natural state to like ourselves

"I look in the mirror and cannot stand what I see."   we hear often

I believe it is your natural state to automatically like yourself. No questions asked. No judgements.
When we look in the mirror we see Ourselves, no matter what that looks like, it's with inner acceptance we perceive.

But later, when we start thinking, whether it really is ok what we see, whether it's ok for the others, whether we measure up to what is expected, to what is considered the norm, the beautiful..... then the judgements come one by one. We are overwhelmed by the judgements and the "should statements" and self-acceptance loses terrain.

We start referring to what we see by words like -ugly, fat, or worse we call ourselves names and berate ourselves for not being more in control of what the image should be like (for whom?). We turn against ourselves, criticise ourselves and hope the fight will lead to positive change.

When we are saddened by what we see, we are fact saddened by all the external influences we have internalised of what we should look like, be like.

And then we go around and believe that it is truly us not liking our own image in the mirror.

Only we do, no matter what we see, we see ourselves, and authentically, without pressure from outside, we accept and naturally like what we see. That's a given. Self-compassion is a given until education and media interferes.

But then, you ask, how will I improve/change if I accept and like what I see. Changes don't come from a  place of hate and criticism. Change doesn't come from resisting reality and fighting it and punishing yourself. "You can't punish yourself into change. You can't whip yourself into shape. But you can love yourself into well-being." ~ Susan Skye

and change comes from a place where you truly want it for yourself and not from a place of pressure that it is expected of you.

stripped

It's amazing to find how little we really need once we are stripped of the desire to please and search for approval.
I know that it would be one of my regrets later when it's too late if knowing all this, I would conclude that I have not lived with integrity and have not been true to myself.
It is one of my biggest inner conflicts - the desire to fit in and get approval (or what i think would get approval) and just being, myself. I don't think I'm alone with this.
With all the games we are playing, it is in the end difficult to recognise who you are without the fringes.
So in this society we live in, how much of the facade is necessary to keep.... I always check in with myself and ask myself, what would I be like, dress like, do and behave if there was no one around. That's how this post is so touching: Tara Wagner talks about her revolutionary experience of cutting all her long hair:

"But I AM FREE now. I recognize the difference, in the way only a previously and ignorantly unfree person could recognize. I’m suddenly free of the past. I’m free of the expectations I’ve accepted in my life (from myself and others). I’m free of the facade, the props I would use to convey Who I Am.

I’m free of the NEED to convey Who I Am."

That's right, it feels like daily we put up a fight for the need to convey who we are. The need that is perhaps not even a real need, necessity, it could all be in our head. That we will get approval if we do something, if we look a certain way....

It was actually a phase a few years ago when I decided to let go of the need to convey an image that I myself went through the revolutionary experience of getting a very short hair-cut. Only now, I feel the need to go shorter and shorter. To cut out more and more. Of what isn't the basic me.

I have been convinced for a long time now that half of what we do, we aquire and wear is for approval. Instead of spending our own money for what we truly need, it is spent on the fake need of approval. Only we probably all know it's a game we cannot win because conveying an image gets us nowhere. At best, it earns a few praises here and there.

But at most, what we think is so important, people don't even notice. And when we return to ourselves, people will not notice the difference either. What we think is so evident really is not. And we have everything to gain. By rediscovering our true selves, stripped of the need to conform.

Rediscovering what we like to do, wear, eat when we give ourselves permission to be, to be free!

The only approval we need is our own, and our own approval will never be based on notions of what we should be like. I firmly believe that we always get our own approval if we stay true to ourselves, no matter what.