THERAPIST THURSDAY: Ladies, Stop Doing THIS Immediately!

The other day I was talking with a beautiful, successful, caring woman. She was telling me she would never marry again because she was middle aged and undesirable. I was working with another woman who gives her all to her parenting. She was telling me she was not a good enough mother to her children, that somehow she was failing them.

I work with women every day who are working so hard at being the best they can be in all of the many different roles they have. Women who are phenomenal mothers, amazing employees. Women who work hard and give things their all. Women who are beautiful both inside and out. And yet, so many of these terrific women don’t believe they are good enough. They pick themselves apart; they beat themselves up. The way they think of themselves and the things they say to themselves about themselves is so critical. And this makes me so sad! It is sad when a person can not see their worth, when the beauty that radiates from them is not noticeable to them. They see themselves in a completely unrealistic way and are very negative when it comes to their attributes and qualities.

We must stop this! As women it does us no good to point out our flaws, to focus on the parts of ourselves we don’t like. It causes us to miss all of the amazing qualities we have. It causes us to lose confidence and not to get what we deserve out of this life. It causes us to feel BAD! It is not OK! We must stop this now!

Every day I work with teenage girls who also feel bad about themselves. They struggle with body image and with comparing themselves with others. They stress that their grades are not good enough, that their bodies are not good enough, that their personality is not good enough. I try to give them other ways to look at these issues. I help them develop more realistic thinking; to help them see that negative self talk will get them nowhere in life, that it’s so much better to accept and love yourself just the way they are. But I ask you, how can the youth of today buy into these concepts if their adult counterparts have their own negative self talk? How will young women begin to reject messages that tell them they are not pretty enough unless they are a model, if the women in their lives still buy into these distorted and destructive messages? How will we help them do it differently if our generation is still flailing at it?

So, I urge you to ask yourself, is your standard of beauty realistic? Is your belief of how clean your home must be realistic? Are your standards too perfectionistic? I urge you to examine your self talk. If you walk into your kitchen and get a sinking feeling in your chest because there are dishes in the sink, are you being too hard on yourself? When you catch a glance of your reflection in the mirror, do your eyes go directly to the part of yourself you don’t like? Are you buying into a toxic idea about what gives a woman worth? If so, CHANGE IT! Decide right here and now that you are going to notice negative self talk and you are going to change it. If it is not something you would say to a friend, then I want you to stop saying in your own head to yourself. Work on giving yourself a break. Work on not tying your own worth to external situations, instead feel worthy just because. Acknowledge that your worth is not tied up in how clean your home is, how well your child is doing in school, or how tone your body is. Decide you will focus on your own worth being just about being you. Work on letting YOU be enough. Not what you do or how you look, but just you being you. And decide to reject external messages that say anything to the contrary.

If we can find this internal peace. If we can stop beating ourselves up. If we can learn to accept ourselves the way we would accept a friend, then we will feel happier and more satisfied in our own lives. And there is no better way to be a role model to the next generation of young ladies than that! So, go out and be a fan of you!

Rochelle Whitson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Temecula, CA. She is also author of the blog www.meete4therapy.com. She can be reached by at meetme4therapy@gmail.com.