Take Off Your Glasses
I had a conversation last week in which it came up that I view myself with a negative lens. And although my lenses do tend to be less rose-colored and more of an unsatisfying, thorn-colored green when it comes to self-analysis, I could not help but wonder if it's true – that in our own eyes we automatically "deduct from our total points" because we've been told all our lives that it makes us humble and less conceited. What filter am I using? Because I certainly do not like it.
This concept reminded me of an episode of the Netflix show Black Mirror called “Nosedive” (Season 3, Episode 1, if you are interested). In this dystopian world, your socioeconomic status depends solely on your interactions with others and how they rate you. Each member of this society uses their phone to rate each interaction with their family, friends, and even strangers on a scale of 1-to-5 stars. (Brooker et al., 2016). Think of the Uber rating you give to your driver (and that they give you) after you get dropped off at your destination – but suddenly that rating has the potential to evict you from your own home. Your rating is displayed on your person, and other people have the power to dictate how your life could drastically change with one simple conversation.
As ridiculous and brutal as it sounds, it is crucial and terrifying to consider that this fabricated television world is not as far-fetched from our current lifestyle as it may seem. Are we not living in a world where approval of others is constantly sought and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if, logically speaking, we are entirely aware that it has no determination in our value? It comes back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs of feeling loved, useful, and desired. Self-actualization (i.e. the desire to become the most that one can be) can only be achieved after feeling a sense of love, belonging, and then, esteem (McLeod, 2022).
In this episode, young, impressionable minds are heavily obsessed with and haunted by their reviews and will go to desperate, almost insurmountable heights to elevate their ratings, eliminate deductions, and achieve money, status, luxury, fame, or power. Sound familiar?
Social media trends even put the idea of physicality and appearance at the forefront of our day-to-day conversations and the very top of our social acceptance pyramid. There is a current popular one that starts with a physical rating of someone followed by a conditional statement to showcase their core flaw. For example, "She's a 10 but cries when she gets overwhelmed.” The purpose of this trend is to imply that not everyone’s perfect, but I think it misses the mark – in that sentence alone, the first phrase we read is a rating of someone's looks on a scale of 1-10. We’ve taken the concept of true beauty in all its complexity and diversity and somehow confined it to a hardly exciting or novel 10-point scale. We’ve been reduced to numbers, yet we still wonder why we are continuously enamored with and hypnotized by this concept of beauty and appearances being of paramount importance. It’s ingrained into all our encounters without even realizing it - consumer culture, social media, small talk conversations, etc.
In that case, we consider it “motivating” to be so hard on ourselves because it helps us “improve our ratings” and essentially forces us into “changing for the better”. We want to beat everyone else to the punchline of our own self-deprecating jokes so that no one else can hurt us first. “If I deduct my own points, then that means YOU can’t do it, so I win!” It is a twisted inner monologue that I am heartbroken to admit has crossed my mind before. Quite frankly, she has often packed a suitcase, lived rent-free, and overstayed her welcome, but I know I cannot be the only one.
In performing all of these mental “deductions”, so to speak, do you even realize how you are harming yourself? No one else may actually be hurting you, but you are becoming your own worst enemy in the process of shutting everyone else out so they cannot reach you. What truly lies within this distancing is a lack of self compassion disguised as a defense or coping mechanism.
Not all hope is lost though — awareness of this modern disarray is a very eye-opening first step to healing these wounding habits. Here are three, easy, actionable items you can use to work on igniting your self compassion (simply speaking from my own personal experience):
Affirmations. You may think these are overused, but start with one good thing you are feeling or that you want to bring to your day when you wake up in the morning. “Today is going to be a good day because I say so.” Of course, as life goes, there are always events that are outside of your control, but speaking your intentions into existence has great power that you may not even realize.
Turn your self-deprecating humor into self-accepting humor. Here’s an example: I know that I cannot draw to save my life. Instead of saying “Wow, this is so terrible it doesn’t even deserve to be hung up on the refrigerator”, I could say, “This is so beautiful they should display it in the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).” You may not believe what you’re saying even in the slightest bit, but eventually those self-accepting one-liners will begin to retrain your brain to have a healthier sense of self-image when it comes to our insecurities and the dreaded beast that is perfectionism.
Accept compliments without any sort of self-rejecting clarification. If someone says,“You look so pretty today!”, you can say, “Thank you!” Be quick to bite your tongue when you feel that “It’s amazing what makeup can do!” disclaimer coming up your throat. We are often inclined to believe pushing compliments away will make us seem humble and relatable. All it really does is make us look rude and ungrateful and leaves the compliment-giver feeling awkward and rejected. It’s a lose-lose situation for both parties.
One or all of these practices will make a massive difference in how you begin to view yourself. It will feel awkward at first. Keep trying. I promise that over time, it will start to influence you in a healthy way as you begin to soften that rough exterior of the self-compassion section of your brain.
I understand that your vision of self is impaired. It can oftentimes be the most unflattering and not-so-funhouse mirror that warps your reflection to the point of unrecognizable distortion. It is like trying to see the nebulous, blurry figure in the tinted windows of the backseat of the car, constantly squinting to make out that one defining feature that would give you a clue as to who they are.
You have been so self-disguised because you were given a societal prescription for glasses that you never actually needed. Your vision was always 20/20, but you were made to believe your eyes were simply playing tricks on you.
You can take off your glasses now. You never needed them to define who you are.
by Jen
References:
Brooker, C. (Writer), & Wright, J. (Director). (2016, October 21). Nosedive (Season 3, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In C. Brooker, A. Jones (Executive Producers), Black Mirror. Endemol Shine UK.
McLeod, S. A. (2022, April 04). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
