Tag Archives: Self image

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Random Thoughts 4/20/2022

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People wonder why there is so much low self-esteem in the world, if you take a good look at television shows, commercials, social media, movies, and even the news on cable news stations you just may see some of the reasons for low self-esteem, but then there is also how one’s family treats them, their peers and the educational system.

When you are constantly bombarded with images of thin, fit, and muscular actors, advertisements aimed to push miracle vitamins and supplements to fix all your shortcomings, it is very hard to hold on to a good self-image and even harder to build it up. Constantly being told that having a perfect body weight, toned muscles, the right clothes, and accessories makes one beautiful and successful is making it hard for most people to maintain healthy self-esteem.

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Unfortunately, fashion, the newest electronics, and possessions play a big part in teenage self-image, which makes it hard for those who don’t have the money to compete with their peers. Combining that with parents that have to work 2 jobs or inconvenient hours to maintain the quality of life they have only makes it harder on teenagers and kids.

The ones that seem to suffer the worst during school years are those that don’t quite fit the norm, the overweight, the below-average to average looking, and the sensitive passive individuals. Bullying from those who think they are cool, tougher, and better than others does not help the situation at all. The consequences of bullying are usually mild and it seems it’s hard to catch kids bullying or maybe some just overlook it.

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Parents and siblings also play a large part in the development of a child’s self-esteem, they can be either a positive or negative force when it comes to a child’s self-image. Siblings usually are competing for the parent’s attention, love and favor so they tend to be very mean to one another. Parents on the other hand usually are trying to do what’s best for the child but don’t realize what works for one child does not always work for the other. Each child is a unique individual, they have different needs and need help in different ways. Some parents, unfortunately, don’t know how to deal with their children at all so they try to treat them as if they are adults way before the child or teen is emotionally and mentally ready to do so. This usually results in conflict and the child/teen becomes rebellious and has a poor self-image.

If the low self-esteem is not addressed and corrected during the child/teen years then it is carried into the adult years. That makes it very hard for the Adult to achieve a healthy relationship with a significant other and even harder for them to become successful in the work world.

Raising kids is not an easy task, being a parent means you have to be a caregiver, advisor, instructor, friend, leader, cook, counselor, and of course an ATM for the children lol. Helping a child navigate the battlefields of youth and preparing them for the many challenges they will have to face in the future is not an easy thing to accomplish. All you can do is give it your best shot and always be there for them when they need you.

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I myself have had self-esteem issues throughout my life, I have been battling low self-esteem for many decades. I could go down a list of all the things that caused my low self-esteem but what is the use of that now that it now falls squarely on me to repair the damage and improve myself. Plus the first step in moving on and building up your self-esteem/self-image is to forgive those who helped in destroying it and letting go of your own contributions to the whole mess as well.

Just know this, there is no one better than you, but then there is no one lesser than you. We all are unique, we all have our own gifts to embrace and shortcomings that we need to deal with. There is no one on this planet that does not have some emotional or psychological baggage to deal with. How much money you have, and how many toys you have has nothing to do with who you are or how good you are. What defines you is how you live life, and how you treat others and yourself.

Being successful sure feels good, being financially well off does make life easier in many ways, but money, possessions, and success are fleeting, they can be gone in an instant. Family and friends to me are far more important along with how I treat others, and how I live my life. Those things will be with me throughout my life.

Well, I wish you happiness, remember it does not matter what others think or say about you, it is what you know about yourself that matters the most.

Ray Barbier

creative commons, Poems and Writings, Random Thoughts, Thought of the day

Random Thoughts–2/6/2017

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018  Acceptance, something most of us crave and need to be a functional and somewhat happy individual. A lot of the time we are accepted by our peers but we have a hard time accepting ourselves.  Our brain takes what we think about ourselves and uses it to filter the world around us, so even if someone is loved, appreciated and accepted they may feel the total opposite of that if they have a poor self image and can not accept themselves for who and what they are.

If most people would just spend 1/4 of the time they do on trying to be accepted by others on improving their self image and in accepting themselves then they would be much happier in their lives.  Learning to accept yourself with all your faults and bad habits is not a walk in the park, but it is not a non obtainable goal. The first thing is learning to forgive yourself for the things you did that you consider wrong or mistakes. The baggage of past actions only builds guilt, which guilt has a purpose but it is not meant to be lifelong thing.  Forgive yourself, your only human and you will make mistakes along the way. Learn from them, forgive yourself and move on. Let go of your past, don’t live in the past for it only steals away today. If you have things you do still that bother you then work hard on changing them, but until you change them learn to accept that side of yourself and forgive yourself for not being perfect.

Focus on serving others, to do good for others is a great way to improve your self image and worth. It also teaches you to consider others above yourself at times. Find activities that make you feel better about yourself and get out and socialize, being an island unto yourself is not the best way to live, it only opens you up to being lonely and disconnected from the world we live in.  Just remember no matter what you have done in your life, that you deserve to be happy and live life to its fullest.  Even if it was something horrible, that was then and this is now, learn to be a better person and live a happy and productive life like we all should live.

 

Blessings and happiness to you all

Raymond Barbier

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Thought of the Day 2/7/2014

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016Turn and look into the mirror, see yourself for who and what you are. Stop being who and what others expect you to be and be who you really are. Leave the masquerade and join in on the reality of who you were destined to truly be.

Ray Barbier

Personal, Poems and Writings, Random Thoughts, Thought of the day

Who and what we truly are

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002Why do we allow the opinions of others to effect our self-image, emotions and outlook on life. We tend to seek acceptance and reassurance from others, we learned this behavior as children. We need to see that though opinions of others have meaning and some weight, that our own opinions are just as important if not more so when it comes to our self. Others do not know you as you know yourself and they usually judge you on preconceived notions based on just one if not a few encounters they had with you. They don’t know your heart or mind, they have little fact or evidence to support their impression of your personality.

Even those that have known you for years still may not truly know who you are truly. Sometimes we do not even know ourselves as good as we should. We tend to be like a chameleon and change with the crowd and circumstances around us to blend in. We try to blend in and we rarely show our true selves out of fear of not being accepted or loved. The problem with being a chameleon or being a person who tries to fit in by putting on a mask is that we are never accepted or loved for who we are. Thus we are not accepted or loved at all, for they love the part we play not for who and what we are.

We try to kid ourselves they love us and accept us even though they see a disguise not our true image. But deep inside we will know is all a lie and falsehood. So it is far better to be loved and accepted by a few as who and what we truly are then to be loved and accepted by many for who we are not.

Be yourself, Believe in yourself and Be true to yourself. Worry not of the opinions of others and love yourself for who you are.

Ray Barbier

Personal, Poems and Writings, Random Thoughts, Thought of the day

Control your path in life

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022There are those whom seek out love, acceptance and security in others, this is not a bad thing unless it is the only place you seek and find them. Some people can not find love, acceptance or security within their own being, this seems to create a very bad behavior pattern. They float from one lover to another seeking out what they think will fill the void within themselves. The void is the absence of Self acceptance, self-love and self security, even though we can temporarily fill the void with the love of a lover but it quickly disappears. It takes the love within ourselves to compliment and maintain love between ourselves and another, more or less you can not love someone else fully and completely until you learn to love yourself unconditionally.

We tend to over complicate our lives when it can be so simple and direct, Love thyself in order to love others, have compassion and forgiveness for yourself so that you can do the same for others as well. Shrink that overgrown ego to its natural and original size, for a big and boasting ego is but a mask to hide the insecure being within. Lift your self-image up to where it belongs, for you are as great and as small as any other person in this world. Take the wheel and stop letting circumstances, influences and other people control your path in life. Learn the difference between relying on others and using them as a crutch or a shield.Give and worry not about what you will get in return. Learn to balance the needs and wants of the self with the needs and wants of others. Wake up and live your life and stop walking through it in that semi sedated state in which many of us live in.

I am but a fool who seeks to understand and I find being right is far less important than knowing and finding the truth and It is the journey I see as the prize, not the destination.

Ray Barbier

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Beyond the trap of following the social ideals

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newprofilepic  Low self-esteem seems to very common place in America now days, seems a good percentage of the population have little if no faith in themselves or their abilities. Some of this is created by the family environment during the early years of our social and personality development.  But it seems that he age of mass media has the greatest effect on our self image and in turn it affects our self-esteem. Being bombarded with unrealistic thin supermodel females and overly muscle-bound males would make any average man or woman feel inadequate or sub par. Too much focus has been on the physical and not enough on the actual mental and emotional side. What one looks like does not dictate who they are or what they can achieve in life. The truth is that what society considers beauty changes decade to decade. There was a time when a heavy-set woman with pale skin was considered  very sexy and tall thin men were the hot item on the market. Unfortunately we seem to always look to society to choose for us what is sexy or not. This creates a lot of self-image problems for the majority of us that are just average looking . Until either society gets real or we as individuals get beyond the trap of following the social ideals we are handed we will be dealing with a lot of low self-esteem.

The truth is each and every one of us have their own ideal of what we consider attractive and/or sexy.  Not all men like skinny model types or bombshells and not every woman wants a Weight lifter. In the end the physical beauty fades and only the personality and heart remains. So it seems we should be more concerned with what one is inside than what they look like on the outside. Though I believe we all are beautiful and that being sexy is more an attitude than a look. For god does not make ugly things, only mankind labels things as such. Is it possible that we judge others negatively in order to try to hide our own faults?

 

 

“If the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence it is only because you have not taken care of the lawn you have.”

Raymond Barbier

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We dig a pit in which we feel there is no escape.

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003 I see the emptiness in the eyes of others, they endlessly try to fill it with material goods and through pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately these are only temporary distractions from the emptiness they feel. The lack of meaning in their life and the absence of self-worth makes the empty feeling in them harder to overcome. What exactly is that emptiness or what causes it could be something as simple as low self-esteem or depression. It also could be the lack of spiritual fulfillment as well as not being accepted by their peers. It seems quite apparent that humans as a species require some sort of community and to be accepted in some sort of social group. We tend to be a very social species and we thrive on being  a part of such a group as well as being loved.

Sometimes we tend to create a false image of ourselves within and can not see the real person we are. We deceive ourselves into believing such negative things that we dig a pit in which we feel there is no escape. The hardest part is coming to the realization that we are not as bad off as we believe. It’s so easy to fall in to the pit but it is very hard to climb our way out. It is one of things that it probably took you many years to create such a negative self-image and it will take some time to teach yourself to have a more positive image. There are many methods of building self-confidence as well as improving your self-image such as attending religious meetings, meditation, exercise and even writing poetry or a journal.

Every day is but one more step in your personal journey through life and each step leads you forward in your self discovery.  If you search within to find out who you really are you may just find that you are far better person than you once believed. For we seem to be a far stricter judge upon ourselves as well as or actions than we are on others. We have to look at ourselves like we look at friends and family. Judge ourselves with compassion like we do those we love and care about, knowing no one is perfect and to expect perfection from ourselves or others is just plain illogical to say the least. To remember your past mistakes is wise but to punish yourself over them is foolish. We paid the price for the mistakes shortly after we committed them and guilt shouldn’t last beyond a few day to a week. Forgiving ourselves and others seems to be one of the hardest things to do., but it is a necessary part of our life.

Well enough of my Psycho-babble Nonsense.
Peace and Love to All
Raymond Barbier

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Random Thoughts

Take out the trash

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028  Self image is both the creator and destroyer of ones happiness.in life. Without a good self image and some self confidence its very hard to keep a positive attitude or to maintain any level of happiness. Low self esteem is the major cause of self doubt, poor self image and some forms of depression, if one wishes to be happy one must elevate their self esteem and create a positive self image. The problem is most people have so much emotional and mental garbage stored in their memories it makes it a very hard task to achieve any type of good self image or self esteem.

  First thing we must do in order to create a positive self image and to elevate our self esteem is to take out the trash. We have to face each and every negative thought about ourselves and either accept them or disprove them. Those that are factual and accepted then must be overcame or learned to be an accepted fault within ourselves. I have noticed that if I make a mistake it is far worse a crime than if someone else does. I am far more severe on myself than I would ever be on any other human being. This is not a balanced view of life and causes me to have a very poor self image and low self-esteem.

  Besides being a strict judge of my own life I also hold on to the judgment of others such as my parents, sibling and peers. Even though I understand that most of the judgments passed on me were usually wrong if not just exaggerated  ones, it takes time to root out those old scars and demons hidden in my psyche. I have learned that to put the hurts and pains caused by others in the past I had to forgive them as well as myself for the transgressions and misjudgments.committed on both sides. No matter who or where the scars and demons I have came from, I am the one responsible for holding on to them all these years.

  We are the masters of our own destinies and fates, external forces may effect our course but we ultimately choose our own destination.In the end. It is our own choices that form our self image and effect our self esteem. Freewill does not come without a cost and nor does it come without rewards.

  Enough of my babbling for today.
Peace and Love be your Guides in life
Raymond Barbier

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