Your five senses are very much deserving of your appreciation and gratitude. Consider all they enable you to experience:
Pain: Okay, pain isn't something you may usually pause to appreciate but it's a vital and inevitable part of human experience. Physical and emotional pain puts you in touch with your humanity and can give you many opportunities to learn and grow. Consider heartbreak, grief, disappointment, toothache, eating chillies, witnessing a traumatic event, hearing a loved one cry, seeing a really bad film, doing something regrettable, giving birth or falling off a skateboard - a wealth of experience is offered through pain.
Pleasure: Oh, yes. All five of your senses provide you with a host of pleasures. Pleasant smells, tastes, sights, sounds and tactile sensations are associated with all manner of things, such as music, baking, making love, working hard, eating and drinking, creating art, being hugged, giving a hug; the list is endless.
Pain and pleasure often overlap to form a complete human experience. Some common examples include giving birth, running a marathon, completing a course of study, ending a relationship or beginning one, having an operation, doing physiotherapy, moving house, changing jobs, leaving home for the first time, and many, many more.
So, other than simply being a creature of physical beauty (or not,) you're also a creature of experience. In order to build a better understanding of yourself as a whole living person, you may need to think more about your senses and experiential existence and less about how hot you look in the buff.
Doing your daily duties
How often do you actually take time to consciously appreciate all that your body enables you to do? Like most of us, you may take your physical capabilities somewhat for granted. As we touched on in the last section and do so again in the nearby sidebar, people with physical disabilities or incapacities probably have a greater appreciation for all the human body can do than those of us who've never faced any significant physical ability challenges. We could all probably benefit from being more attentive to the fact that our bodies serve so many vital functions. Again, above and beyond appearance, your body does a great deal for you on a daily basis:
Job and career: Your physical body allows you to pursue your career goals, earn a living, learn new skills and adopt new knowledge.
Housekeeping: Being able to care for your environment, engage in DIY, drive a vehicle, keep on top of the laundry, do gardening, take out the bins, look after your children or other people in your family, do the shopping, cook meals, dust, hoover, iron and - everything else.
Personal care: Just being able to look after your own physical needs is something to be grateful for every day.
Altruistic pursuits: Taking care of others in need, helping out a friend, family member or neighbour are all selfless acts that can help you feel good inside. Without your physical abilities you'd be unable to behave in specific other-enhancing ways. People wouldn't benefit from your practical assistance and you wouldn't be as readily able to reap personal benefits from doing so.
You don't need to be an oil painting to be able to live a good and meaningful life. Your physical self (body and face) can bring you and others much joy and serve countless essential functions.
In the interest of improving your body image, and appreciating your whole self instead of simply focusing on your appearance, try the following experiment. Spend a little time each day appreciating and being grateful for your physical abilities. You can put pen to paper and make yourself a ‘gratitude list' that can help you to appreciate your physical self more.
Valuing your vehicle for experience
You may spend so much time lamenting your appearance that you overlook the fact that without your physical shell (hypothetical warts and all) you'd be deprived of . . . life! We've already touched on this concept throughout this chapter but at the risk of repetition (and it bears repeating), you need your physical body to be able to live your life. That's the long and the short of it. So if you believe that you'd rather be dead than alive in an average looking or even less than average looking physical vehicle, get some professional help (see Chapter 21 for starters). And give your head a serious shake.
Instead of thinking solely about how attractive you may or may not think you look, try giving some headspace to how you live. Your body is the vehicle through which you get to:
Form relationships: Being in contact with others, be it superficially, more profoundly or intimately, is part of your human experience - and is not exclusively dictated by your physical attractiveness.
Feel emotions: Feelings are fantastic. Positive ones tend to be more rewarding than negative ones, sure, but both are part and parcel of living a full and enriched life (consult Chapter 6 for more about emotions).
Make life choices: You get to overcome adversity, choose jobs and careers, build a family, live in line with your own personal standards and values (see Chapter 18), plus appreciate the world around you.
Pursue interests: You can't go on safari without being physically here on the earth, but you can do it even if you're blessed with a face made for radio. Going on safari, by the way, is merely an example. Even visiting an art gallery or some other form of more commonplace interest-based activity is valid use of your fabulous, far from perfect form.
Really good-looking people have human rights too! If you're able to see that you're obviously good looking or are told you're beautiful all the time - you probably are. Yet you're still allowed to feel insecure physically and doubt your powers of attraction. Sometimes the pressure of being considered unusually attractive can be problematic. You may feel that unless you stay looking good your worth will evaporate. Or that you're only worthy, likable and significant because you look good or that looks are all you've got going for you.
None of these notions are true. Enjoy your good looks and use them to your advantage. But don't allow anyone to convince you that all you are is a good-looking person. You've got the right to experience life and pursue your interests as much as anyone else. Beautiful people fall prey to unhealthy body image just as average and below-average looking people do. So don't think you're excluded from the information offered in this chapter.
Choosing to Change for all the Right Reasons
Like many others battling with an unhealthy body image, you may make the following faulty conclusion about physical appearance:
Good looks = Worthwhile, lovable, successful person
Average/below average looks = Less worthwhile, unlovable, unsuccessful person Several adjectives can be applied to that kind of conclusion - but two of the most fitting are ‘crazy' and ‘damaging'. In short, it neither makes any real sense nor does you any good.
Here are some examples of what we consider the wrong reasons to make physical changes (to your body and/or face):
Because you think that improving the way you look will make you a more worthwhile person
Because you think that improving your looks will make you a more likable and lovable person
To please a critical partner (who may be exacerbating your physical insecurity)
In order to try to overcome sexual/romantic jealousy
To win approval from people who you believe you're fundamentally inferior to (because of your looks)
Now here are some potentially sound reasons for changing one or more aspects of your appearance (body and/or face):
To improve your health and fitness
To increase enjoyment
To improve your physical ability to perform specific activities and increase general mobility
To reduce physical pain
Out of a genuine desire to reduce self-consciousness and increase your social confidence
Note the distinction between ‘confidence' and ‘worth'! Worth is an overall value assigned to an object. For example, that diamond is worth £30,000. Because you're not an object, your human worth can't accurately be assessed like that of a jewel or car. Trying to judge your own (or another person's) overall worth is inappropriate, especially o
n the basis of external packaging!
Confidence is more about your belief in your abilities. For example, you may have a pretty solid sense of your own intrinsic worth but lack confidence as a cook, accountant or public speaker. Social confidence often corresponds with a healthy body image, it's true. However, this doesn't mean that you've got to either be super good looking or believe that you are to have a robust sense of your own worth or be socially confident. Having a realistic view of your looks and believing that you're a worthwhile, likable individual is perfectly possible. Believing in your ability to draw people toward you on the basis of your personality - and not just your appearance - usually amounts to social confidence.
Common targets for physical change and improvement often include:
Hair styling and dying
Makeovers and cosmetic advice
Various detox treatments, for example colonic irrigation
Weight loss or gain regimes
Increased fitness and flexibility
Facial and bodily hair removal
Contact lenses to replace glasses and/or change eye colour
Laser eye treatment
Dental work, including braces and teeth whitening
Skin treatments such as micro-derma abrasion, chemical peels, tattoo removals, scar and birthmark reduction
Minor cosmetic operations like ear tucks, botox, collagen implants, mole removal
Less common and more complicated targets for physical change may include:
Breast enlargement or reduction
Harelip restructuring
Nose reshaping and reconstruction
Hair replacement treatments
Major dental reconstruction
Stomach bands or stapling for weight loss
Major cosmetic surgery, including ‘tummy tucks', ‘face lifts' or skin grafting
These lists are by no means definitive and many other forms of physical cosmetic treatment and surgical intervention exist. There's no reason that you shouldn't seek one of these (or similar) treatments provided you truly believe that doing so will help you to accept yourself physically and build a healthy body image. But we strongly urge you to check and double-check your motivation before you embark on a treatment plan, however minor it may be.
Cosmetic surgery and other extreme ways of altering your appearance ought not be undertaken lightly. They can be risky and expensive. You need to accurately weigh up your current dissatisfaction with an aspect of your appearance against the risks inherent in cosmetic alteration. If you have any concerns (or people close to you do) that your desire for surgery is symptomatic of one of the disorders discussed in the beginning of this chapter, seek a professional psychiatric assessment before you go through with it. In BDD sufferers, surgery often produces the opposite of the desired effect. The sufferer is dissatisfied with the results, believing that they've made the problem worse. Or the focus of dissatisfaction is transferred to another aspect of their face or body. Many reputable cosmetic surgeons refuse treatment until they've ascertained that the patient is not suffering from BDD or some other psychological disorder.
Highlighting health
Improving and safeguarding your health (as far as is reasonably possible) is an excellent reason for making changes to your lifestyle and - as an inevitable side effect - your appearance. Without exception, we all look better when fitter and healthier.
Health scares delivered to people of any age typically spur the individual into better eating, reduced alcohol consumption, giving up smoking and taking more regular exercise. That's no bad thing. Improved health and fitness typically makes life more enjoyable. Even if you're in fine fettle you may still decide to make changes to your lifestyle in order to maintain your physical health long into the future. Leading a healthy lifestyle can also have fringe benefits like reducing the signs of aging and keeping your figure trim.
Health and happiness show in your looks. Strong teeth, shining eyes, glossy hair, clear skin and a wide smile are all very attractive features. Most of these are the by-products of overall good health and general contentment. So you can enhance your appearance by making improvements to your lifestyle and doing what you can to foster personal happiness (more on this in Chapter 18).
Maximising enjoyment
Making physical changes (such as gaining or losing weight) in order to enjoy life more is a healthy motivation. Changes to body weight can help increase energy and reduce pain in many instances, enabling you to take part in activities that may have not been possible before weight change. Improved physical fitness also can have a positive impact on sleep, digestion, concentration, circulation and blood pressure, and alleviate many other minor or major ailments.
Improving muscle tone can also help with back and joint pain and increase flexibility. So, by becoming fitter, you're likely to find new avenues for enjoyment like walking, dancing or horse riding. You may even just be able to climb stairs without pain or breathlessness, thereby rendering daily life easier. Try to consider what additional benefits other than looking better are likely to ensue from improved fitness.
Bringing out your best
You may decide to make changes to your appearance because you want to look your best. A subtle but pertinent difference exists between being motivated to make physical changes in order to increase your sense of worth and simply to optimise your appearance. The former motivation suggests that you link your intrinsic human worth to outward appearance, which can compound low self-esteem and unhealthy relations with your body (as discussed earlier in this chapter). The latter motivation, however, implies that you value yourself generally and therefore can consider improving your physical appearance as part of a self-care regime. To make this distinction clearer, look at the two examples of motivational attitudes offered here.
Jenny is in her late thirties and has started to go prematurely grey. Cheryl is roughly the same age as Jenny and is also going grey. Both women are of average good looks and are similarly built. Both women have black hair and the grey shows a lot so they decide to have it dyed. Thus far pretty much no difference exists between Jenny and Cheryl with regard to choosing to have their hair dyed. The hidden difference lies in their motivation.
Jenny thinks the following: ‘If I dye my hair it might make me look better and other people will find me more attractive. I need other people's approval to feel okay about myself.'
Cheryl thinks like this: ‘This grey is aging me, I reckon, and I do like to look my best. I'll have it dyed and that will help me look my age again. I'll feel more positive about my appearance without the grey.'
Jenny, unlike Cheryl, believes that she needs other people's approval of her looks to feel okay about herself; to feel like a worthwhile person. Cheryl instead focuses on her own satisfaction with her appearance and makes no connection between that and her overall sense of self-worth. Cheryl also leaves other people's possible evaluations of her appearance out of the equation entirely.
Use this example to help you clearly assess your motivation for making even minor physical changes, such as changing your hair colour or trying contact lenses. By all means have your hair dyed if you wish to - but try to challenge unhealthy thinking like Jenny's in favour of adopting healthy thinking like Cheryl's. Make changes for the right reasons!
Being daring
Working out, having your teeth cleaned professionally, being pampered with a facial or massage can help you feel more physically comfortable and confident. When you feel like you're looking your best, your physical confidence is on the up.
Sometimes making even small physical improvements can encourage you to be a bit more daring in your dress sense, activity choices, and self-expression in general. You may get a new hairstyle and suddenly feel confident enough to ask out that girl at reception you've been noticing for the past few months. A little weight loss may spur you to wear a fitted dress and join the local salsa dancing class. Regular exercise might lead you into taking part in your child's football coaching. You may w
ell feel more prepared to embark on many new ventures once you've begun a physical improvement regime of some kind.
But bear in mind the basic principle of healthy body image, namely:
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