What Do I Really Look Like?

We've all had times when we log into Facebook, expecting to just read a Buzzfeed article and maybe write on a friend's wall for their birthday, when the little red notifications tell us that someone has tagged pictures of us. It's a frightening moment. And then, the abject horror to find that the pictures are maybe less than flattering. Yes, you can "untag" yourself, but if mutual friends are tagged in the picture, everyone you know will still see them. I've had this happen before, and sometimes it has ruined my whole day or even week.

Inevitably, when I see an unflattering picture of myself, the thought comes "Oh my gosh. Is that what I really look like?" It's this moment of just crushing certainty that the unflattering picture is what we must look like all the time, because clearly that image of ourselves is much more real than the beautiful pictures of us. Suddenly the unflattering picture is in the forefront of my mind, and it starts to change how I see myself when I look in the mirror. Thoughts like "Do I always have a double chin, and just don't realize it?" "How was I not sucking in my stomach when this picture was taken?" "Does the back of my head look that flat all the time?" and other equally damaging and frankly ridiculous things pop into my mind, and become a merciless dialogue of self-objectification and shame.

A few years ago, I decided I wasn't going to let an unflattering picture ruin my day, or change the way I see myself and feel about myself. First of all, we shouldn't expect ourselves to look perfect all the time. Second, people see us as a moving, feeling, human being. It's not like we are ever frozen into an image in real life, and everyone is looking at us and thinking how unattractive we are.

This is one of my favorite photos ever. Me and my brother love to take purposely unflattering pictures because they make us die laughing. 

In fact, most people don't actually think about how we look all that much. Especially our friends and family. Think about the reverse of this scenario: When you see an unflattering picture of someone you know on Facebook, it's not like you think to yourself "I'm so glad their TRUE self has finally come to public light. I've always seen them that way." No way! That's terrible. We are so much more generous with others than we are with ourselves.

Besides, we are so much more than what we look like. We are what we do, what we say, what we feel, what we create, what we become . . . Don't let an unflattering picture ruin your peace of mind. You are worth so much more than that! You deserve to treat yourself better than that. Focus on what you are, and working on how you feel about yourself, instead of worrying what you "really" look like, or what other people think you look like. You have so much more to offer the world than a beautiful picture.


For more on this same topic, and strategies to bounce back from a bad body image day, check out this fantastic article from Beauty Redefined.