Perhaps there’s something to self-doubt and self-criticism

“I mean, at least I can jog without a sports bra.”

Oh, that’s it. I’m disowning you.

I still have two black eyes from my half hour on the elliptical last night.

Now I’m self-critical about my absurdly long comment in your last post!

It’s good to not be complacent.

I work in daycare (I teach music and “computers”) and I think it’s a crime to tell kids to settle for what they can do *now*. Why on earth would the be in school if they knew how to do everything already? So along with saying things like, “good job,” I make sure to say, “I know you can do this. Concentrate. I’ve seen you do better.”

I personally hate criticism, but I’m often thankful for it later. I hope these kids are the same way!

I have to agree - there is a lot to be said for finding that balance between self-acceptance and striving to improve as a person. While I know some things about myself I can not change, I also recognize the things I can, and very proudly tell people who offer criticism “Thanks, I’m a work in progress.” Not that I take all of the advice given, but I try to stay open to the ways in which I can be a better person. Keep evolving!

I also want to add that PC crap is killing this nation. No one can speak the truth the way it is. Everyone wants to sugar coat the bad stuff and make bad what is actually good overall. I have more opinions, but no one probably cares. And I won’t use sugar coating, only tact. The oversensitivity to blogs of a personal nature is the reason I left Myspace. I’m so glad I did. Thanks for more great stuff! You’ve gotten yourself on my blogroll now, and I’ve never met you. Hope to see more!

One thing to think about in terms of “accepting” your shyness - I have the feeling that being really shy in the context of “self-love culture” you’re critiquing might just be re-packaged as not “loving yourself” and your other qualities enough to be more outgoing. That is to say, shyness might be viewed as a lack of self-confidence, and therefore the ideal opportunity to teach a young girl all that crap about self-acceptance.

From that angle, I think it’s an interesting example, because it could be viewed in several different ways.

Also, I used to get really nervous about making phone calls as well - particularly to restaurants from which I wanted delivery. luckily my dad cured me of that pretty fast by saying: “Oh, you don’t want to call? Then I guess we’ll have sandwiches for dinner!” Less a unique quality I adored about myself, more a crippling anxiety.

I’ve always felt that “loving one’s self” was just another way of saying “I’m too darn lazy to fix the bad things about me”. But then there’s some who actually do truly love themselves and think they are perfect and don’t need to grow or change. Both are dangerous attitudes.

I feel like I’m on a different train here. Bear with me for a minute.

Why does “accepting” necessarily mean “settling” (in fact, katieharding makes the point at the end of her post that they are not the same thing)? Yes, that saying goes “accept the things I cannot change,” but self-help wisdom also says that we must accept our problems before we can start on the path to changing them. Many people are simply in denial about having a problem or wherein their problem lies.

Katieharding gives her example. Her problem was not at heart a fat/thin issue. The Fantasy of Being Thin was more a Fantasy of Some Constructed Ideal (pretty, popular, adventurous); she just happened to conflate all of those ideas and saw “thinness” as some sort of keystone without which the rest would never be [meaningful]. The problem, however, was not her body size (which she illustrates by mentioning she was thin and didn’t really notice her problems disappear) — it was that Some Constructed Ideal was impossible and that she was using her failure to achieve it as an excuse not to do things she was afraid to do.

In order to address your shyness, Sarah, you have had to confront it (as Oprah would probably say, to embrace it). You have accepted that you are predisposed to introversion. That doesn’t mean you have settled for being a wallflower at every party from now until eternity. It does mean that you have to take different steps than an extrovert in order to achieve social success. Your definitions of that success are also very different and I’m sure you accept that as well. But you wouldn’t be in a position to challenge your limitations if you weren’t able to recognize them in the first place.

Katieharding lists a lot of limitations — mostly personality-related predispositions — which were hidden behind a “weight” screen. She was in denial about what truly needed confrontation. Perhaps it is easier to see in this context why weight, her paper tiger, seems unimportant and something that can be “accepted” or even “settled” for. The point is that there are other, significant things to be tackled (and which I sense from her post she will) which will both challenge her and improve her enjoyment of life. Yes, she might be happier exercising more; you might be happier with breast implants. We each decide where to fight our own battles.

I absolutely disagree with the idea that “loving oneself” means thinking one is perfect. I think it is instead recognizing the inherent imperfections in EVERYONE, and at the same time respecting that all of us have value and deserve love and support on our journeys through life. Can it not also be understood as being comfortable in your own skin and your own values — awareness without complacency?

My comment is sort of related to yesterday’s post, and sort of related to this one, and sort of unrelated.

You wrote: “Nannying over the last eight years or so, I’ve seen a trend of telling kids, especially girls, to love themselves no matter what, to be confident, to trust your feelings. To laugh at all of their jokes, to praise and support everything they do. I’ve also read it on a lot of magazine racks - be yourself! Love yourself!”

Recently i read a journal article in which overweight children (I think about ages 9-12) were interviewed about their eating and exercise habits, and perceptions of their body and weight. Although all the children were, by BMI definitions, overweight, some 40% of them thought they were of normal weight, and a few thought they were underweight. Is this because they’ve been told so much to “love yourself!” and “accept yourself!” that they don’t even see any flaws in themselves? Is it because childhood obesity is now so common that they don’t think they’re overweight because half their friends and classmates are equally, or more, overweight? Is it because their parents are reassuring them they are of normal weight, and is that because their parents, too, are overweight? As a future health-care provider, I want to know how we can help children and adults make choices about diet and activity that will help them be healthier, without making them feel defensive and crappy about themselves.

There is a distinct difference between self-acceptance and the arrogance of someone who thinks they are perfect. In fact, normally, the most arrogant people are the least confident, and their arrogance is bravado.
Self-acceptance enables you to be honest about your flaws, and gives you the ability to do something about them from a positive perspective. I have social anxiety issues too, so allow me to use that as an example — Self criticism says “I am anxious about calling this person. There must be something wrong with me, I must be a bad person, I need to fix it or else I will stay wrong” Self-acceptance says I am anxious about calling this person, but that doesn’t make me a bad person, I still have value. Calling is something that is good for me, and since I love myself and want to take care of myself, I should do what is good for me, even if it is hard.

Forgive me if that is unclear, it is very late and I am very tired.

erin, I think you hit the nail on the head there as yet someone else with social anxiety and phone issues.

My comment has to do with this whole idea of kids and giving them constant reassurance. I’m a bit torn on this one. On one hand, I think it’s extremely important that we get kids valuing themselves for who they are at an early age as opposed to what they look like. I feel it’s much more meaningful to compliment a little girl on a funny joke she told or a picture she drew than on her pretty smile or dress. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean we should be constantly issuing false praise, merely that it is important to think about how the praise we do issue will affect a kid’s developing perception of herself and how she is valued by others.

And hopefully, this will set the emotional foundation for her to change things about herself that she doesn’t like later on in life. If she’s overweight, she’ll be less likely to convince herself that she is or that her life is valueless because she is not thin, and that she should forego engaging in various activities simply because her weight will in some way compromise how much she’ll get out of her experiences. She’ll be more likely to view her weight problem as an isolated issue, independent of her value as a human being, and would hopefully not become quite so overwhelmed when it comes to taking the steps to fix it. I would imagine that weight loss becomes a much less daunting task when it becomes more about one’s health and desire to see a smaller number on the scale and less about becoming a Whole New Happier and Finally Fulfilled Person.

If a person is praised too much as they grow up, it won’t take long in the real world to knock them down to size.

Kate writes: “Recently i read a journal article in which overweight children (I think about ages 9-12) were interviewed about their eating and exercise habits, and perceptions of their body and weight. Although all the children were, by BMI definitions, overweight, some 40% of them thought they were of normal weight, and a few thought they were underweight.”

Perhaps this is because BMI is bunk and what BMI classifies as overweight can, in actuality, look perfectly normal in real life.

Or, like you noted, it can be due to the fact that parents and teachers are urging children to love themselves as they are. Even if the children are visibly and clinically overweight, I hardly see how this is a bad thing. Shaming anyone, especially children, about their weight and making them feel negative about themselves is hardly conducive to encouraging weight loss. Rather, it’s the recipe for a eating disorder in the making.

I find this journal article a bit strange, though, in light of a recent study that just came out which shows that one-third of overweight teenage girls engaged in extreme dieting, even eating disordered, behaviors.

I agree that a balance is to be had between loving oneself and constructively working to improve aspects of one’s life. But our culture is so attuned to pointing out how we’re never good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, rich enough, etc… that this new self-love concept, even if it’s over the top, is still under-represented.