Personal Growth Planet Blog

What does accepting– even loving– your body have to do with what really matters in life? Why is feeling beautiful important anyway?

After all, wars are being waged, people are losing their jobs, people are starving and suffering, the Earth is changing in many worrisome and scary ways…

Aren’t those the really important things?

When I get all caught up in feeling less than lovely, I start to feel embarrassed. It seems somewhat narcissistic and self-obsessed for me to be stressing out and consumed by my negative perceptions of how I think my body looks.

The word “unconditional” is thrown around quite a bit. It is often assumed that parents love their children unconditionally. Lovers are expected to love one another unconditionally. To boost self esteem, a person is encouraged to accept him or herself unconditionally.

I don’t know about you, but truly accepting or even loving unconditionally is not as easy as it sounds.

If any of us are completely honest with ourselves, we’d probably discover that there’s not a whole lot of unconditional loving or accepting going on.

I think of myself as a pretty positive kind of person.  I make it a point to focus on what, to me, is going “right” in a situation.

If the cake I bake falls, I remind myself that it still tastes good. If I have to spend an afternoon with someone who usually annoys me, I try to find something about the visit that I can genuinely appreciate.

(Okay, I’ll admit it. This is an intention and not always the way it plays out.)

I don’t think I know a single person who is ambivalent about Valentine’s Day.

When I hear people talk (and I’m sure there are exceptions), there is generally aversion or excitement to February 14th. There’s rarely anything in between.

Some look forward to passionate celebrating with the one they love.
Others scowl and rant about how this is yet another Hallmark-created holiday.
Yet others grimace at this reminder of how alone or heart broken they feel.

I tend to be a romantic kind of person and so I fall into the “looking forward to it” category. However, like many people, Valentine’s Day is fraught with traps and turmoil for me too.

During my high school and undergraduate years, I remember looking forward to being a full-fledged adult. Part of the allure of getting older was the promise of no longer caring about what others think of me.

Now that I am most certainly a “full-fledged” adult, I am a bit disappointed to see that this desire for acceptance and approval has not magically evaporated. It’s still there even if it takes different forms and is mellower (at times).

I’ve heard plenty of people claim that a benefit of growing older is that you don’t care what anyone else thinks about you anymore. Unfortunately, I have not found that to be true in my experience.

This time of year there’s generally a lot of advice being offered about how to stick with your New Year’s resolutions and how to make changes. I’ve joined in and blogged about this topic in the past few weeks too.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with noticing something about your habits or your life that you’d like to improve upon. In fact, as humans, we tend to constantly be pulled to expand and grow. If we resist this urge, stagnation can result.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

In the final scene of the movie “The Darjeeling Limited,” three brothers who have experienced a quirky and arduous journey together through India run for their train that’s already in motion. They carry several pieces of luggage that once belonged to their father. At one point mid-run, each brother throws aside his suitcases and shoulder bags and finally leaps upon that departing train.

Have you ever felt weighted down by your low self esteem?

By Amy Phillips-Gary

When I was in high school, I had the honor of being in many plays and musicals*. It was wonderfully creative and fun to be up on stage singing, dancing and acting with friends.

And it was also a gut-wrenching experience.

Before and after each show I usually assessed my performance. Almost every time, I honed in on the mistakes I made (or expected to make)– lines out of order, missteps or voice slightly off-key.