Is your confidence dependent on your appearance?
Yesterday I saw an advert on Facebook it went something like this, are you shy or depressed, do you feel bad about yourself and unhappy with your life, do you want to be happy and have confidence and have an amazing fun life? Then click here…
The answer to all these problems according to this advert was weight loss. If you use their product to lose weight you will be confident and happy.
I have a big problem with this. Firstly, the assumption that if you are overweight you must be depressed, unhappy, timid and have a miserable life. Secondly, that looking good and slim will make you confident.
We are bombarded with messages that tell us we cannot be confident unless we look a certain way and if we don’t, we should be ashamed and disappointed. To feel confident, you must be (or appear to be) young, slim and beautiful. Therefore, the reason you are unhappy or shy is your appearance, so change it.
The answer we are told is to buy this weight loss product, or shapewear or contouring makeup or creams and serums or jeans that suck your tummy in or have plastic surgery. All this is driven by a multimillion-dollar industry, who profit from making you feel insecure and ashamed.
There is nothing wrong with looking after your body, your health and losing weight is you need to. Nor is there anything wrong with dressing nicely or getting your hair done or taking care of your skin. The problem is in where are you getting your confidence from and the damaging lies that you are believing. Why can’t you be confident, assertive and capable just the way you are now? Does your confidence come from what you look like or from who you are as a person?
Recently I watched a plastic surgery program about a woman who had a nose job that did not go as she expected and she thought she had been botched. To me it looked fine and I would not have even noticed it if it had not been pointed out in the TV program. She was so embarrassed about her ‘ugly’ nose she did not go out, never took her kids to the park and never went out to dinner with her husband. She was convinced everyone was staring at her ‘deformed’ nose. Her confidence and self esteem was destroyed. In the show her nose was ‘fixed’ and of course she was happy again, but the episode left me feeling disillusioned. How sad it was that this woman’s whole self-worth was tied up in her appearance and without a ‘perfect’ nose she felt useless, ashamed and not worthy of enjoying her life. Her nose is only a fraction of her physical body and no part of her character and personality, yet carried ALL the weight of her confidence.
She is not alone or unusual, many of us focus on one small area of our appearance and let it control how we feel about ourselves. How we feel about ourselves influences our careers, our relationships, our choices, our happiness and our future. Our body parts do not determine our value. My jiggly tummy just makes me a person with jiggly tummy not a bad person unworthy of love or a good life.
Be critical of the messages you encounter through the media, social media and in advertising. Know your worth and your value is not from your appearance but from God who loves you and deems you worthy. Focus more on your character and being a better person than on your outside appearance and you will be truly confident and happier.