How To Deal With Self Image As An Over Thinker

How it feels to overthink your self image

Recently I was thinking about self image, and thought to myself I don’t think I’ve really dealt with self image problems. That’s when I stopped myself and asked what self image really meant to me. I discovered that I really just viewed my appearance as my own definition for self image, the outward image of myself. 

Which honestly told me a lot. It told me that when I think of myself, I first think of the outside and tend to neglect my view of the inside.I think a stronger definition of self image would be how you view yourself as a whole inside and outside. 

With this definition in mind I had a really different approach to how I viewed my self image. My self image and I have been at odds for most of my life, and I think it’s something that coincides with overthinking and having no control over the way that you think about yourself. 

What is overthinking about my self image is doing to my life

When I really sat with the idea that my natural view of who I was, it was quite literally that I was a terrible person. And I think this perspective at all time, creates a really stagnant life around me. I’m afraid to speak because I think I’m bad, I’m afraid to make moves in life because I don’t deserve it because I’m just a bad person. I’m afraid to meet people because I don’t think I have anything to offer because I’m bad. 

Writing it out is a really crazy perspective to have about yourself, but I do. And this perspective has made me miss out on just being the person I know that I can be, but my own mind robs me of those experiences. I quite literally create a cage for my own self to live in and that’s stupid. 

One thing that I think stifles me quite a bit is really seeing things in black and white, I really neglect those grey areas and I really neglect learning and moving on and forgiving myself. Anything I do wrong is insurmountable to anything I do good, and I will reprehend myself forever on the things I do wrong. And this perspective is how I view myself. 

What made me want to change my view on self image

Your perspective about yourself is everything. It’s really the lens you get to see your world. It will shape not only your outer world but your inner world as well. Your perspective is your superpower and whichever way you choose to use it will feed the goodness of your own life. This is what made me have the desire to really change my own self image. 

My life around me was not bad, there may be bad moments or bad days, but collectively my life around me is good. I have good health, a good job, a good family, and a good place to live the rest is just cherries on top. However, living in a state of mind that believes you deserve none of the things that you need to live, was becoming a problem to the point of affecting just my desire to be on earth at all. 

Believing you deserve nothing is exhausting, it made things very hard to enjoy and appreciate because when I acknowledged what I was grateful for my mind immediately came in with those beliefs I allowed that you’re terrible and deserve none of this. I really couldn’t carry this way of thinking anymore and it was just draining the life out of me and still does to be transparent. 

What I thought about to make changes with my self image  

While I will say this way of thinking is cyclical and does come in to knock me down from time to time, just  being aware of it is tremendously helpful. To just know these thoughts are happening and that im not just blindly accepting them anymore gives me the awareness to challenge them 

Challenging them does feel stupid, I won’t lie. I feel like I’m really just boxing my own self in my head and it’s really just me vs me, but I keep challenging the thoughts. I am currently doing Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and in doing the morning pages I see those negative thoughts written down, and I challenge them x 10. Write your bad thoughts down and let that shit go and fill in that brain space with 20 things that combat the lies you’re telling yourself.  

Making changes to your mind is not easy and it feels dumb and like you’re doing something that will never work. But just like changing anything, your job, your friends, where you live, your body it all has to be intentional and takes some planning. This is no different, but it is what I believe to be the most important. 

What I chose to do with what I learned about my self image

I know that I am my biggest hater, which is encouraging solely because if I’m my biggest hater I know I have the capability to become my biggest lover and supporter. The belief that I’m bad was created and born under a thought process I did not choose, it was something that my mind made up and I just accepted. But our minds are equally as unpowerful as they are powerful, meaning that your thoughts are important but they are not always true. 

I have not gotten there yet to where I can say I’m my biggest supporter but when you tear something down so much, like your own self, it means that once you clear all the rubble in the way you have a clean spot for a foundation. Nothing is built in hate or lack of encouragement, it is only torn down. So as many time as I have do clear this shit out of the way to make room to build myself up I will. 

When you overthink you’re going to naturally have tons of thoughts. It’s your job to decide which of those thoughts are not only true, but to also decide which of those thoughts are important enough to imbed themselves into your self concept. 

How I carried out what I learned about self image

So how will I go about building myself up? I will do it slowly and I will do it with intention. I’ve seen myself lose way to much to this damaging perspective I’ve allowed myself to carry, it doesn’t have to be this way and i can use up all my free will to creat my mind into a place I’d like to stay in and enjoy. 

I will build myself up by listening to my overthinking and changing that talk, I will use my journaling time to build myself up with intention and remind myself that I am in fact a powerful, wonderful woman, I will build myself up by the life I create around me with only uplifting and encouraging things around me. My inner world will reflect my outer world and that will be my check on how my inter world is going. Do I like the life I see around me and how is my inner world in correlation to that enjoyment? 

I think this process will be a life long journey of checks and balances and making sure I’m creating my perspective and not just accepting it. I don’t have to accept anything I don’t like, and can make changes at anytime. The home that you create in your head affects everything, and I’m trying to make it a nice place to be.