Who else loves Amy Schumer and Emily Ratajkowski? I’m sure you love one of them.
Loving friends and our close ones is easy, but when you are closed to loving strangers you may need to question your self-love. When you find it hard to like someone, for little or no reason, it can sometimes mean that there is something that you don’t like about yourself.
But more about that later. I want to talk about a new movie called “I feel pretty” and about how these two girls are a perfect example for all women (and men) suffering from low self-esteem.
I haven’t watched TV for almost 5 years, and I very rarely sit down to watch a movie with popcorn. But today I did. My brain has been on fire for the past few months, learning more every day with books, seminars and the different audios that I listen to even while I sleep. So, I said to myself that it’s time for a break and I wanted to watch a new movie, an easy one for my mind. A girly film to feed the little girl inside me. I found “I Feel Pretty”, and as usual it was for a bigger reason than just to relax. While watching the film, I found myself pressing pause and starting to write because I needed to share my experience with you and I’m sure it can help so many girls out there.
My beautiful friend Christina, this blog is especially for you and because of you. I’m so proud of you.
In case you haven’t seen the movie, here is a short description:
“I Feel Pretty” is about a woman who struggles with deep insecurity and low self-esteem, feelings that hold her back every day. When she wakes up from a brutal fall in an exercise class, she suddenly believes she is a supermodel. With this newfound confidence she is empowered to live her life fearlessly and flawlessly, but what happened when she realized her appearance never changed? She realized that she is the same person, but how she feels inside, is how people see her on the outside. That character was Amy Schumer and here is dialogue between her and Emily Ratajkowski, the real supermodel.
Emily: “I struggle with low self-esteem”
Amy: “I wanna punch your dumb face like what?! And who can even dump you?!”
If you can’t remember who they are, these pictures may jolt your memory.
[Images: Emily on the left and Amy on the right]
Often people think that supermodels are full of self-love and that “average women” suffer from low self-esteem. This is an illusion. Most of the time, it’s the exact opposite.
What made me cry in the end, is a speech by Amy when she realized that that whole time it was “her”. She looked the same, she just felt different. This is her speech:
“When we are little girls, we have all the confidence in the world. We all let our bellies hang out and we just dance and play and pick our wedgies. And then these things happen that just make us question ourselves. Somebody says something mean to you in the playground, and then we grow up, and you doubt yourself over and over again until you lose your confidence. All that self- esteem. All that faith you started with is gone. But what if we didn’t let those moment get to us? What if we were stronger than that? What if we didn’t care how we looked? What if we never lost that little girl confidence? What if, when someone told us that we aren’t good enough or thin or pretty enough, we had the strength and wisdom to say we are better than this? BECAUSE WHAT I AM IS ME! I’M ME!”
And it is so true. I was moved by this because I help girls with same issues and I used to be one of them too. You may think that this is just a movie with a powerful message, and that although these issues are surrounding us every day, “what to do”.
Well, it’s time to DO something about it.
We must be careful of what we are saying to each other, and the messages we are sending to our children. Whether you are a teacher, you work in customer service or even if you don’t have that much interaction with children, your words still matter. Not only parents and family, everyone that you come into contact with, pass in the street or meet in the park. One word can ruin someone’s life, literally.
In today’s world, depression is a common issue, suicides are often reported in the news and sometimes people don’t even know why they are depressed. They got stuck somewhere. One of the biggest parts of my job is to help girls see themselves differently. I do one session of NLP techniques with them, and when they are in a trance they realize what it was that caused them to have negative self-belief and they are as shocked as Amy was in that movie. It’s usually when someone said something to them, and from that one interaction, they decided that they are not enough.
Revisiting the event during trance, and looking at it from a different perspective, gives them valuable learnings and they are usually laughing because something so seemingly insignificant has caused them to carry these thoughts with them. They often can’t believe what had affected them. It can be one word, or even a joke. I do these self-love sessions with beautiful girls, and once we have finished they admire themselves and see a completely different person in the mirror.
Childhood is when we form our "rules for living" which affects the way we think and feel. That is why can our early experiences have long-lasting effect on our adulthood. So just positive thinking is not helping in this situation. Because our subconcious mind is already deeply affected and we need to find a way how to reprogram our subconcious mind.
I was one of those girls too. I won beauty competitions when I was just 7 years old, but when I was 17 I suffered from depression. I compared myself with top models, and I even wanted to be black because I admired Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks. How crazy is that? But I’ll explain that story in another post.
Now, I’m so happy for everything that I experienced, because it has given me a greater understanding and the ability to help other girls around the world. I became a teacher in a model school and before I showed them how to walk the runway, I gave them lessons on how to be confident and love themselves. We had more lessons about self-love than actual modeling.
And my models always rocked in photoshoots and at the runway, because they believed in themselves!
[Image: My models and me as a model teacher]
[Images: Me as a young model]
The subconscious mind takes everything very seriously and doesn’t understand logic, or what is true or not. Even if you are joking around and you say something to your friend, niece or child, your subconscious mind hears everything as the truth!
Your subconscious takes up more than 95% of your mind, which means that your conscious only makes up 5% of everything you think or feel, and often this is not enough logic to replace the thoughts in your subconscious mind.
Why? Because your subconscious mind is also where all of your beliefs and memories are stored. Yes, ALL of them! So, if you store information that came from someone else, be it a negative thought or a something that makes you feel like you are not enough, it may continue to affect you. As a NLP life coach, I work with the subconscious mind so that I can help people around the world see their inner beauty and let go of all of their limiting beliefs and emotions.
We can all reprogram our minds and beliefs!
Now, stand up and give yourself a round of applause because you are strong. Holding on to negative data and emotions in your brain can cause you unnecessary pain and change your perception of yourself, but we have the power to change this. Pay attention to those closest to you, and ensure they are spreading messages of love. Avoid those who spread the seeds of doubt, and be careful with your own words – towards yourself and others.
Start today. Start Now.
[Image: Fashion show 2015, giving myself a round of applause.]
