5 Tips for Healing Your Self Image

It’s summertime: season of beach days and gatherings with friends and family. With all the warm weather we’re wearing less layers to cover up the parts of our bodies we might feel self-conscious about. Maybe you’re getting ready for a big event like a wedding or reunion, but you’re feeling anxious about how you’ll look and what people will think. In this post, we’ll talk you through healing your self image, the therapy interventions that can help, and five tips for getting started. 

What is self image?

Self image is related to what you see when you look in a mirror; however, it goes much deeper than that. Self image also refers to how we see ourselves on a more holistic level, both internally and externally. Self image is also connected to your self-esteem, the way you see yourself affects the way you feel about yourself.

When to seek professional support for your self image

A certain amount of self-consciousness about our bodies is a normal part of being a human in a body around other human bodies – the human brain is wired to notice our similarities and our differences. But sometimes that self-consciousness can lead to profound negative self image, and even self-harm. 

There can be many contributing factors to negative self image, from family dynamics to school and workplace culture, to popular media. Maybe you grew up in a family culture where negative body talk was normalized, like a caregiver who made critical comments about their own body—or yours. Maybe it’s because you were bullied at school, or you witnessed other kids get bullied. The media is another common source of negative self image; many of us have been immersed in imagery of idealized body types (thin, white) from a young age. 
Whatever the reasons why you might have developed a negative self image, it’s important to know that this is something you can change and heal, with support from a therapist. If the negative self image becomes intrusive to your daily life, making it hard to function or enjoy everyday things, or if it is leading to self-harm behaviors or disordered eating, then it’s time to seek support from a therapist. 

What kind of therapy methods can help improve self image?

There are a few different therapeutic approaches that can help improve your self image: 

• Mindfulness Therapy: Mindfulness Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that helps clients to focus on the present moment. It uses techniques such as breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.

• Art Therapy: Art therapy involves the use of creative techniques such as drawing, painting, collage, coloring, sculpting, along with others to help clients express themselves through art and recognize the psychological and emotional undertones in their art. Art therapy can help clients interpret the nonverbal messages, symbols, and metaphors often found in these art forms, which can lead them to a better understanding of their feelings and behavior.

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT is a form of therapy that combines cognitive therapy (focusing on helping clients identify their thoughts and how to change the way they think) with behavioral therapy, which is an approach that focuses on changing people’s behavior. 

• Strengths-Based Therapy: Strengths-based therapy focuses on a person’s internal strengths and resourcefulness to improve resilience and reshape the narratives they’ve believed about themselves.

5 tips to help improve your self image

1. Focus on recognizing your strengths and achievements. Write them down or make a collage to illustrate them.

2. Practice positive affirmations, and be consistent with it. Here’s an example affirmation to get you started: My body is my home; I will build it up, not tear it down.

3. Write a love letter to yourself in which you recognize the value you bring to yourself and others.

4. Reserve time to take care of yourself, and do the things you love, such as your favorite hobbies.

5. Try to have a mindful moment by deep breathing when you notice you are having a lot of negative thoughts about your body.

Self image therapy near you 

The way you see yourself affects the way you feel about yourself. When we need help seeing ourselves more clearly so that we can honor and love ourselves, a therapist can help. At ECC, we work with patients of all backgrounds and walks of life to heal their self image. Our diverse group of licensed therapists offer a multidisciplinary approach, combining mindfulness, art, and CBT practices to meet clients’ needs. If you’re struggling with your self-image, we’ll connect you with the right therapist and therapy method to help you thrive. 

About ECC: 

Empowered Connections Counseling is a practice of licensed therapists providing quality, multidisciplinary counseling for adults, children & teens, relationships, and families in Chicago and across Illinois. Whether by in-person session or via telehealth, we work with clients to find the therapist and treatment methods that best suit their needs. Connect meaningfully with your life by booking an appointment today.

Practicing Self-Love Around Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day as it is celebrated in modern culture is a chance to celebrate romantic love, yet it can also be a painful reminder if you’re currently single, have recently lost or ended a relationship with a romantic partner, or are processing relationship trauma. Even in a relatively healthy partnership, Valentine’s Day can be fraught with social pressures to demonstrate romantic commitment in certain ways like expensive gifts and romantic dates. It’s all too easy to feel disappointment, grief, or stress around Valentine’s Day, which is why practicing self-love and compassion are important. Here are a few therapy tips for honoring your authentic needs and values around Valentine’s Day.

What Do Your Feelings Tell You About Your Needs, Values, and Beliefs

First, let’s do a little check in: how are you feeling about the upcoming Valentine’s Day? Are you dreading it, excited about it? Annoyed by it? Stressed or anxious about it? Our feelings and expectations about holidays like Valentine’s Day are often signs of deeper issues that we need to address, from misguided beliefs to unmet needs.

For example, if you’re single and dreading the holiday, perhaps you’re struggling with what you believe your relationship status says about your worth (e.g., I’m alone because I’m unlovable). Or perhaps you’re in a relationship, but you’re feeling anxious about whether you can fulfill your partner’s expectations for a romantic evening (i.e., if I don’t come up with an extravagant gift, she’ll dump me) or the opposite (i.e., if he doesn’t make plans to celebrate with me, is it a sign that he doesn’t love me?) These fears are often signals of unmet needs or mismatched expectations about how you can express love and care for each other.

It’s important to take time to reflect on your feelings and expectations, and try to dig down to the thing beneath the thing—what are my feelings telling me about my beliefs, needs and values about this holiday?—and acknowledge those deeper issues with compassion, curiosity, and a commitment to honoring your needs.

Self-Love Practices for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day, like any holiday, comes with its share of social pressures that may have more of a negative impact than a positive one. Whether you’re single or partnered, it’s important for your mental health to practice self-love. Your relationship to yourself is the most important one you have, after all. Here are a few self-love practices that can help you stay emotionally grounded around Valentine’s Day.

• Take time to love yourself with a little self-care. Be generous and kind to yourself, in whatever way you’re able - it could be taking a solo hike, scheduling a massage, or making time to do a creative activity that you don’t usually have time for. Whatever you choose, the goal is to nurture your mental and physical well-being.

• Practice gratitude and appreciation, both for the relationships that are meaningful to you (romantic or not) and for yourself. Although we often go through our days with a fleeting sense of gratitude in the moment, we can make space to practice gratitude intentionally; for example, you could write down a list of relationships in your life and the qualities within those relationships you’re grateful for. You can also practice gratitude for yourself by engaging in a loving kindness meditation, like this one from Tara Brach.

• Set healthy boundaries in your relationships. Now is a good time to take stock of your relationships (every kind) and check in with yourself about how you want to be treated, and how you want to treat others. If things between you and another person are feeling out of sorts, follow these steps for setting healthy boundaries.

• Ask for what you need from friends, partners, or family. Similar to setting healthy boundaries, being clear about your needs with your loved ones is a way to honor yourself and improve your relationship to others at the same time. For example, if you’re feeling grief this Valentine’s Day over a loss or a breakup, be honest about your feelings and ask for support.

• Build community connections. There are many types of love to celebrate, and there are many people who need love but are not romantically partnered. Modern western culture places much more emphasis on monogamous romantic partnerships than it used to, often at the expense of communal connections. Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to lend your time and attention to community activities that build loving connection in non-romantic ways, like volunteering your time at a senior living facility, shelter for the unhoused, or a hospital ward.

Mental Health Support Around Valentine’s Day

Self-love is the work of a lifetime. Everyone struggles to be kind to themselves and improve their mental health; it’s important to know that you’re not alone. Meeting with a therapist can help you connect with your emotions, clarify your needs, and revise the story you tell yourself about your life, your relationships, and your ability to connect with others.

At Empowered Connections Counseling in Chicago, our group of multidisciplinary therapists provide mental health support for individuals and relationships of diverse backgrounds and experiences: whether you’re single, healing from heartbreak or loss of a partner, recovering from intimate partner violence or betrayal, or you and your partner(s) are straight, LGBTQIA+, monogamous or polyamorous. We’re committed to helping you find the right therapist and strategy to strengthen your mental health, self-esteem, and relationship bonds. Book an appointment today to get started.

About ECC:

Empowered Connections Counseling is a practice of licensed therapists providing quality, multidisciplinary counseling for adults, children & teens, relationships, and families in Chicago and across Illinois. Whether by in-person session or via telehealth, we work with clients to find the therapist and treatment methods that best suit their needs. Connect meaningfully with your life by booking an appointment today.

Building a Secure Attachment in Your Relationships

You might know about attachment styles from books, mental health experts, or the therapist on Instagram that you follow. If it is new to you, then here is a little background. Attachment theory focuses on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in relationships between people. This includes, but is not limited to, friendships, romantic relationships, polyamorous relationships, and even working relationships.

The theory was founded by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Bowlby and Ainsworth believed that our attachment style was formed based on the responsiveness of the adults around us in our early experiences. There are four different attachment styles; secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. If you want to know more about each style, we encourage you to check out this blog post, Attachment Styles & Their Roles in Relationships from The Attachment Project.

We all embody levels of each attachment style depending on the situation and relationship, but we typically have a more dominant style. What is key is knowing how your dominant way of relating to others shows up. What thoughts do you have about relationships, vulnerability, interdependence? What are your relational triggers and core fears? What do you do when you experience these triggers?

Gaining insight on yourself in this way can feel overwhelming at first. However, the benefit of attachment is that our neurological pathways are malleable. Meaning your dominant attachment can shift. There is no shame in what exists for you when you relate to others. We all have our own stories that make us who we are. However, working toward a sense of security in ourselves and our relationships can help us in leading more authentic, connected lives. Read on for how you can start to build a secure attachment. 

Talk to a therapist: exploring with a therapist the nature of your attachment orientation is key. Explore your relationship history. What is your earliest memory of feeling reassured, comforted, empathically understood? What were your caretakers’ attitudes toward emotional vulnerability? (i.e. weakness, sign of lack of self-reliance, a healthy part of development, an opportunity for connection) Did you seek support? Who did you turn to? Explore your core attachment fears and needs. Do you have a fear of abandonment or fear of being controlled? Take time to examine that.

Start with yourself: Continuing outside of therapy, exploring your own emotional world is key when establishing secure bonds. Practice being alone and sit with what that feels like. Journal to explore your emotions, and practice breathing exercises that will support you in moments of dysregulation. When you have a better sense of yourself, then you can better communicate your feelings and needs.

Create rituals: when working to establish security in your relationships. Find intentional ways to create rituals with those people. Whether it is a romantic partner, friend, family member, or coworker. Send your friend texts letting them know what they mean to you, or express gratitude for your friendship weekly. If it is your romantic partner, create coming and going rituals. When you leave for the day give them a kiss and a hug. When you get home ask them how their day was and give your full presence. If it is a work friend, schedule time to have lunch dates with them each week, and share what you admire about their work ethic. A little bit can go a long way!

Practice ATTUNEMENT: Use the acronym ATTUNE to practice attunement. Bring in awareness of your own feelings or your partner’s. Turn toward them or express to them what you are feeling. Tolerate your difficult emotions, as well as theirs with a deep breath. Try to seek to understand what they are experiencing. Practice non-judgmental listening and keep the focus on them. Lastly, empathize with them. Find ways you can relate to what they are feeling.

As social creatures we thrive on connection, and desire a strong sense of belonging. Attachment wounds from early experiences can stay with us and show up in our adult relationships. It can be an emotional, painful process un-packing that, but with the support of a therapist there is hope.

Schedule an appointment at Empowered Connections Counseling

Book Recommendations: 

Attached By, Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Polysecure By, Jessica Fern

The Power of Attachment By, Dr. Diane Poole Heller

Meta-Emotions: Having Feelings about your Feelings

Picture This

Two friends Paul and Marty are out for a coffee catching up about life and work. At some point near the end of their catch up, Marty mentions a recent promotion - a promotion Paul himself had been vying for as well (unbeknownst to Marty). This sparked immediate jealousy in Paul. Slowly after his initial glimmer of envy, Paul quickly began to become angry toward himself for feeling jealous, which spirals him into self-shame and deeper despair. He thinks to himself, ”how can I be feeling this way? I am such a “bad friend”.”

Do you envision this moment and think to yourself, “wow I can relate”? Yep, us too! We refer to this scenario as an example of meta-emotions or having emotions about our emotions.

Let’s Break this Down

Paul’s initial emotion of jealousy -> led him to react to that emotion with another emotion -> leaving Paul angry at himself for feeling jealous.

Another common example is panic, which is often the outcome of anxiety, about anxiety. Associated symptoms of panic ensues -> you begin to notice your symptoms setting in -> therefore causing more anxiety over your panic. 

Meta-emotions often lead to greater distress and dysregulation. All the while the original, primary emotion is unattended to - making matters worse. We know, it can feel like a vicious cycle.

So What Do You do?

First identify what is happening. Simply pausing to name the experience creates awareness and opportunity to intervene. Insight is power. Meta-emotions can be tricky and deceptive - name it. 

Second, find acceptance and compassion towards the initial feeling. While you may not always agree with your emotional experience, it is here with you no matter how hard you try to change it. This practice allows that first emotion to flow through more quickly. Emotional acceptance meditation expert Tara Brach offers this statement, “I consent to this feeling being here with me”.

I imagine Paul would be able to more effectively move through his jealousy with less shame and turmoil through a compassionate journey of acceptance toward his jealousy. We believe you can too. A final suggestion, take the time to explore any meta experiences to gain awareness and prepare for the next time they come back around. Check out these reflective questions to help guide you!

Reflective questions:

What meta-emotional cycles do you find in your life?

How do you know you are experiencing a meta-emotional cycle? What does that look like?What feels hard about that emotion? Is there an origin story there?

What has helped you to manage this experience?