The Body Acceptance Project has explored a woman’s relationship with the mirror many times. We will continue to look at this relationship, because it is such an important one. For a gender who has been, for centuries, valued first and foremost by looking a certain way, we are socialized from birth to be conscious of our bodies and therefore often quite critical when we look at ourselves in the mirror.
The criticism that happens when we look at ourselves in the mirror is often in the form of assigning blanket statement labels to what we think we see.
labeling
-We are all so much more complex than the simplicity of a label. Especially when these are negative (ugly, lazy, heavy, loser) they limit our ability to believe there is more to a person.
This one is tough to get away from because our brains like to simplify things as much as they can in order to make sense of the world (and ultimately to survive).
“So, what do you do?” is a common question when meeting someone because when we can label a person by their occupation, we relax a little. Since we have lots of associations already with what a person who is an accountant or an engineer or a server is probably like, we are put at ease when we can label a person by their occupation- there is less (we assume) that we don’t know about this new person. Our brains like to label because it can help us feel like we know what is around us and that we are safe because we can predict what will happen.
At the very least, we can be aware of this cognitive distortion when we do it so that we don’t stop at the label and we gather more information. This seems obvious with things like racial, gender, and cultural labels (or maybe not, unfortunately), but we must also be aware of labels based on opinion. “I’m forgetful” can push forgetting things once in awhile into a character trait that you add to a list of things wrong with you.
Cancel culture can use labeling to ignore any good or neutral a professional has done and label them exclusively by the abhorrent thing we’ve found out that they did.
personalization
-Choosing to take responsibility for something out of your control. This contributes to irrational guilt.
How many times has a woman said to me “I’m sorry” when doing no more than walking past me? Perhaps it is a narrow space, maybe an “excuse me” would make sense, but there have definitely been times we had yards of feet around us, plenty of room to be/walk/navigate around each other, and the personal guilt another woman felt was so strong she couldn’t resist the urge to apologize just for being in the same area. This has also happened when a woman comes out of a door I am about to enter, so I suppose the reaction to surprise is verbalized as an apology. “I’m sorry I exist,” is how it feels to hear this when there is absolutely nothing to apologize for.
SORRY for making it gendered… a male-presenting person has said “sorry” instead of “excuse me to me before. But 'sorry!”is such a common practice for women, I can’t help but speak directly to my female counterparts.
A bigger example of personalization involves feeling guilt for another person’s actions. This happens frequently in alcoholic relationships when the partner who feels bad that the alcoholic missed work or their kids’ event or any other obligation, so they do things to mitigate the trouble caused. The partner wasn’t the one who messed up, but by personalizing the mess up (that they didn’t cause), they keep the alcoholic safe from natural consequences because they clean up the mess.
We all, from time to time, default to ways of thinking that make us feel worse than we need to. Understanding some of the specific cognitive distortions that can become habit, and that when you aren’t paying attention, can wreck your mood, can help you think more clearly and also FEEL BETTER.
The previous five Body Acceptance Project posts have outlined common cognitive distortions. If those above resonate with you, take a peek (or a peek back again) at those described in previous posts, because the more aware of your thoughts you are, the more opportunity you have to choose thinking that serves you.
