How to Overcome Not Being able to See Yourself in the Mirror

It can be difficult to look in the mirror if you are having trouble with low self-esteem. The mirror shows us our reflection, and it can be difficult to face that image if we don’t love ourselves. You can overcome this self-doubt by making slight changes to your behavior and thought process.

Table of Contents

Change your mind

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Define the reason. Ask yourself why you can’t look in the mirror. Have you done something that is against your values and is sad about it? Are you not satisfied with your appearance? You have to be honest with yourself about what’s bothering you before you can get over it.

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Judge your actions instead of who you are. It is important that you separate your actions from who you are. Feeling guilty or bad about your actions shows that you are a good person and understand that you have made a mistake. You can deal with useless guilt by admitting you were wrong, learning from your experience, and working through it. ^{[1] X Research Source}

Guilt and shame can and often do occur at the same time. Shame is the feeling you have when you see yourself as bad, despicable, or wrong. To avoid shame, avoid building relationships with people who can’t see your worth as a person, and forge relationships with people who recognize your inner worth. ^{[2] X Research Source}

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Challenge negative thinking. It’s easy to allow negative thoughts to sap your confidence. It’s important that you avoid focusing on the negative, stop criticizing yourself, and don’t overlook your accomplishments. ^{[3] X Trusted Source Mayo Clinic Go to Source}

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Try to love yourself more. Actively take action to love and accept yourself. This will help you see yourself in the mirror. There are many ways to love yourself: ^{[4] X Research Source}

Write about your strengths. Think about the things that you do well. You can be kind, empathetic, or a great sportsman. If you have trouble thinking about your strengths, ask the people around you.
Talk to the best person inside of you. Imagine you are talking to the best or most ideal person inside of you. Think about what advice the person would give you. You may find that a part of you also has intelligent, kind, and insightful things to share about yourself. ^{[5] X Research Sources}

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Forgive yourself. If you can’t look in the mirror because you’ve done something embarrassing, try to remind yourself that we all make mistakes. Although easier said than done, instead of tormenting yourself for past mistakes, think about how to avoid repeating them in the future and how you can correct the consequences. ^{[6] X Research Sources}

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Stop comparing yourself to others. Focus on yourself and how to improve on the things that are important to you instead of thinking “Oh look at her, she’s so much prettier than me, why can’t I look like that?” Feeling inferior to others is strongly linked to shame, depression, and social anxiety. ^{[7] X Research Sources}

To avoid comparing yourself to others, try the following. Assuming you think someone is much better at cooking than you are, this makes you jealous and feel bad about yourself. Change that mindset by focusing on the things you do well. Then, instead of comparing yourself to others, compare how your current skills are better than they were 2 years ago. Focus on your own growth and improvement instead of comparing yourself to others.

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Remember that when we compare ourselves to others, we often idealize that person in unrealistic ways. On the contrary, when we compare others with ourselves, we also do not see the actual image of ourselves. People often see a somewhat negative version of themselves, don’t praise themselves as much as they deserve, and go crazy with self-criticism. To lessen the impact of this behavior, you need to distance yourself from the activity and mentally praise yourself for what you did well.

To minimize comparing yourself to others, you must first capture the moments when you are thinking comparative. For example, if you think, “Wow, I want to have a great career like my friend.” When you find yourself thinking like this, you can say, “I’m sure she worked so hard to get to where she is today. I don’t know what I can do to grow in a career that I love. .” Then you can plan your actions to move your career in the right direction.

Change your behavior

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Love others. Direct your attention outward instead of inward. Orient yourself to focus on loving and helping others. Loving and helping others will boost your confidence and make you feel better about yourself. ^{[8] X Research Sources}^{[9] X Research Sources} This love can also be reciprocated, making you feel more positive and comfortable with yourself. ^{[10] X Research Sources} There are several ways to be more considerate of others. You can:

Buy movie tickets for those in line after you.
Make time for a humanitarian cause you care about.
Buy a warm and healthy blanket or meal for a homeless person.
Spend some time thinking about what makes a person special to you. Write that person a letter with the above content and thank that person for being a part of your life.

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Try to change the things you can influence. You may not look in the mirror because you don’t like how you look. While that’s usually how you look on the outside, and psychologically it’s important to learn to love who you are on the inside, in some cases you can still take some steps. to actively change the look.

If you’re having a hard time accepting how you look and you’re overweight, take the necessary steps to reduce your body fat. Try eating slightly smaller meals, specifically about 10-15% less than normal food intake; Do your best to exercise regularly.
If you don’t like the way you look, try a complete makeover. Buy some new clothes, get a haircut, try on some new makeup. Look at yourself in the mirror and see what you see!

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Seek support from those around you. If negative thoughts stem from something you do or think about yourself, it can be beneficial to talk to others about your feelings. Let your feelings be known and this will help heal emotional wounds. ^{[11] X Research Source}

Talk to a friend about what’s bothering you. You may find that it helps to take the weight off your heart and share all your concerns.
Talk to a therapist. Find a psychotherapist in your area to help you work through each issue.
- To search for a therapist, use an online search engine with the following phrase “psychotherapist (or psychotherapist) + city name.”
- In the United States, you can find a therapist at the following online site: http://locator.apa.org/index.cfm?event=search.text

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Expand your posture. If you feel small and don’t want to look in the mirror, try expanding your posture. Many studies show that by ‘powering into a pose’ for 2 minutes, you can actually feel stronger and more confident. ^{[12] X Research Source}

To extend the pose, tilt your neck back slightly, extend your arms or put your hands on your hips, straighten your legs, and/or expand your chest.

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Start with small steps. Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself you’ll only see your reflection for 2 seconds. Look up in the mirror, looking straight into your eyes as you count to 2. Once you’ve done that, increase the time to 3 seconds, then 4, then 5 seconds. This is exposure therapy and can be an effective technique to help you overcome anxiety issues. ^{[13] X Research Source}

Steps

Change your mind

Change your behavior

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