BE YOUR OWN CHEERSQUAD
SOME DAYS WE FEEL HAPPIER THAN OTHERS, AND THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MAKE SURE THE GOOD DAYS OUTNUMBER THE REST
Some mornings, I look in the mirror and think, ‘damn girl, you’ve got it going on!’ My curves are beautiful. My hair is shiny. My legs are looking so defined right now.
My internal monologue is a choir singing my praises (which happens to sound a lot like Beyonce).
Yet, other days the choir has apparently gone on strike and been replaced by a cruel posse of supermodels pointing out my cellulite and the fact I barely have ankles.
Why is it we feel confident and ready to tackle anything, physically and mentally, some days, while on others we feel ashamed of how we look and weighed down by self-loathing over last night’s pasta?
Rachel Tomlinson, a registered psychologist from Toward Wellbeing, says there is no single answer to why we feel happier some days than others.
“There are a number of elements of happiness,” she explains. “Having strong, healthy relationships, a genetic predisposition or temperament (including resilience or the ability to bounce back after adversity), positive thought patterns or thinking style (attitudes) and a sense of security (including financial and physical).”
But sometimes ‘mental schemas’ are to blame, she says.
What are mental schemas, you ask? Rachel explains it as, “a rule or set of expectations we have set about something”.
“They are quite automatic and our brain uses them to quickly apply knowledge so it
can move on and examine other things in our environment.”
She adds, those fluctuations in our self-esteem or confidence usually come down to our perception or schema of a situation, interaction or something happening in our day.
I have a terrible habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and scrolling through Instagram. I suspect this has a huge effect on my overall mood in the morning.
When I ask Tomlinson about this, she agrees: “The idea that social media can negatively impact on a person’s self-confidence is not a particularly new one,” she says. “Seeing beautiful, posed social media posts is not real, yet it drives unrealistic expectations. These images on social media don’t represent a wide range of ‘normal’ or people who have faults and are flawed... these restricted images are creating pressure for people to look or act in certain ways and any deviation can be seen as lacking or faulty in some way.”
When I quiz Tomlinson on her tips for those days we’re feeling more ‘ohh’ than ‘woah!’, she suggests daily gratitude. She has a 30-day gratitude activity on her website, which she says is a helpful way to train ourselves to focus on the positive rather than negative. Like a muscle, if you train your mind, you can change your outlook on life.
Another tip, she says, is to squeeze more time in your day for an activity you’re good at. It doesn’t have to be anything difficult, maybe baking a cake or going for a walk, but the smallest sense of accomplishment can have positive effects on self esteem. She adds, “you can remind yourself of the steps or time it took for you to learn or master this activity”.
“You are also able to remind yourself that you are a multi-faceted person who has strengths and also overcome challenges.”
Challenging your self-talk, exercising and being kind to yourself are three other methods to kick your negativity to the kerb.
I’ve recently decided to unfollow any social media accounts that make me feel bad about myself and instead followed more body-positive accounts.
Seeing women of different shapes and sizes really makes me feel a sense of belonging and that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with my curvy ankles peeping out the end of my jeans.
At work, whenever someone is feeling down, we share this quote (it’s one of my favourites): Never forget: you is kind, you is smart, you is important.