“Operations help not to be distracted by feelings because of appearance

Our heroine admits that changing what she doesn’t like with the help of plastic interventions turned out to be much more effective than trying to love the imperfections of her appearance for years. She believes that we are wasting time and energy in the fight against self-acceptance. The story is commented by Gestalt therapist Daria Petrovskaya.

«I want to feel that I am beautiful»

Elena, designer, 37 years old: “In my youth, I went to psychological trainings that sang of naturalness and the need to love yourself as anyone. Exactly how was not explained. But they actively insisted on it.

At some point, I realized that in order to accept my imperfections, I had to go through the path of internal struggle, to break myself. But it’s more profitable for me not to fight with myself, but to fix something now and enjoy the result. It’s nicer and much more real. After all, attempts to come to terms with the shortcomings of appearance can stretch for many years, provoking an endless internal conflict.

I have never regretted that I went to certain manipulations with the face and body. The illusory race to «accept and love yourself with flaws» is very quickly destroyed by other people’s comments and criticism. We waste precious time on experiences. And time is a resource that cannot be returned.

Everything I have done comes from intrinsic motivation, not from the desire to be in trend

To understand how satisfied you are with your appearance, it is enough to record yourself on camera. You will be surprised how much of your strength can be taken away by feelings because of the external picture, the desire to find a winning angle.

I conduct online seminars, I’m used to working with a camera. And I easily pass this confidence test. Now I don’t have to worry about how I look. I don’t worry about it at all and I can fully concentrate on my tasks.

I am sure: there is always internal and external motivation for changing the appearance. I act based on my own needs, not because of the dictates of fashion.

There is not a single “fashionable” feature on my face: a small snub nose, high cheekbones, a chiseled chin and lips with a bow. I do not strive for a unified appearance. I never emphasize the figure with clothes, and even more so I don’t flaunt myself on social networks.

At the same time, I do not hide the fact that I resorted to plastic surgery. And people often do not understand why then I went for it. The answer is simple: everything that I have done comes from internal motivation, and not from the desire to be in trend or because of criticism of me. I want to feel that I am beautiful. And there is no need to demonstrate it to anyone specifically. I do not expect evaluation and praise. I only do it for myself.»

“Why is the heroine trying to speed things up?”

Daria Petrovskaya, Gestalt therapist: “It is important to distinguish between external and internal locus of control. In the first case, supports, resources and achievements are attributed to the influence of external factors: “Others like me, which means that everything is fine with me” or “I was helped to cope with the task, I could not have done it myself.”

The internal locus of control is more turned to their own resources and processes: a person is able to rely on his personal skills. At the same time, both of these factors are important in any activity. In other words, both “horizontal” and “vertical” supports are needed: I myself and I are in contact with others, with the environment.

Obviously, the heroine has a very good internal locus of control.

In addition, any of our activities implies a process or result orientation. In this story, I see a fixation rather on the result. If the process itself is important, it becomes possible to enjoy it, even if the results are far from ideal.

Do these changes come from a desire to constantly correct «imperfections» or from love and respect for yourself?

If a person is focused only on the result, then the path to it turns out to be an unfortunate misunderstanding that must be endured. Hence there may be a desire to speed up the process, regrets about the time spent, a feeling of painful stay at the point of the present.

The question arises: why is the heroine trying to speed things up and even a new appearance turns out to be a means to achieve a long-awaited result? Her speech, of course, sounds confident, she repeatedly notices that she does all the interventions for herself, and not out of a desire to please others. Critical thinking is clearly visible in her story. Obviously, she did not make her decisions, being at the point of neurosis. It was a truly balanced choice.

But therapeutic intuition pushes me to ask more about the part that the heroine considers imperfect and wants to redo as soon as possible. What is so unbearable in the shortcomings of appearance? Do these changes come from a desire to constantly correct «imperfections» or from love and respect for yourself?

This question is still open for me.”

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