Today is National Compliment Your Mirror Day. It’s a day to show ourselves some love and remind ourselves of how wonderful we are. Self-love is an area many of us—especially women—need a little help with. This week, let’s challenge ourselves to reject unrealistic external standards and embrace our real beauty.

You can’t hate yourself happy. You can’t criticize yourself thin. You can’t shame yourself worthy. Real change begins with self-love and self-care.

Jessica Ortner

Three simple pleasures and highlights

This was a busy week with lots of positive highlights. Continuing my practice of celebrating the simple things in life, here are three simple pleasures of the last week.

• Last weekend we went to visit our daughter Laura for her birthday. For dinner, we enjoyed ribs from the local rib-fest. After dinner, we went for a walk by the lake.
• On Sunday evening, I went to a potluck dinner at our church. It was the first large parish event since COVID and it was so wonderful to gather with people again. Sadly, it was bittersweet as we had to say good-bye to our pastor who is moving to another parish.
• It was a great week for wildlife sightings on our local pond. On Sunday, we saw dozens of tiny frogs on the trail near the pond. On Monday, we finally saw the first ducklings of the season—they definitely made their appearance much later than most years. And, one evening during the week, we spotted a turtle swimming with the goldfish.

This week’s simple living focus: Self-love

Our society puts so much pressure on women to live up to unrealistic standards of perfection. Despite the billions of dollars spent on beauty products every year, many women are overly critical of their appearance.

Is it any wonder? Everywhere we look, we see ads showing images of fashion models that have been airbrushed to a standard no real woman can ever live up to. This is especially problematic for young girls and young women.

And it’s not just advertisers

Sadly, it’s not just advertisers we need to worry about. Pre-teen and teen girls and constantly compare themselves to doctored-up images posted to social media sites by their friends. When my daughters were younger, I recall asking “who’s that?” when seeing some of the pictures on their Instagram. They would tell me and I’d shake my head and comment that the photo didn’t look like that person at all.

This trend probably all started innocently enough with Snapchat filters that let you embellish your photos with things like pig noses and puppy ears. Some of those silly cartoons looked more realistic than many of the “real” selfies we see. It’s almost laughable, but it’s a serious issue.

Being a pre-teen or teenager has always been difficult, but this trend toward doctored-up selfies is causing self-esteem and body image issues for many young people. A few months ago, in my monthly roundup, I featured an excellent post by a fellow blogger at Unwanted Life about Snapchat Dysmorphia and Selfie Dysmorphia. If you missed it, it’s worth a read.

Despite all the challenges, there is hope.

Dove’s reverse selfie campaign

Dove is a company that I applaud for their approach to advertising. Several years ago, they made several commitments in their Real Beauty Pledge. Their ads feature only untouched photos of real women, not models. They also promote body confidence and self esteem in young women through the Dove Self-Esteem Project.

More recently, Dove has been fighting back against the disturbing social media selfie trend in The Selfie Talk campaign. This campaign involves ads showing reverse selfie videos. If you haven’t seen these ads, I urge you to check out this video:

If watching that video doesn’t convince you to shun unrealistic beauty standards, nothing will. Sadly, those filtered and over-edited selfies make many young people—and older women too—feel inadequate.

The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be someone else.

e.e. Cummings

It’s time to reject unrealistic and unhealthy standards and show ourselves some self-love!

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Three things to do this week

It’s tough to undo a lifetime of negative self-talk and criticism. But self-love is critical to our mental well-being.

Beauty is when you can appreciate yourself. When you love yourself, that’s when you’re most beautiful.

Zoë Kravitz

Here are three things you can do this week to practise self-love.

Stop comparing yourself to others

When you find yourself comparing yourself to others, stop. You are the only you in the world. Remind yourself that you’re unique and beautiful and no-one else has lived your life. And, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself that those pictures you’re comparing yourself to are probably doctored.

Focus on the positive

Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Write down three things you like about your appearance. While you’re at it, write down three qualities you admire about yourself.

If this is difficult for you, turn your negative thoughts into positives.

Remind yourself of the amazing children that gave you those stretch marks. Look at every scar as a sign of strength and a life well lived. Value the wisdom that comes with living long enough to have a few wrinkles and grey hairs.

Personally, when I’m having a bad hair day, I remind myself that 11 years ago I was bald from chemotherapy. That memory makes any concerns about my current hair seem pretty insignificant. (You can read about how losing my hair changed my views on appearance in the guest post I wrote for Smelly Socks and Garden Peas Lessons in Loss series.)

Have the selfie talk with the young people in your life

Finally, if you’re the parent of a pre-teen or teenager, talk to them about selfies and the influence of social media in their lives. Dove has excellent resources on their website, including The Confidence Kit—a 32-page guide with tips to help you improve your own body confidence and have the talk with your kids.

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This week, let’s take some small steps to reject the phoniness of the online world and show ourselves some self-love.

How will you show yourself self-love this week? Tell me your ideas below.