Recently, I had new headshots taken for my website and social media. The photographer who took them is incredibly talented and I actually didn’t hate my pictures, which is unusual for me. I still found lots of flaws in myself looking at those new head shots. Then I pulled some old pictures out from about ten years ago. While looking at those old pictures I thought, “Wow, I looked pretty good. I was thinner, younger, seemingly more attractive than I am today.” Yet, I can remember looking at those pictures at the time they were taken and hating how I looked.

And therein lies the vanity doom loop. I’m never happy with how I look in the moment. I either looked better in the past or I “should” look better in the future. There is the rare time that I look at myself in the current moment and find any satisfaction. Is this vanity doom loop my destiny? Am I always destined to see my current-day self as unattractive? Is this how I really want to spend my time and energy?

Is the most interesting thing about me my appearance? Seriously? The depressing aspect of this whole vanity doom loop is that I’m not on it alone. I hear women brutally judging their appearance all the time. They look in the mirror or at pictures and hate what they see. They don’t see the smile, the excitement, the full personality of themselves, but rather they focus on some perceived physical flaw. It’s exhausting, miserable, and certainly not contributing to our overall well-being.

Let’s Get Off This Rollercoaster Ride

So, I’m getting off the vanity doom loop. Who’s with me? I am who I am. I look how I look, and I looked how I looked. It’s done. My looks are truly the very least exciting aspect of me. I’m actually hysterically funny (self-diagnosed), fun, and periodically quite clever. I love my family, my friends, my clients, my work, and most especially my dog. My dog, Ginger, by the way, finds me to be the most beautiful person she’s ever seen regardless of when she sees me. I am so much more than physical appearance and I was so much more than that ten years ago and ten years before that.

This doom loop is a dangerous one in which we sit in constant judgment of ourselves. With that judgment comes tireless efforts and outrageous amounts of money and time to look a certain way. And yet, even after all of that, we still aren’t happy with how we look. We still seek to change something and believe that change will make us happy. It won’t. You know what will make us happy? Stop focusing on how we look and start focusing on who we are and how beautifully we fit in and contribute to this world.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC