I Started To Finally Like My Appearance In My Mid-Thirties – This Is How I Did It

Posted on 27/04/2025 by Boris Clair

“If you want me to hide any photos, let me know”, one of my best friends messaged me after sending me the link to his wedding album.

It was a gorgeous day; a sweet, intimate ceremony, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the bridesmaids.

Despite all this happiness and joy, he knew that I would be worrying about how I looked in the photos.

I really hated my face, and I hated how it looked in some of the photos, but more than that, I hated that he knew to even suggest that to me. It was thoughtful and considerate – but also so, SO miserable.

I really couldn’t keep going on like this.

I knew I wasn’t great in front of cameras but the rush of fear that ran through my body every time I wasn’t the one clicking the shutter was getting out of control, making even the most special occasions a place of anxiety.

I can’t even tell you how it started

I wouldn’t say I once loved my appearance, but for a long time I just didn’t care. I knew that my features were nice, my family is made up of beautiful women, and in my early 20s I was able to get free drinks very easily.

At some point during the pandemic, though, I really started to hate my face. I would hide from mirrors and delete photos my partner had lovingly taken of me – candid shots of me reading, or even just snuggling with a cat.

I cried at pictures taken of me. My friends stopped taking them, or, at the very least, stopped showing me.

I called myself ugly constantly.

I did like selfies, though.

Selfies were different. I controlled the angle, the filter, the pose. When taking selfies, I finally had control over what people saw when they looked at me. As long as they never saw me in person.

I held my phone at a tilt, angling from above to get what I felt was the ‘best’ [read: slimming] version of me. Then, I’d choose a filter – usually a funny one with patterns or something silly written on them.

That way, I figured, I wasn’t falling victim to filters because I wasn’t really taking them seriously.

**Filters are harmful, though, and were likely the root of my problem**

Makenzie Schroeder and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz explored the impact of beauty filters in a paper published earlier this year in Computers in Human Behaviour.

In this study, the team found that face-slimming beauty filters on your own image are actually more harmful to body image than watching somebody else using them, or neutral colour-changing filters.

Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, people who used the slimming filter preferred the filtered version of themselves and felt ‘significantly’ worse about themselves as a result.

The authors suggested that beauty filters may encourage us to compare our real selves to an artificial version of ourselves, leaving us disappointed with how we actually look, which could result in a significant impact on mental health and increased body dysmorphia.

Sounds horribly relatable.

How I stopped hating my face

First of all, I let go of filters. It was a sad parting but I knew deep down that whether they were ‘funny’ or ‘flattering’, they were doing a number on my self image.

It did take time, and I am occasionally partial to making photos a bit brighter as I worry about my skin looking dull – but, for the most part, I’ve let go of the urge to filter images of myself.

I also stopped taking selfies. I am from the MySpace generation and for a long time I instinctively took photos of myself a few times a week. I knew that to recover from this self-loathing, I needed to not think about my appearance so often.

Ultimately, it’s just my face. Who cares?

I let my loved ones take photos of me again. I let go of the silly stubbornness that had become a feature on our time together and instead allowed myself to see what I look like through their eyes.

On a recent trip to Prague with my partner, he took a photo of me in a restaurant. I was tired, I had been a little anxious through the day and I was ready to go right to bed after our dinner.

In the picture he took, though? I look happy.

It’s not the most flattering photo of me – not even close – but it is one that I remember feeling content and warm in.

I remember the noise of the restaurant, the pizza that we shared and the butterflies in my stomach knowing I was in a city I’d been desperate to see for a decade.

Always being, or looking, beautiful really isn’t the point of it all. Accepting that not liking my appearance isn’t the end of the world completely changed me.

Eventually.

Overpraising Your Kid Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good

Posted on 12/08/2023 by Boris Clair

As parents, all we want is for our kids to be happy and confident – and part of how we show them how great they are is to dish out praise.

“Well done!” ~ “Good boy/girl!” ~ “Great job!”

You probably utter these a fair few times throughout the day if your little one does something well.

And while praise is mostly considered to be beneficial for motivation, studies have found it’s the type of praise that makes the difference here.

Which praise is best?

A review of studies found praising a child’s intelligence had more negative consequences for their achievement motivation than praise for effort.

Fifth graders (10-11 year-olds) praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort.

When these children failed, they displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort.

What’s more, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who considered it subject to improvement.

Recently, clinical psychologist Dr Martha Deiros Collado shared an Instagram post about how parents can offer praise without even thinking sometimes, and that can be a problem.

“Praise is most effective when it is specific and focused on what a child has done,” she wrote in the caption for the post. “‘Well done’ sometimes rolls off the tongue so fast you may miss the effort your child has put into something.”

Dr Deiros Collado notes that “praise is a form of pressure” so the more a parent says “well done” or “good girl/boy” the more their child is likely to rely on their parents’ evaluations and judgement of what’s good or not.

“This can increase anxiety and shrink self-confidence,” she adds.

This pressure can also make some children “pull away” from doing something they’re good at, she suggests.

So, what should parents be doing?

In short: praising effort, not talent, seems to be the best course of action.

A Stanford study of toddlers found doing this led to greater motivation and more positive attitudes towards challenges later in life.

As study author Professor Carol Zweck, told Psychology Today, statements like ‘you’re great’ or ‘you’re amazing’ aren’t helpful because later in life, when they don’t get it right or don’t do it perfectly, “they’ll think they aren’t so great or amazing”.

Dr Deiros Collado recommends talking less and asking more. So if your child draws something, you could ask: “How did you choose those colours?” or “Tell me more about the picture!”

Sometimes, instead of offering praise, silence can be just the ticket. “Let your child share their experience and pride (if it exists) or just let it be. Children do not need praise to be good,” she adds.

And lastly, she suggests you could try an approach where you offer praise and ask questions – she offers the example of saying: “Well done! You put your top on all by yourself. How did you do that?”

Of course, saying “well done” and “good girl/boy” every now and then isn’t going to hurt – but if you can think of creative ways to acknowledge your child’s effort in the things they do, you’ll be helping them in the long-run.

Next Time You Make A Negative Comment About Your Kid, Remember The 3-1 Ratio

Posted on 28/07/2023 by Boris Clair

Having good self-esteem is so important for our mental health – and with social media being exceptionally popular now, it can feel harder than ever to keep our kids feeling confident about themselves and their bodies.

Self-esteem is how a person feels about themselves. According to the charity Young Minds, most children will have dips in self-esteem as they go through different stages or challenges in life, such as bullying or sitting exams.

And as parents, it can be tough to know what to do to help them through these dips in how they feel about, and view, themselves.

Signs of low self-esteem in children

According to the mental health charity, children and young people with low self-esteem might regularly:

have a negative image of themselves
lack confidence
find it hard to make and keep friendships
feel lonely and isolated
tend to avoid new things and find change hard
can’t deal well with failure
tend to put themselves down
are not proud of what they achieve
always think they could have done better
are constantly comparing themselves to their peers in a negative way.

Thankfully there are some relatively easy ways we, as parents, can help boost our children’s self-esteem.

Apply the 3-1 ratio to everyday life

It’s pretty hard to never utter a negative comment to your child (especially when you’ve reached the end of your tether and they’ve been pushing your buttons all day).

According to Big Life Journal, a popular Instagram account offering parenting advice, for every negative comment you make about your child, you should then balance it out with three positive ones.

So, for example, if your child spilled a drink everywhere and you reacted with: “I can’t believe you did that. Why can’t you just hold your cup?”

The experts behind the account advise following up with at least three positive comments to your child that day. So things like: “I noticed you shared with your brother, thank you” or “thank you for putting your jumper away”.

“Scientists discovered that it takes three positive experiences to offset one negative experience,” they wrote in an Instagram post.

“Your child’s brain is wired to remember and focus on negative comments. So, to build your child’s self-esteem, apply this 3-1 ratio.”

Other ways to boost self-esteem, according to Young Minds, include:

Let them know you value effort rather than perfection
Encourage them to try new challenges
Encourage them to voice their opinions and ideas
Ask them about three good things that went well during their day
Acknowledge how they feel and help them to express this in words
Spend quality time together doing things they enjoy.

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