Dear taytay:

“Once when I was 12, one of my teachers made a comment on how my nose is kinda wide. and I didn’t take it personally back then, but two years later, at 14, in quarantine, it hit me and I have been insecure since“-

-this sentence should be the topic of at least 10 classes that all teachers have to take as part of their training before and after certification. It is so very wrong for teachers to make any comments in regard to students’ physical features, neither positive nor negative comments!

“This self-acceptance journey I started last year seems harder… Is there any advice on what I can do to not care about other people’s opinions“-

– What I found out in life is that as the social animals that we are (humans) we can’t help but care about what other people think of us. So, if your goal is to not care at all about what anyone and everyone thinks of you, you will not succeed. The key is (1) whenever and wherever possible, do not make yourself available to negatively critical people, (2) aim at not care too much about people’s negative opinions of you.

To achieve the latter, when a person expresses a negative thought about your looks or your behavior, look at the person making the criticism and ask yourself: if I wanted to criticize this particular person, could I find something to criticize, physically and behaviorally?

I am sure the answer would be Yes. This means that we all can be criticized by anyone who wishes to criticize, but good people are careful to criticize only when the criticism is valid, and when it is, deliver the criticism (in most cases) very gently, so to minimize the person’s hurt and to not turn the person off to the valid criticism. This very thing that I am writing to you here, is something that I personally need to work on further, because of my tendency to harshly criticize people.

Next (when calm, and over time) ask yourself in regard to a criticism that you received: was I criticized for something that is impossible for people to change? If the answer is Yes, then say to yourself: the criticism is invalid because it is cruel. If the criticism is about something that you can change, ask yourself: is it something that I should change? Would I be a better person if I change this or this one thing? If the answer is Yes, then plan a way to change it.

Is my reply so far helpful to you?

anita