Have you ever been gung ho after watching an Oprah episode or seeing a Ted Talk that talks about Positive Thinking and Fake it 'til you Make it? I'm sure many of you have. Have you stood infront of the mirror and told yourself how much you love and accept yourself? Only to leave for work and start screaming at the guy who cuts you off in traffic? How successful do you think that is? The truth is, it's not the WORDS you are saying that will cause the belief. If you're anything like me, the second you say "You are beautiful" my inner critic instantly comes back with "Oh really? where? Someone woke up delusional this morning."
The reason why this fails is that we're talking to the wrong person. We're talking to our conscious self. Our subconscious self wont believe a word of it. Mainly because our subconscious self doesn't speak english, it speaks feeling. So you can say whatever you want, your subconscious will only pay the slightest bit of attention if the 'feeling' that you're beautiful accompanies the words. When you stand infront of the mirror and remember a time when you really felt beautiful, and allowed yourself to indulge in that feeling, what your body feel? Did your temperature rise? Was your skin tingly? Did you have a feeling of peace? How was your stomach? If you stare into that mirror to embrace that feeling of being beautiful, THAT will be more lasting. And what if you practiced THAT feeling every morning?
Soon you would find that you have built a new normal. You have reset your brain's default mode network and created new neural pathways that are truly healing. This makes the unconscious inner critic more conscious. Once it's conscious it loses all it's power. You're aware of it and you know it's just the inner critic. It's not the truth. The truth is what is happening within your body and your feeling. The work of Dr. Joe Dispenza has proven this theory time and time again, not just with feeling beautiful but with all things that limit our inner growth simply by making the unconscious, conscious. We have such power. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself. It doesn't have to be beauty it can be anything. Do it every day, for 5-10 minutes or more, and make you get into the feeling. Journal it to see how you feel each day. I would be extremely surprised if you get no benefit.