I’ve always loved Dustin Hoffman, and now I’ve seen the clip below, I love him a little more.?(You can also see it directly on You Tube by clicking?here.)

I love that this was such a powerful realisation for him. I’m pretty sure that most people never really, truly have to think about the unconscious judgements that they make, based on societal?norms and expectations.

Society instill in us all an idea of beauty. It isn’t true, it’s just something that is portrayed in the media and that most of us absorb as a truth. Certainly, as a young teenager, prematurely reading Just 17 and similar magazines, I learnt that in order to be beautiful you had to be a certain size, do certain things to your body, adorn with make-up etc, and I wasn’t emotionally formed enough to bring a?critical?eye to what I was reading. I just accepted it all as a norm and it shaped my increasing?dissatisfaction?with my body and sense of self-worth to the point that I developed an eating disorder and spent many years dealing with the fall-out of that.

And then I woke up. I now find it really hard to look at magazines aimed at women, most of whom focus almost?entirely (negatively)?on body image, linking a ‘perfect’ often post surgery body and face with status and success in life. It’s got so much worse and it’s worrying for our young people to have to navigate.

What I wish for my children is that they understand that it’s all about how you feel on the inside and that there’s lots you can do to take control of that experience. I am teaching them that they can observe what they see in advertising, TV, or what they read but that it’s just an opinion. Gently reminding them that they can then have a think about how they feel about it inside and?reject?it if it looks, feels or sounds wrong for them. But most of all I am trying very hard to give them a sense of being perfect imperfect beings, just as they are, no conditions attached. They are only 6 and 7 at the moment so it’s early days. I’ll report back at some point during the teenage years!

So Mr Hoffman, I love your realisation and I love that it stirs up so much emotion in you ?because it really is an important thing. Let’s spread the word.

If you’d like to change your relationship to yourself, your body and what you can achieve why not have a look at what Cognitive Hypnotherapy can do to help?

Hypnotherapy London
I see one-to-one?hypnotherapy and coaching clients in Harley Street, and Crouch End, North London. If you would like to find out more, I offer free 15 minute telephone consultations where we can discuss how you’d like things to be and how to get you there. Just contact me via this form and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Noting has to be the way it’s always been.

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