The spotlight effect is a mental phenomena whereby we overestimate How much other people notice us and think about us. We can sometimes feel like there's constantly this spotlight on us and all of our imperfections. This feeling would kind of be entirely eliminated if we never had to encounter the presence of Others or if we as humans were built not to care about what other people thought of us. But that's kind of not the way that the world works. Men and women have different adaptive strategies and perspectives on beauty Because of this practice of mate selection, right?
Recently I've been feeling, as the episode title says, ugly. My relationship with my body and sense of 'attractiveness' has always been complicated and in the past few months, certain events and experiences have only exacerbated a lot of the insecurities I've had since childhood. So I wanted to talk about it, because I know I'm not the only one. Our 20s involve a lot of self growth, coming into our own identity and reframing our mindset on appearance and our relationships with our bodies. So what are some of the reasons why we feel 'ugly', how does that experience impact our emotional and mental wellbeing, what is the influence of societally held beauty standards and how we can escape this narrative that our looks are the extend of our worth to society. We talk about all of that and more in today's episode. Listen now.
If you need further information, resources or assistance please refer to the following services:
Australia - The Butterfly Foundation
https://butterfly.org.au/get-support/helpline/
USA - National Eating Disorders Association
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
UK - Beat Eating Disorders
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk
Canada - National Eating Disorder Information Centre
https://nedic.ca
Worldwide - https://www.verywellmind.com/leading-eating-disorder-charities-and-organizations-4145389
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