Are you picking your skin compulsively and then worrying about people seeing your skin and thinking badly about it and about you?

I just published this video last week and since it’s gotten more “likes” and positive comments in just a few days than any other video I’ve done, I think you might like it too:

Here's the transcript, just in case you prefer to read:

Today's topic. Okay. So I wanna know to start out, do you have thoughts about what other people are thinking about your skin? Like oh so and so must think I look horrible or even you don't go out of the house sometimes because of what you show your skin looks like. Okay. Well I am here to tell you that it's not as bad as you think. At least the way your skin looks and the way other people are going to respond 'cause I'm gonna make the case that nobody actually cares about your skin or how your skin looks. Okay.

So first of all, are you someone who cancels plans with people? Misses work or just won't even go socialize with friends and cancels plans because of it. So this is really common. However, of course, it's not a good thing. And it's really not necessary either so I'm hoping to convince you of this today. Your friends do not care what your skin looks like. They just wanna see you, they wanna hang out with you, they love you, they enjoy your company. None of your friends care what your skin looks like, okay. So has anybody in the history of the Earth ever spent time with someone because they just think they have the most beautiful skin?

You don't spend time with anyone because of that. You enjoy their company. So it's some other qualities about you that your friends love about you. People you admire. If you think about it, think about people you admire. Is it because of their skin? I'd be really, really surprised if yes. If you ... I've got sometimes a few clients who are performers who worry about getting on that stage. The most stressful thing to them is what their skin looks like. Well nobody's going to see ... if you're a singer, people aren't going to see you for your skin. That's not what they're focused on. They wanna hear you, they wanna hear your voice and your self, your emotions come out, but nobody's really looking very closely at your skin.

And that brings me to another point which is that you or let's say we, as skin pickers, gonna say that in quotes. People who pick their skin. We tend to be much more focused than most people on skin. So not only do you over, over focus on skin, which also means you do this, right. You're looking really way to close. Nobody looks at your skin that closely. But you're also, when you get up close, you're magnifying the tiniest little imperfection. So you see something that nobody else sees and you're making it into a mountain, making a mole, a mountain out of a mole hill, as the expression goes.

So this is just a tendency that you gotta realize you've got these three tendencies. You over focus on your skin, you over magnify its imperfections, and you over respond to them by picking. But the first two are really what we're talking about is that you're so overly focused, not just on your own skin, which then you think because you're focusing on the imperfections, looks horrible. If you look at it from a couple feet away where everyone else sees you, it doesn't look nearly as bad as you think it does. Not only do you focus too much on your own skin, but we, people who pick, that doesn't need to be in quotes. People who pick, we tend to focus more on other peoples skin as well.

So chances are you think other people are like you in that they're noticing your skin. Just because you notice a lot of peoples skin. You notice who has good skin and bad skin and all that. Most people don't focus so much on skin. I promise you. This is just your thing. So let's review. So nobody has ever been anyone's friend because of their skin. Nobody has ever admired anyone in history because of their skin. There are no professional skin showers, if you know what I mean, I mean that's an odd thing. Nobody except people selling skin products is showing their skin as a thing. It's just not interesting. It's not entertaining. Nobody's getting up on stages showing their skin.

I mean, I keep thinking of stripping with that, but that's not, they're not showing their skin. They're showing all their skin, but that's not the focus. So what about love interests? Don't they care about our skin? Don't men care about women's skin and all that business? Well depends who you ask, but I did the Google and I found this article "15 things men notice about a women instantly." So 15 things men notice about a woman in reverse order like David Letterman style. That's the way they did it. 15, her smile. 14, her laugh. That sounded a little fake. 13, eyes. 12, her body. I'm not gonna stand up. 11, hygiene. Nice and clean. 10, personal style. Well I've had this for like 10 years, but I love it.

My husband likes it too. Nine, her hair. Eight, her sense of humor. Seven, her friends. Friends say a lot about who you are. Six, her scent. Five, her confidence. Four, makeup. Whether she's wearing or not, whatever. I guess guys notice us. Three, her voice. Two, her height. And one, her overall attitude. So this top 15 list, skin didn't even show up. I looked a bunch occasionally shows up, but come on. There's so much here to draw on. That it's not, it's really not all that you think it is. Nobody really cares about your skin, except for you. And you care to much, and you focus in on it to much, and it makes you very ... I don't know if we should say selfish, but just self involved.

You need to work against these tendencies. Over focus. Focus out. Work against the tendency to over magnify and see only the imperfections. Look at the whole picture. Full picture of you is probably awesome. So what can you do if you constantly thinking, "Oh. My skin. My skin is horrible. What are people thinking? I can't go out like this. I can't go. I can't face the world. I can't go out. I have to stay in." If you're thinking all those things, you've gotta have another voice in their. You've gotta start talking back to yourself. With the voice of reason, which you don't automatically believe right now. This is a problem. So we tend to automatically believe whatever we're thinking.

Now I'm telling you what you're thinking is wrong. This is a bunch of lies. And it's not just us, it's everybody. But we can change our minds so much. We can change our minds so much and really pretty quickly when we're persistent. I mean, it may seem slow and honestly the worst part is noticing how negative your thoughts are or how much of a prison they put you in. But when you begin to work against them with some other self talk, talking to yourself rather than I, I, I, I, I, you somehow use or just neutral statement. So I met with a client last week and this week and she was having these seem struggles and she just starting reminding herself constantly, anytime she had one of these slots, she would tell herself, "It's not important. Your skin is not so important."

And this actually helped her so much. She believes that now fully whereas in the beginning, she just didn't believe that her skin didn't matter so much and wasn't what everybody was focused on. And now just telling herself, "It's not important. This is not what people are coming to see me for. If I'm performing, this is not what people are coming to meet with me for as friends. And this is not what people are looking for in any kind of romantic relationship either." Ask like I don't know how many men you'd have to ask. What's most important to you in a relationship? Nobody's gonna say skin. At work your skin is far less important than anything else. No matter what your job is.

Literally there's one job that your skin is the most important thing and that is a skin model for skin products. There's nothing else that exists in this world that your skin is gonna be so crucial. Even there, it's all about makeup and air brushing. Anyhow, I think that's what I had to say today. Please give this video thumbs up if you liked it, if you found it helpful. Please share in the comments what are your thoughts that you typically have that maybe you can question, like maybe you know that they're not true or maybe that you think after today, maybe this isn't really true and maybe I need to just continually remind myself that.

That you just can't believe all these things that rattle around in your head. Most of them are nonsense. A lot of them are lies and they're not even helpful lies. I can imagine there's like helpful lies that you can tell yourself to get through the day. But these are not helpful at all. So keep at it, keep working on this. If reducing your skin picking is something that's important to you, just stay encouraged. It will happen. You can look at my website for some more help stopskinpickingcoach.com. And thanks for watching. Subscribe if you're not already.

Love and support,

Annette

p.s. Be sure to go get your free Freedom Kit already if you haven't done so.