From Dermatillomania to Life: January 2015

I have been uncovering quite a few insights within my process of re-defining the word 'skin'. I had created a list of word associations to uncover exactly how it was that I had defined and thus lived the word skin. I have moved through all the negative association, and in my last post I looked into the first positive association, The word was 'youthful', and today, the word is 'pretty'.

It’s hard for me to fathom a dermatillomania sufferer think of his or her skin as ‘pretty’, but I have had this experience and made this connection with my own skin. Sometimes I might catch a glance of myself in the mirror, and see myself with makeup on, which makes my skin look clear, and I would be a bit surprised. But the interesting thing is that during times where my skin has been clear, at the point where I start to descend once again into the urges, I noticed that inside of myself I would begin to feel disgusting, as in, gross and vile within myself. It’s the point where I would begin to have emotional sensations of self-loathing and internal agitation, irritation, frustration and anger – a buried deep anger that I felt helpless to resolve. And at these times, during these internal storms, I recall some memories of catching a glance myself in a mirror – with makeup on and clear-looking skin- and it would be shocking: I looked… pretty. Inside I felt like a monster, and on the outside I looked like a care-free girl with no problems in the world.

The weird thing is that I felt like that wasn’t me; I didn’t have that as my internal experience; I desperately wanted that to be real and to be me, but it wasn’t, and I would eventually pick, and probe, and squeeze, and scratch, and pull, and pluck. And after all that, I would look in the mirror, blotchy and cut up, and with this spiteful gratitude I would think, “yes, this is who I really am, this is a true expression of how I really feel; this is not a mask, it’s the real me; I have this, I am this, and this best represent who and how I have been and become within myself.” Wow, scary stuff – but I have to ‘go there’ so to speak, or else it won’t change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge my skin and myself as ‘pretty’ when seeing a picture presentation of myself in a mirror or in an image in my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to charge the thought of experiencing myself as ‘pretty’ with a shockingly positive energetic charge of emotions of desire, longing and regret.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want, need, and desire to be ‘pretty’, to be seen as ‘pretty’, and to see and experience myself as what I perceive ‘looking/being pretty’ might feel like.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create an idea of what it feels like to be ‘pretty’ with ‘pretty, clear skin’, and then long for the idea I have created in my mind as if it were something I could have or possess as an experience of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to escape my personal experience, and to do so through imagining other people’s experiencing and envying them, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that it is my own fabrication that I am dealing with, my own ideals and imaginings that I created, without considering what other people’s experience might really be like because I can’t possibly consider the multitudinous dimensions and history of events any one else has experienced within their own lives – And within imagining and fantasizing and envying the experiences I can make up in my mind, I am of course not looking at and facing my real self, and sorting out how I can work with myself to change myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to stop picking my skin from the starting point of desiring the experience of being pretty, instead of from the starting point of equality and oneness within myself, treating my physical the way I would want to be treated. Giving to myself what I need and require fundamentally. Loving and accepting myself unconditionally– because if I can’t do and give and be these things to/for myself, I will not be able to do it to/for others for real, I will not be able to live real dignity and respect, I will not walk amongst others as an equal, and I will not be able to stand as an example for my children or anyone.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe and perceive that when and as I feel irritated, agitated, frustrated and angry within myself, that the experience is inescapable and will last forever.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to panic and fret when and as I begin to feel irritated, frustrated, agitated and angry within myself, because I don’t want to experience these emotions at all, and so without thinking, I do whatever I can to escape, and I use skin picking because it releases some chemical from my brain, into my bloodstream, which soothes and dulls the intensity of the irritation/frustration/anger/agitation, and it distracts me so utterly and completely, that I submit my directive principle, and allow a disorder to form and take-over.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear feeling irritated/angry/agitated/frustrated.

https://fragileeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/are-you-a-prisoner-of-your-own-mind.jpg?w=652

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe and perceive that when I begin to feel irritated/angry/agitated/frustrated, that it will last forever and I will not be able to make it through, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that it is an internal experience that I create, and it is not bigger or more powerful than me.

I will continue in my next blog.

The interesting thing that came out of my last blog was the fact that doing self-forgiveness on the ‘positive’ aspects of how I’ve come to define the word skin (and thus how I have created my relationship towards skin/my skin), has actually been a more profound support in terms of how I was able to bring my words in writing into living application more than I am used to.

I had opened up some deeper points in terms of what I am actually losing through picking, and things started to ‘become real’ in a way – more real because I saw how I was losing something I didn’t know I had until I became aware I was losing it. I think it’s because as I was moving through all the negative associations (in my previous blogs), I still felt this distance and separation with my skin wherein I see it as foreign, dry and infected for example. But when I started looking at how I view it also as youthful, pretty and desire, I all of a sudden feel closer to it. I mean, I do deeply want to love and accept my skin. In a way, this desire directly or indirectly feeds the disorder, because as I pick at the skin with such focus and precision, I am doing so within the false belief that I am doing something ‘good’ and ‘beneficial’ for my skin.

http://www.lacedivory.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dermatology.jpg

It’s true that at times I am destructive and harsh within dermatillomania, but generally it is more of a precise and careful play-out. It’s because I do care about my skin, which is sometimes hard for me to believe. But what I realized existed is this deep care that is something I unknowingly touched on in my last blog, and in touching on it and stirring it thus becoming more aware of it, it turned out to be a force that I have and that I am, within and as which I am able to move myself, such as stopping my sessions in a way I had never been able to do before, within these little ‘breaks’ in the trance where I am able to feel this breeze of awareness, like swift opportunities breezing by as little opening into which I can come through as the self-directive principle of myself and really tell myself to stop.

I will continue with the positive definitions in my next blog, but please visit the archive and read my last blog for context, and compare it with the two before to see the difference between the tone of the ‘negative’ ways I had defined the word skin, and then the positive way.

If you would like to teach yourself how to find the answer to yourself within yourself, check out DIP Lite, a free online course. As you move through the lessons, looking at the mind as you've never seen it before. You are assigned to a 'buddy', someone that has already walked the process, to support you through the writing. It is completely free and confidential. On lesson 6 you get 4 amazingly supportive chats with your buddy.

In my previous blogs I had been looking at the ways in which I had defined my skin, and the relationship which I had thus built with it. These definitions and word associations were mostly negative, like ‘dry’, ‘stretched’, ‘unpredictable’ etc…. but when I looked deeply into myself I saw that I also held seemingly ‘positive’ definitions toward my skin. One would think this would be good and normal, but if you read on, you will see how I took a ‘positive’ word association that I had held about my skin, and over time used it instead to feed the disorder, just like I had done with the negative ones.

The moral f this blog: don’t judge your skin (or yourself) in any way whatsoever. Just don’t do it. Accept the things you cannot change and change the things you cannot accept. Judging in any way only creates a separation between self and one’s body, it creates a standard instead of natural self-expression and rational nurturing, and it also creates hidden reactions of fear and anxiety. Read on to find out how I reached these conclusions using self-forgiveness, and what I plan on doing about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to the word ‘youthful’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘youthful’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from the word ‘youthful’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘youthful’ in separation of myself.

http://www.drjawidkhan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/dry-skin.jpg

I connect the word skin to ‘youthful’ because at 33 years of age, my skin has only recently been showing signs of aging. Up until now it has been young skin – that’s all I know. I remember looking at the skin on my arm once, it was before I had even contemplated picking my arms, it was tanned and smooth and the light was shining off of it, it had a healthy glow to it. I was blown away by how beautiful, firm and youthful it looked. I thought to myself, “that is the way I always wanted my skin to look”. Interestingly, from then on I started picking the skin on my arms, trying to obtain and recreate that perceived perfection. In the end I ruined it. I always say to myself, it’ll heal, it’ll come back… but as I mentioned earlier: at 33, my skin is starting to show some signs, and in reality, our youthful skin does not last forever.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look at my skin and creating a feeling reaction within myself that my skin is youthful and that this is ‘good’ and ‘right’, because I see, realize and understand that if I place the value of myself into looking youthful, then I am setting myself up for failure, because as we grow older, our bodies age, without exception.

When and as I see myself wanting/desiring youthful looking skin, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to unconditional self-acceptance by reminding myself that my skin and I are on this journey to life together, as one, and age will happen. I will not accept or allow myself to place my precious value outside of Who I am as Life, as a living being that exists Here and Now, and into a picture presentation of what I think I should look like in order to feel happy within me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that youthful-looking skin will create peace-of-mind within me, because I already demonstrated that when I had judged my skin as youthful, wherein it triggered derma because I began to fear to lose it and obsessively try to make it ‘better’ and ‘more perfect’. I see, realize and understand that I as my mind have created and now cycle the thinking/thought patterns of dermatillomania, and THAT is the issue, not my skin nor my skin’s appearance. I can’t simply switch over to having peace of mind and self-acceptance by altering the way I look. No. I have to actually stop the current patterns of judgment and abuse, and this is doable by investigating the thoughts, accepting myself through forgiveness, and scripting a change.

I commit myself to accept myself the way I am (watch this TED talk about self-acceptance, it’s life-changing cutting edge stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkkL9w2pw8), by no longer fooling myself into chasing after youthful looking skin- but instead nurturing my skin as it is, as best as possible.

When and as I see that I am picking at my skin in an attempt to ‘correct’ it or make it look more perfect and youthful, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to reality by reminding myself that what I am doing is having the opposite effect. It is aging my skin, creating flaws and blemishes, and that the faster I stop, the less damage I will do, and I stop immediately, as soon as I become aware of what I am doing.

I commit myself to stop immediately, as soon as I become aware of what I am doing, regardless of the internal energetic experience I will feel: “but I’m not finished”, “but I can’t leave it like this”, “I NEED to do pick this off or else everybody on the street will notice it and look at me”.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that a picking session has a set end time when ‘the task is done’. The task should have never begun in the first place. The task is delusional. The task is only bad and consequential, and stopping is only good for me and beneficial – no matter what way I look at it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that people in the street will notice tiny little things on my skin. Note to self: get over yourself. Another note to self: What people WILL notice is the mark you leave if you don’t stop immediately, as soon as you are aware.

If you would like to teach yourself how to find the answer to yourself within yourself, check out DIP Lite. You move through the lessons, looking at the mind as you've never seen it before. You are assigned to a 'buddy', someone that has already walked the process, to support you through the writing. It is completely free and confidential. On lesson 6 you get 4 amazingly supportive chats with your buddy.

Also, PLEASE watch this TED talk! Unconditional Positive Regard

This is a continuation from my last two blogs where I had been purifying the definition I hold of the word ‘skin’, in order to release that old definition and create a new one which is supportive. This new definition will be one which I can then truly live, to create a new living word, where my actions actually embody the word ‘skin’ as the new definition I have created for it.

What has been interesting throughout this writing process has been discovering how harsh and self-defaming my previously held definition of the word ‘skin’ had been, and how in living that definition, I had been putting myself down, stressing myself out, and completely justifying and perpetuating dermatillomania.

Below is the list of words I had previously connected to the word skin. I have been working my way down this list, firstly by simply forgiving having connected and defined the word ‘skin’ within and as these words (which are the purple sections), and then I used the tool of self-forgiveness to open up each word connection, to see the reasons behind which I had come to define my skin so harshly (the blue sections).

SKIN

Weak

Unstable

Exposed

Dirty

Scary

Sign of disease

Puss

Irritated

Shameful

Stretched

Dry

Unpredictable

Out of control

Foreign

Embarrassing

Infected

Flakey

Inconsistent

Youthful

Pretty

Toned

Sexy

Desire

I am currently working on the word ‘dry’:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to the word ‘dry’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘dry’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from the word ‘dry’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘dry’ in separation of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react towards my skin when it is dry because it is uncomfortable and draws my attention to it which creates the conditions within which I will most likely pick and scratch at it. Within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be drawn into picking at and probing my skin when it feels dry, as if there Is something crucially wrong, instead of simply applying one of the creams or moisturizers that I have on hand for this very reason.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore the fact that when my skin is dry it is usually because I have over washed it in an attempt to fix the damage I’ve done to it, as if I could simply ‘wash it all away’, or in an attempt to prevent or heal any infection because I have created openings in the skin which make it more prone to infection.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to deny the fact that my actions are usually the direct cause for my dry skin, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to look at or take responsibility for my actions within and as dermatillomania by replacing ocd actions which do not consider my physical needs, with practical actions (such as applying a cream instead of picking). In other words, when I feel an urge to investigate my skin and start picking, to then take a step back and create some space and awareness for a choice to be considered with regards to what my next actions should be.

I commit myself to open my eyes completely to what I am doing in terms of my actions and the blame-shifting towards my skin, and the denial that this allows, so that when and as I participate in derma, I am doing so within complete awareness of what it is that I am participating in.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to the word ‘unpredictable’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘unpredictable’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from the word ‘unpredictable’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘unpredictable’ in separation of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold an image of what perfect skin is or should be, and then compare that to my skin and react to the times when this comparison differs. Within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react when my skin changes for example with my menstrual cycle or changes in diet/rest/stress etc… wherein instead of understanding that my skin is undergoing its own process and processing I blame it for being inconsistent and thus triggering a derma session. Within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my skin’s natural processing as an excuse to get mad and victimize myself thus justifying a picking session because that is what I use to escape facing the real reasons why I am feeling upset or uneasy etc… within myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the unpredictable inner nature of myself, and to express that fear in skin-picking where I gain comfort and a feeling of control by picking at the skin as if there were something wrong with it and then feeling a great amount of relief when my skin once again heals, which I then interpret as a sign that I am healthy and ‘ok’ physically because I see my skin healing and getting better on its own.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continuously harm myself because the healing process comforts me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look for comfort in the proof that I am not dying or sick by watching my skin heal, and constantly fearing that it won’t heal due to an underlying fear of sickness and death.

When and as I see that I am submitting to skin picking to release the fear of death/disease/dying/being ill, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back into awareness by reminding myself that I don’t need to pick my skin to see if I am ill, I can rather do an overall self-scan of my body to see that everything is ok, and if it’s not, I will investigate the point and seek the necessary medical or other intervention if necessary.

When and as I see that I am finding relief in the fact that I see my skin healing on its own, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to self-trust by reminding myself that I don’t need to see physical proof of wounds healing to know that I am healthy and ‘ok’ physically, my entire body is like a monitoring system in terms of my energy levels, my ability to focus, my strength, my appetite, even my stool, etc… are all constant feedback mechanisms that I can monitor and adjust and track and even report to a professional if necessary to make adjustments and record feedback until everything is in balance as my body should be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to ‘out of control’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within ‘out of control’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from ‘out of control’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within ‘out of control’ in separation of myself.

I connect feeling out of control to my skin because sometimes my skin reacts or changes and I don’t know the reason why, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to constantly fall into the tendency of thinking about the worst-case scenario that any change or fluctuation in my skin that I can’t explain is a sign of illness or disease and death.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear death and disease because they are things that I cannot and will never be able to control, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear having to face them, and having to face ‘who I will be’ within them, because I feel I will not have control over myself and which parts of me are exposed, thus I see, realize and understand the importance of writing myself out to get to know the inner depths of myself, exposing myself to myself, within and as who I am and have become as the mind and ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being out of control because fear there are parts of myself that would come out or be exposed that I don’t like or I don’t want to look at, that I fear others seeing or knowing about even though I myself am not certain about what they are, where they are and thus I cannot look at them and deal with them in any kind of effective way, instead it’s like being afraid of the dark: something could be there, but it could be the imagination, and the imagination usually tends to make a big deal out of nothing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to keep parts of myself locked away and suppressed underneath a calm exterior, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place a huge amount of importance upon controlling that ‘calm exterior’ so that I can control how I react and even how others react. Within the belief that I can control, or at least influence the situation or interaction I am participating within by controlling myself- not as a true and honest expression of myself, but as ‘who’ and ‘how’ I want to be portrayed, looked at and judged by others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want/need/desire to control everything and everyone around me, including myself, all to protect some hidden and feared aspect of myself that I don’t even have a clear awareness of.

I commit myself to peel back the layers of myself so as to slowly but surely look at and investigate the hidden parts of myself, forgive them and free myself from this paranoia.

When and as I see that I am participating in the fear of death and illness, I stop, and I breathe, I bring myself back to reality by reminding myself that my physical is 'in control' in that it is constantly ad continuously working towards maintaining its/my utmost potential of health and healing, and I can and will do everything in my power to assist and support it to do so.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to the word ‘foreign’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘foreign’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from the word ‘foreign’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘foreign’ in separation of myself.

I connect my skin to feeling ‘foreign’ because I am so completely separated from my physical body and my skin that I feel that it is not even ‘mine’ or a part of me. I feel as though I would never be as ‘dirty’ and ‘un-pure’ as my skin and physical body, I would only be ‘beautiful and perfect’ because I am able to imagine this in my mind. However, the fact is that my skin and body can and never will be as perfect as I am able to dream of and imagine because they exist in a reality of imperfections and consequence, wherein my skin and body are the accumulation of who and how I have treated them. On the other hand, the images in my mind have been created from the picture perfect airbrushed images I have been exposed to through Hollywood, magazines and television, which is the age old unrealistic standard that nothing can live up to in real life. It’s not real. But my skin is real, it is one of the most real things about me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel or perceive my skin as foreign because I perceived it as ‘less than’ myself, in separation of myself, as if my skin were something other than a part of me. Within this

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that there are foreign things in my skin that need to be removed or extracted because they don’t belong there because they are imperfections, whereas I in my mind have deemed myself as ‘perfect’ simply because I can imagine ‘perfect’ in my imagination and I make the assumption that if I were ‘perfect’ I would no longer feel the way I have the tendency of feeling within myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to view and perceive my skin as ‘foreign’, like a ‘foreign object’ that needs to be removed whenever there is something inconsistent because I don’t know what it is nor do I understand why it’s there and it bothers me and I begin to think something is wrong because I’m scared because it’s my own skin but yet I don’t understand it or know it or really feel a connection to it. Within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing my relationship to my skin to thus far be one of neglect and abuse, wherein I will live only in my mind, and when things become too overwhelming I simply beat on my skin to feel better. It’s almost in a way like a punishment, which is a point that definitely needs to be looked into.

I commit myself to create an intimacy and self-acceptance with my skin, through writing self forgiveness, self-commitments, and self-corrective application.

When and as I see my skin as 'disposable' and not a living part of me, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to my physical by reminding myself that my physical body it in fact the most important thing I am responsible for, as it is my vessel in this lifetime, and without it I would not exist. It is a part of me, and it is me as the living matter of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the word ‘skin’ to the word ‘embarrassing’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘embarrassing’.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from the word ‘skin’ and from the word ‘embarrassing’ by defining the word ‘skin’ within the word ‘embarrassing’ in separation of me.

I connect my skin to embarrassment because when and as I think people are looking at my skin I feel like they can see through the image/character/mask I put on and play when I am in public, which is confident, easy-going, and laid back – when in reality I feel at times insecure, scared, up-tight, stressful and anxious, which are the energetic experiences within which I tend to pick. When someone looks at me and I think they might see the fact that I have dermatillomania, it shatters the self-perception I have held of myself in one moment, and in that moment I feel small and vulnerable, as if the other person is now somehow above me with authority over how I feel within myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel embarrassed when people look at my skin, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to immediately think/believe that when people are looking at my skin they are seeing things I am trying to hide, such as signs (blemishes) of personality traits that I feel are embarrassing/bad/wrong.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for being up-tight, stressed, insecure and anxious, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge others who demonstrate these traits. Within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge ‘stressful, insecure, anxious and up-tight-ness’ as weaknesses that should be covered up hidden and suppressed.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing my self-definition of being confident, laid-back and easy-going when I think/believe/perceive that others can see through my ‘act’ as and how I present myself to the world, and within this,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being treated differently if people were to know ‘the real me’ as in all the dimensions of me including those that I hide/cover up/suppress, because if people treated me differently I would then feel different and not know how to act.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear change in my world because then my self-definition would be lost and I would feel lost because I have only defined myself based on what is known and seemingly ‘within my control’, and within this I know ‘who to be’ and ‘how to be’, but beyond this is only fear on the unknown.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear expansion and self-expansion beyond the reality that I know and feel ‘in-control’ of and within.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing control.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear losing myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have placed a large degree of importance into my self-image, or the image that I present to the world outside myself wherein I want to be viewed a certain way and skin-picking is not a part of this presentation, and so I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel embarrassed when I think/believe/perceive that my skin-picking is exposed because I feel that my foundation has been shattered and de-stabilized.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that another person can shatter my foundation instead of seeing/realizing and understanding that it is not the foundation of who I really am, it is rather the presentation I have developed based on the self-perception I have created of who and how I want to be perceived. Within this, I see that the ‘shattering’ experience is not being done unto me by another person, but is taking place entirely within my own mind as I believe myself to be losing a part of myself that I had considered quite important. Within this, I see and realize that I am demonstrating to myself that my self-perception can be shattered at any moment because it is not something real, it is simply an image and idea I have conjured up for myself, of myself and in reality, it is not so important at all.

I commit myself to walk through this reality as I am – currently walking through dermatillomania, therefore currently blemished and flawed – but real and ready to face myself and express myself as I am in the moment, and not the perceived front I had believed I needed to live behind.

When and as I see myself reacting in embarrassment towards my skin, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to Who I Really Am by reminding myself that the image I fear losing is not an important or integral part of me. I see, realize and understand that it is necessary to present ourselves well in this society but that the real substance and matter of myself is not something that can be shattered nor lost, but is here with me in ever breath.

I will continue re-defining the word ‘skin’ in my next blog. Until then, check out this video on re-defining words: From Redefining Words to Living Words.

Self-Study with support, learn to respect you and others, learn how to stop mind chatter, learn how to forgive so effectively that you actually change forever, learn how to stop and change the automatic thoughts that run your life. Sign up for the free course at this link: DIPLITE, try it for yourself .

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