Well, hello. It's Friday. This is The Daily Grateful, and I'm Michael Kroos. How are you feeling about yourself?
How are you feeling about your body? That's what I want to know. I want to know what you're feeling about your body. I just found out about something.
I didn't know. I thought I knew a lot of stuff, and I do know a lot of stuff. But someone very close to me, someone really close to me, as a matter of fact, is having something, or is suffering from something that I'd never heard of before. Well, I've started to hear about it just lately.
It's called body dysmorphia. And what exactly is body dysmorphia? It's actually, believe it or not, a mental health condition. According to the Mayo Clinic, it's a mental health condition for which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance.
And this doesn't happen with just women. It happens with men. It happens to all of us. You hear more about it with women.
I don't know why, but it happens with men as well. And as a matter of fact, the person that is close to me is a man. And he is having all kinds of problems thinking about this. He's focusing on his appearance.
I started looking up some help. According to the Mayo Clinic, you have to go through mental health counseling and possibly some prescription drugs, but basically reduction of stress and to help fix your flaws in your mind. A lot of people who have body dysmorphia, they seek out plastic surgery, get the stuff sucked out of your gut or make the boobs bigger or whatever. They do this because they just don't think that they're perfect.
All the things that the Mayo Clinic talk about as far as getting therapy and all this makes a lot of sense. Also listening to my podcast makes a lot of sense. I have no idea. I know nothing about it yet.
I'm going to teach you about it. I'm going to give you some ideas and they're not my ideas. I look them up. I myself do not have a perfect body by any means.
Far from it. But I can still do a bunch of stuff. So the other thing they say, challenge negative thoughts. Our inner critic is like the worst person that we can have working for us.
And that's our inner critic. In other words, you really need to start liking yourself. You need to seek out a different, just a little bit of a different perspective. Ask a friend or a trusted family member if you have any family members that you can trust.
Fortunately, I do. I've got some that I don't, but I have some that I do. And here's another big one. Focus on function, not the flaw.
I just alluded to that. Okay, I look kind of out of shape. If you saw me naked, you'd say he's out of shape. I focus on function.
I can do a lot of stuff. I can mow my grass. I can use a chainsaw. I love using a chainsaw.
I can dig holes in the ground. I love digging holes in the ground, putting plants in them. I love doing stuff. I love gardening.
Okay, I can do all of these things. I can make my lawn look really good. I can make my shrubs look good. I can make plants grow.
I can take long walks. And I'm liking all this stuff. So I am focusing on what I can do. And I appreciate my body because my body is what's allowing me to do that.
And you know, I have to give my body back some stuff. I really do. I got to give my body some gestures of kindness. And what I have to do is do some better food than I'm eating.
Although I've improved the food situation considerably here lately, considerably and drinking a lot of water. So that, you know, that gets me out of the focusing on the function and not the flaw and takes me into being grateful and being kind. And you know, I want to celebrate my uniqueness. Everybody's different.
Everyone is. And that's fine. I have a friend who has a podcast. Her name is Dr.
Carrie Cot. And she has a podcast about nudity and social nudity. And she says nudity is a medicine. You know, find inspiration.
And others seek out stories and voices from people who have had to work with us in the past. There are, and I just found this out. If you look, you're going to have to look and I don't know where you live, but we have a phone number. And I think, I don't know if it's nationwide or not.
So I'm not going to say, but it's a three digit number where you can call and get information. There are support groups for people with body dysmorphia and people get together and they have talks and they work on these things. And you know, one of the things they say to do is to start small with gratitude. It can be tough to feel grateful for a body that you're not happy with.
Think about all the things that you can do with your body. Think about how well you look in certain clothes and be grateful for that. You're going to find that, you know, if you're grateful, good things are going to happen. And lastly, seek professional help if you need to.
If your body dysmorphia is causing significant distress, if it's totally freaking you out, you may have to look for, you know, some good help. And there are psychologists who will work with you. Talk to your medical doctor. Your medical doctor may not be able to do anything for you in their office, but they're going to point you in the right direction.
They might point you to some of these groups. So what I think we're trying to say here is we just need to calm down, slow down a little bit and appreciate what we have. Think about yourself as just being a really cool person. It's going to work for you.
If you need help, join a group, get help. But spend a lot of time being very grateful for all the good things that you have. It's going to work out great for you. We will see you on Monday.