How to Stop Body Shaming Yourself and Others | Eckhart Tolle

So you can acknowledge all the beauty that is in others, even though in the external form of you that beauty may no longer be manifested.

I often find myself comparing myself to other people, particularly my physical appearance compared to other women. And it gets very tiresome, as you can imagine. And I was wondering if you had any practical advice for helping dissolve this.

Okay, thanks. And I assume sometimes you come out as better than and at other times as not as good as. Is that right?

Yes.

And better than feels good and not as good as. Doesn't.

It all feels tiresome, to be honest.

That's a good point to reach. To get tired of an old pattern like that. Then you are ready to let go, as the Course in Miracles puts it. Comparison is one of the favourite ego devices to keep the ego going or it keeps itself going. Especially by comparing whether the comparing is to do with external appearance or comparing other things, evaluating others in comparison to how in your own mind you evaluate yourself. It could be to do with knowledge, education, class, social class, strength, physical strength, how many possessions worth, he's worth such and such amount of dollars, and I'm worth so much more than he, or so much less than he. All kinds of things implied in that is a sense of a desire on the part of the ego to enhance its sense of worthiness. And if anybody has less than you, or appears less than you, or can do less than you in some somewhat nonsensical way, it seems to add something to your sense of self. Of course it doesn't make sense, it's a little bit absurd, but that's how the ego functions. And in reverse, if somebody it feels to the ego as if somebody has just achieved something or that you haven't achieved, it feels to the ego as if something of its sense of self had been taken away. So it gets deflated and is not happy. If you're really trapped in ego, you are not happy. When something good happens to somebody close to you because it feels to the ego as if it had become diminished because somebody else has enhanced their identity in the eyes of the ego. You can see when you explain it in this way so that you can actually see how it operates, then you realize that it is absurd to feel there is now lesser. You have become less because somebody else has received more of something or can do something that you can't do. And so you can see how unreal that sense of identity is. You feel diminished because something good has happened to somebody close to you. And in some cases if the ego is very strong in you without any Trace of awareness. You cannot even admit to yourself that you feel bad when something good has happened to somebody close to you. It's there as an unreal, unwitnessed emotion. And then it might come out. And you speak to that person with a desire to diminish what they now have that you don't have. And it's totally unconscious with you. You are not totally unconscious. There's already an awareness in you that is aware of that pattern. If there were no awareness in you, you wouldn't be asking that question. You wouldn't be sitting in. You would be acting out that pattern. And next time somebody in your vicinity has just bought a new dress that looks absolutely stunning, you would look at it. If you were totally trapped in ego, you would look at it and something inside you would contract, but you wouldn't know that because there wouldn't be enough awareness for that. But that contraction as an energy field would then flow into your mind. And then words will come out of your mouth again, unconscious, to diminish the worthiness of that dress. And you might say, oh, that dress, that would look good on your sister. And the other person, who perhaps is also identified completely with the appearance, suddenly feels hurt deeply. And in both cases, the famous saying applies. They know not what they do, which of course points to complete lack of awareness. So in that sense, people hurt each other and try to take away in order to feel. And the moment the ego is said that would look good on somebody else, it feels a little bit better already because you've taken away a bit from that, the value, the perceived value of that thing. It's an insane. It's a delusional system, but many people are still totally trapped in that. Not with you, of course. That's not the case with you. You're not totally trapped. It still operates in you to some extent, but not totally trapped. So there is some connection with value, your own sense of worth or worthiness, which is connected to your external appearance. It could be connected to other things. It may also be connected to other things. So there's an image in you of who you are. It's a surface image of the surface appearance, your body. And the solution, of course, is very simple. It's to take your attention beyond the surface, where it usually is, the surface of your body, the surface of that which is on top of your body. The clothes take your attention deeper to the inherent energy field or aliveness or conscious presence that pervades who you are, the entire being. Nothing to do with the external, nothing to do with the shape of the body or what's on top of the body. And if that, if you begin to go there, into that dimension, take your attention into that dimension where you are not the external form, but you sense the very essence of who you are, you sense the life that you are beyond the form, then you no longer need to identify with form. You are no longer then threatened. When somebody else's form is seemingly better than yours, it no longer does anything to your sense of identity or your sense of worthiness. And then you are free, and you're free to admire somebody else's good looks. And you're free to be happy with the way you look for the time being, until years pass. And then perhaps the body doesn't look that great anymore after a few more decades. You have a few decades to go, but they pass fairly quickly too. And the further you go, the more quickly they seem to pass. That's strange. And so the time comes when you notice a deterioration in the appearance. And then you begin to notice that most women around you actually look better than you for the simple fact that they're younger. And you can appreciate the way they look because they are manifestation of life, an external manifestation. They are life forms, beautiful life forms, without feeling threatened in any way, in your own sense of self, because the life of which those lovely women around you are manifestations, you can sense that very life in its essence in you. So you can acknowledge all the beauty that is in others, even though in the external form of you, that beauty may no longer be manifested as such. And that's wonderful freedom to appreciate the beauty that you see around you, even if your own body is no longer part of that, because there is a beauty in you that has nothing to do with form. And one could call that the essence of all beauty. That's the very essence of life itself. So when you have the essence, you appreciate the external manifestation of it in its so called, one could say, diluted form in the flower. Most egos are not threatened by flowers. But in another human being, you can appreciate the beauty in another human being. And the comparison, the compulsive need to compare disappears. There isn't, oh, what about me? Do I look? That thought pattern dissolved long ago. By the time you reach the point where most women will externally look better than you, then it's disappearing already. So you don't need to wait a few more decades to get there. Or the ego can say, okay, I have another 30 years of I can identify with my good looks. So the answer, of course, is Then find the essence of who you are, which is what all this teaching is always about. Find the essence of who you are so that you get in touch with the inherent sense of beingness or aliveness or presence within you, which pervades the entire so called physical body, but is not the physical body. And as I speak about it now, you should be able to feel that within you. The fact that there is an aliveness that pervades your entire being. Can you feel that? That is more essentially who you are then the external appearance of who you are. And that is going to be exactly the same in 30 years time as it is now. So then you become free of form. You are essentially the consciousness behind it all. So know yourself as that life or consciousness, they are the same, no thing. Know yourself as that and you're free of the ego. The ego is there as a substitute. It's to seek yourself in some form. That's the delusion and that creates an unhappy life. So it's a wonderful thing. It's also liberating to see the absurdity of the ego. Once you see how the patterns that I just described just now, you can see how mad it is to feel diminished when something good happens to somebody else. To feel enhanced when something bad happens to somebody else and not even know it. So let's see what happens next up. You can admire a beautiful female form without any comparison. In fact, feel more intensely the beauty that is within you when you see it out there. That's a wonderful thing. It.