Lewis HowesYour Personal 24/7 Greatness Coach

Struggling with Body Dysmorphia | Senada Greca

9 Jan 2025 · 0 min

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In this brief interview segment, Neal Stephenson asks Kevin Kelly about his self‑love and self‑esteem during a difficult period of his life. Kelly explains that he had almost no self‑love because he lacked a clear internal image of himself and instead directed affection toward an idealized, unattainable version of his body. He describes how this perfect external image prevented him from recognizing real, positive changes—such as weight loss—leading to a persistent sense of inadequacy and low self‑esteem.

How much self-love did you have during that season of life? Did you have a low self-esteem and low level of self-love?
I would say that there was no, there was almost no self-love because you don't have a clear image of yourself. And you're focusing that love on an idealistic image that's outside of you.
A perfect image that you can't attain.
And perfect images outside of you that you can't attain. And you could attain it, but in your eyes, you know, like you're saying, let's say you're, you've lost a certain amount of weight, but you're still not able to see that.