The key is being aware of how you treat yourself. We are usually our harshest critics. Once you are self aware, you can at least begin to address the issue. It’s the same with working out. Body awareness is key to being more efficient and effective in your workouts. See how it’s all related –mind and body.
“As I became more and more aware of how often and how harshly I judged myself, I finally made the connection: Disapproving of myself led to needing others’ approval. As long as I was treating myself so badly — not only by judging myself, but also by giving myself up to please others and by not attending at all to my own feelings and needs — I desperately needed others’ approval to feel that I was okay.
This was a huge awareness for me. I realized that I wasn’t approval-dependent because there was something flawed and defective about me, but because I was treating myself so abusively. This was something I could do something about! I finally realized that, while I could not control how others felt about me and treated me — even if I was “perfect” — I could control how I felt about myself and treated myself.”