The Good Life

Positive psychology and what makes life worth living.

by Christopher Peterson

Being Comfortable in One's Own Skin: Ugh

Let's retire the phrase until we have better examples.

Published on December 6, 2010 by Christopher Peterson, Ph.D. in The Good Life

I have written several blog entries about clichés that I do not like - "picking my brain" and "thinking outside the box." Here is a third entry about another cliché that does not roll easily off my tongue - "being comfortable in one's own skin." I encountered it most recently while surfing this morning. In a blog entry describing Janet Jackson and whatever her newest project might be, the comment was made that she is comfortable in her own skin. The entry went on to say that she is gorgeous, which is why I have trouble with the expression, at least as it is typically used.

If you search google images for the phrase, you will find more than three million pictures, and while I did not make a formal count, I did scroll through a number of pages. It seemed as if 95%+ of these pictures were of women, invariably very attractive women like Janet Jackson. Often these women were scantily clad, which may be an artifact of the search terms.

Find a Therapist

Search for a mental health professional near you.

Find Local:

So what? In principle, the phrase conveys something positive: Accepting and liking one's self and in particular one's physical appearance, whatever it might be. Surveys suggests that many women are less than happy about how they look, so maybe it makes sense that the google images usually depict women. But why do they so often have to be young and slim and conventionally pretty?

The general message to accept yourself, including your looks, is undercut by the examples so frequently used in the media. These examples imply that being comfortable in your own skin has some challenging prerequisites beyond what most of us can ever possess.

Let's retire the phrase until we can come up with examples truer to its point.