How to Not Pick

It's taken me years to realize that the only solution to not picking is to love what your skin does for you more than its imperfections. In order to love what your skin does for you you have to love yourself. You have to believe your life is worth protecting and worth living. It sounds very simple but it's actually not. You may have been raised by very critical people, who were not only very hard on themselves but who were hard on you too. You may have surrounded yourself with friends who were similar. Most likely, you tried to stop picking by forcing yourself to be "better" - by telling yourself that there was something wrong with you that you needed to fix. This is completely self-defeating. That attitude is exactly what leads to picking in the first place - my skin has imperfections and I need it to be perfect -> I have imperfections and I need to be perfect. Do you see where I'm going with this? The attitude you need to cultivate is actually: I am a good, worthwhile person. I deserve to treat myself well, and I deserve to be treated well. Now, I am not talking about self-indulgence. I am talking about making choices that support your health, which again goes back to your life being of value. Like it or not, we live our lives in this body; therefore, when we care about our lives, we take care of our bodies. Unfortunately, this is something no one else can tell you to do. When you are down on yourself and your life, someone else telling you to love yourself and to take care of yourself can sound like criticism, too.