#personal image

[gaitwae]

there was something my (now ex) boyfriend said to me that i really needed and a lot of us need to hear: "even if you forget, it doesn't change how i love you."

a lot of us need to remember how much other people love us. like how much other people really love us, even if we don't feel it. there are definitely times where people aren't loving us correctly or showing it correctly, yeah, but sometimes the things that make us blind to all sorts of love and care are just stupid things from our own heads. it doesn't matter who loves us or how, but i promise you, even if you forget, it does not change how those certain people love you.

[buildingparadise]

personal branding begins with the ability to think for yourself

key takeaways from chapter 1 of cynthia johnson’s “platform: the art and science of personal branding”

personal branding is about being yourself out loud

we as individuals are different from brands because we have something a product or corporation cannot have - relatability

personal branding takes time! listen to your natural instincts and desires

don’t try to be the next anything - the next naomi campbell, the next steve jobs, the next marilyn monroe; your brand should be authentic, not manufactured or copied

don’t let the haters fool you! personal branding is not a millennial-created phenomenon. it’s about making sure your voice is heard to take control of your own images, reputation, and freedom of thought

challenge the status quo: personal branding is for people who want freedom from being influenced or overpowered by others. think of power as a tool that falls into two different buckets. power as influence which usually involves control (and responsibility) over others & power as autonomy which allows one person to ignore the influence of others to shape their own destiny

check out new series coming! for more key takeaways and stay tuned for more <3

[flickeringart]

The persona

The persona is the face that is “put on” like a mask over the authentic self. It serves the function of protection, of sustaining an effective social engagement and a path within society for the individual. It essentially acts a bridge between what is required from the outside environment and what lies within in terms of basic temperament and selfhood.

A well-developed persona is nothing more and nothing less than an ability to adapt to whatever social situation one is in – it’s a conformity tool. There’s usually a status quo, a kind of surface equilibrium that is supposed to be maintained in order for social and societal structures to function smoothly. The persona plays a function within the psyche that is not to be trivialized – there is a definite necessity to playing roles in society. The skill of adopting expressions and behavior that works socially adds up to create a potent persona, an effective way of being that is ideally designed to work in harmony with the more authentic core of the individual.

There’s nothing wrong with the persona per se, unless it’s confused with the authentic self. I imagine that many people live their whole lives through a mask because it’s an effective coping mechanism and they have not managed to connect to the center of themselves or their personal needs. Some are lost in a role through having played it so long. They have reduced themselves to empty shells without genuine feeling or direction in life. They may have played the game well, but it would not have been meaningful or fulfilling to the inner self. Their lives are not their own, the things the say, the actions they take are possessed by something that was never supposed to be more than a mask. Life is run on autopilot, unaffected by personal desire, feeling or direction. These people don’t know what they want out of life, they echo standards of a societal or social nature while remaining completely disconnected from themselves.

In astrology, the persona is marked by the Ascendant, the cusp of the 1st house. This is the house of self and the way it’s projected to the environment. For some, the Ascendant works well with the Sun (personal will) and the Moon (personal emotion) for example, for others it is in conflict. The persona can be in conflict with different archetypes (planets) of the unconscious, which would be illustrated by hard aspects or an incompatibility of element (fire, air, earth, water) or modality (cardinal, fixed, mutable) or masculine/feminine signs. The Midheaven, which marks the 10th house cusp represents public image. Persona and public image are different. The first is a general projected energy that is used to cope with personal interactions, and the second is how one portrays oneself to the public as a member of society.  

Is it possible to spot and differentiate the persona from the self? It’s reasonable to believe that if a person has a well-developed persona but a poorly developed connection with the self the façade might occasionally crack and reveal confusion and underneath with no clear center or definition to be found. This is usually discovered when life becomes challenging and something inside is incapable of keeping up the act. The person is faced by chaos and emptiness because they have never really been living from a place of authenticity and they haven’t built any real strength beyond the strength of conformity. These people interact through a comfortable mask and others usually have trouble reaching them because they barely know themselves. They are nothing beyond the role they play in society and on a personal level. Some people have a well-developed persona and copes well in the world but haven’t confused it with themselves and wouldn’t experience any major crisis if it didn’t hold up perfectly. They know themselves beyond the image they project into the environment and wouldn’t experience the pain of “losing face”. Some people, I imagine, have an undeveloped persona – these are the people that have very bad social adaptation skills yet everyone knows that they are completely honest and authentic to the extent that they know themselves. However, they might be difficult to approach or deal with because they don’t have a reliable self-image that works when interacting with the world in general.

[zakuramoloss]

Her name is Tomodo Izumi, and she likes being watched. She likes her body, her beauty and her booty. Thank you for her.

[thoughtfullyannoyingdreamland]

Goooood look at that Cutie

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just imagine

You don't even remember what he was explaining but to look at him was truly enough. All you knew was that he could go on forever and you'd never become tired listening and watching that beautiful man in front of you.

[flyteestudio]

21/04/2019

permanent red hair dye is a myth. 

[shosei-jutsu]

from Love and Fortune.

[pluz-size-models]

Hi guys, I'm here to get some advice so this is gonna get personal

I’m a 20 year old bisexual girl who has dated both girls and boys in the past (I had my first boyfriend at 16) but I’ve always been really afraid of moving to the next step on all of those relationships so I always break up with these people before anything else can happen.

Why am I so afraid? Well I’m terrified of showing my body. I’ve always been overweight, and right now I’m the heaviest I have ever been, I’ve always had a very low self esteem (I wasn’t bullied at school or anything, but I did have my bully at home, my mom) So I’ve grown to hate my body, and then be kind of okay with it, know how to make it look a little bit better with the type of clothing I wear, and to be honest I never even thought I could date someone looking the way that I do, but I’ve even had more partners than some of my skinny friends, so I guess the only thing is that I won’t get to hide my body in this situation, and right now I don’t have any boyfriend or girlfriend and it seems like I won’t have one anywhere in the near future.

The last time I went on a date with anyone it was a couple months ago, with this guy I met at work and he was kind of creepy. He asked about how I felt regarding nudes on the FIRST and only date. before letting him know we would not be seeing each other anymore I did ask myself if it would be a good idea to just go with it and lose my virginity with him since he kinda looked like me, maybe we could be comfortable with each other, and maybe this opportunity would not present again in a while, but I was too afraid of this guy only wanting me for sex so I decided to not go with it.

My original idea was to lose it to a girl, since I feel a little bit more comfortable with them, but where I live it’s really hard to find single girls my age. So right now I’m just wondering if I should just have a one night stand and drink a little to calm the f down and just get this over with, I mean maybe after the nerves of the first time go away, sex would just be one of those normal things that you don’t worry about anymore?

Also, there’s this guy at work that I really like and he seems to like me back too? idk I’m so insecure that I can just never tell, but I do feel like I wouldn’t be good enough for him so i’m telling myself to not even try it cuz either way, at the end maybe I would freak out and not want to have sex with someone who I would want to potentially date for a long time, so any advice? I do have this ridiculous idea of losing it before I’m 21 which is like six months away, every nerdy older friend if you will that I’ve had lost it at this age so I wouldn’t like for it to take any longer than that.

I'd appreciate if you could give me some advice I'm pretty lost here