Brave Enough To Be Bliss

That is my wish for you. That one day you will send me a photo of yourself telling me what you see through new eyes of compassion for yourself. One day, I hope you will see what I saw.

I'm going to send you a few quotes that have been meaningful to me and that I hope serve as reminders to you that as imperfect as each one of us, we can still be so very beautiful in all our imperfection. ❤️

“Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of a human being.” Tony Robbins

“I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection.” Emily Ley

“You are enough even when you don’t feel like it. Even on your darkest days, you know, the ones when you don’t even feel like getting out of bed, you’re enough on those days too. You are enough even when your heart has been hurt by someone you love and car e about. You know those days when you stand in front of the mirror and don’t feel like yourself, you’re enough on those days too. When you’re exhausted, run off your feet, and didn’t finish everything you needed to do that day, you’re enough the n too. You are enough. You always are and you always have been. Be kind to yourself. Today and always.” Charlotte Freeman My experience has been that far more women make negative comments about how other women look than men do. Certainly, there are critical men, but the comments I have heard most are not understanding why women try so hard, spend so much time on how they look, are so critical of themselves, etc. I only bring this up because it makes me wonder if some women try to make it men’s or society’s problem instead of confronting their own issues about what they expect of themselves. Regardless of what messages are heard or what has been done to a person to lead toward a negative body image, we can only control ourselves. Dealing with the personal underlying issues of why those messages were believed and improving how we speak to ourselves moving forward is what can actually make a difference for us and our children. And that made me wonder, what if I had just believed John when he said he liked that I’d gained a little weight? He had no history of saying anything mean to me. What if I had just believed him that he liked it instead of telling him he shouldn’t have said it? What if I had said to myself, damn straight I gained a few pounds after three surgeries, eight weeks without bending my leg, not being able to do any exercise for 18 months? What if I applauded myself that it was only 5 pounds instead of 25 pounds? What if I could allow him to look at all of me and tell myself, he’s damn lucky to have all of me and if he doesn’t like five more pounds of me , there’ll be someone else who will thank their lucky stars I’m in their life ? Instead of realizing I still had some work to do in the area of body image myself, I wanted to make the issue his, so I didn’t have to face my own fear that I wasn’t attractive enough for me . It's so easy to think that everyone else has it better than we do, but we can never know all the details of another person’s history or what they feel about themselves on the inside . T hat’s why it’s so important not to judge one another. And our children are listening to everything we say and everything we do, so speaking to ourselves kindly is as important as speaking to them kindly. This video was popular on social media, but if you didn’t catch it, it’s a good one to watch. This little four -year old girl calls herself ugly, but fortunately she’s with an awesome hairdresser who helps her see her beauty in the moment. My hope is that she has that level of positive reinforcement around her all the time. As heartbreaking as it is for little Ariyonna, it’s equally heartwarming that Shabria Redmond responded as she did. “Perhaps the ‘ideal body weight’ is the amount it weighs when you are too busy loving your life to give a shit about your body weight.” Unknown

Little Girl Calls Herself 'Ugly' In Heartbreaking Video - Hairdresser Handles It With Grace - Goalcast

“Do not speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body does not know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that is why it is called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.” Bruce Lee

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