After posting yesterday I honestly avoided looking at it because I was afraid I would decide to delete it but I am so glad that I didn't. Hours after pressing "publish" I came back and read every single comment. I was blown away. I am so glad that the post helped so many people or at least opened some eyes. It was SO difficult to put everything out there for the whole world to see but I knew it had to be done.
Life is WAY too short to live like this and I've decided that I'm NOT going to live like this anymore. After reading some of the comments, I actually feel lucky that I haven't had these issues longer than I have. I feel like it's a prison but I vow to escape it now and I want to take as many of you with me as possible. I CANNOT continue down this road.
I PLEAD with you to join me, especially if you are a mother. It is so important that we end these body image issues now. All of this negative self talk does NO GOOD. Absolutely NO GOOD. I realized last year that the scale did no good and I got rid of it (read this post) so I KNOW I can do the same with this negative self talk. We would NEVER talk to someone else the way we talk to ourselves so why do we still do it?
I immediately found and read my article from Oxygen Magazine (June 2013 issue). I am so shocked about some of the things that I wrote about in there.
"Whitney hoped that her personal language would spark her confidence, igniting a sense of self-assurance that would drive her to a bold, determined approach in the gym. Whitney's one-on-one positivity pep talks helped to build up her self-esteem, and to permanently shape her into a women who sees the glass as half full. 'I had to learn how to twist my negatives into positives'".
They even quoted me as saying "I realized that when you hear something enough, you start to believe it. When I started to think of myself differently, I truly started to change my life."
So, now the question to myself is HOW do I get that back? How do I get that positive attitude back? I'm going to start with these 5 things and I would love for you to do these with me!
- Say at least one nice thing about yourself each morning. Bonus points for actually TALKING to yourself in the mirror. It doesn't even have to do with looks. It can be something positive from work, your personal life, or just that you made healthy choices the day before.
- Avoid judging or critiquing others. When we judge others it really does say a lot about ourselves - more than it says about the other person. We are in NO place to judge anyone.
- Avoid social media accounts that are based solely on appearance. Honestly these are easy to spot by how many "selfies" they take. These accounts MIGHT give you a little motivation at first but over time it will drain you.
- Do not talk negatively about yourself. Definitely avoid doing so in front of your spouse and/or children.
- Stop comparing yourself to others. You are YOU. This is the only life and body you have. Live your own life.
I KNOW that we can do this together. Let's get started with what I've listed here but - get -ready - there's lots more to come!
P.S. I would love for you to join our FREE Healthy Living Challenge on Facebook because we plan on tackling some of these together (just fill out the form in the post linked above)!
- Whitney
