When I saw and read the article in Us Magazine this month about Jennifer Love Hewitt on losing 18 LBS in ten weeks, my first thought was “I thought weight didn’t matter”.
I know she states in the article that she didn’t lose the weight because of the rude and mean comments, so my questions to her is why go on the cover of Us Magazine and make it such a HUGE deal that you lost 18 LBS, why make it so public?
Lose the weight, be happy, and run your marathon. Don’t make such a production out of losing weight, it sends the wrong message to our teens. Every time a teen see a cover like this one on a popular magazine, it screams “if you looked like I did you need to lose weight.
80% of women feel badly about their bodies, and most women and teens have an immediate reaction to seeing someone on the cover of a magazine showing off their body. The reaction is usually I’m not good enough.
80% of women report that images of women on TV, fashion magazines, and advertising make them feel insecure about their looks.
So I don’t know if Jennifer Love Hewitt thought she was doing our youth a favor, she might want to rethink it. Any image of a women that is showing her slim body with a smiling face, and heavier body with an unhappy face is sending a message that thin is better.
The media is bombarding our youth on all levels, mostly about our bodies not being thin enough.
Talk to your teen about how this makes her feel, and let her know that she is great the way she is and that most of the images in magazines aren’t real. What’s real is the essence of who we are.
Here is a video about how the media is affecting our teenage girls and yes us too. Let me know what you think about it.
I just spent the weekend in Newport Beach with my boyfriend and his 2 twin Fourteen-year-old boys. Boys sure are fun, and what I realized is that they are not too different from girls, at least not at 14. They care what they look like, their hair, their cloths and they don’t want their Dad or their Dad’s girlfriend touching them in public.
So image is important and it starts at a young age, probably around 12 years-old, and goes on until we are; well, until we figure out that what’s on the outside isn’t the most important thing in the world.
So what can we do to encourage our teens to have more self-confidence? First and foremost is set a good example. If we are walking around talking about how we don’t like our bodies, or our hair looks like crap, and our cloths are out of style, you can bet that our teens will notice and follow suit.
If you do anything to help your teen, it’s don’t talk negatively about yourself and also don’t talk negatively about them. If you are slamming them they will get good at slamming themselves. Also, talk to them about why they don’t like certain things about themselves and help them understand how they might be able to change their perception or attitudes about the those things. We all want to feel good about ourselves; the best gift we can give our teenager is positive reinforcement.
The best thing we can do for ourselves is also positive reinforcement.
Do you feel like you get the encouragement you would like in your daily life? How many of us do? I sure don’t, so I had to go to the drawing board and figure out why? Yes encouragement feels good and everyone needs it, but from whom? It doesn’t feel good to be trying your hardest and be treated like your not trying.
Why is it so hard for friends, family, partners or bosses to give encouragement? One thing I realized was that it might not be about me. If a boss isn’t giving me encouragement and I know I am doing a good job and doing my best, it might be because they have insecurities. Maybe they have a hard time telling you your great at your job because it makes them feel insufficient somehow. If this is the case, for me it’s important just not to take it personally. To know that I am doing the best I can and that I am okay. It goes back to the self confidence thing. If I am self confident then it would matter if others think I’m not adequate.
For me when someone is acting like I’m not good enough, my mantra is the reverse, to tell myself that I am good enough. For them, it is to see a wounded person inside of them that can’t see the good in themselves, therefore they have to act like others aren’t good enough. Send them love because they are feeling very insecure about themselves, the more encouragement you give them, the easier it will be to reciprocate.
I have been involved in a 8 year experience that has validated my truth. amazing that is has taken so long to come full circle.
To make a long story short, there was 3 of us involved and each of us was being told different things about each other, and saying different things to each other and reacting to those things, based on the information we thought we were seeing. Today the real picture has appeared and it all makes sense. Because of a clearing I had done with one person, and then another person’s clearing 2 years later with us, we now have the truth.
The funny thing about it is that my gut knew the truth all along. For me this 8 year experience has taught me a few things :
1. Clearing up the stuff, meaning if you have an issue with someone it’s a good idea to get together with them and try to get things straighten out.
2. Your gut knows everything, if we sink out of our heads and into our gut, our intuition, we will always have all of the answers.
3. Not having the truth and living through what you think is the truth, creates more stuff to have to clear, and more confusion.
4. It’s just not healthy to not clear and to not listen to your gut.
Life/our experiences is amazing and it is the best teacher we will ever have. I enjoy being a student of life and participating on the level that I do. I encourage you to look at the stuff you haven’t cleared and see if you can clean it up. You will be shocked at how different you feel. Let me know if you have any experiences you want to share.
“The only real valuable thing is intuition” by Albert Einstein
I remember when my oldest was 11 years old and she wanted a party, and was a bit confused about what to do. It was going to be Halloween, so at least there was a theme. I remember making up different games to entertain them and it was a good thing. At first my daughter was like “Mom that will be stupid”, but when the party started, and they were all looking for fun things to do, we were both happy that the dorky Mom came through.
One idea that I am going to share with you is a My Feet Aren’t Ugly Journaling Party for your daughter and her friends. Girls love to journal. I have a kit that comes with my book, My Feet Aren’t Ugly, Journaling pages, a cool pen, and why journaling is so good for you. You can also use the kit for Birthday parties, and have the girls write on the journaling pages a song for the birthday girls to keep. If you are really eager to please you can teach the girls how to make there own journals, I do this in my workshops. The girls love making their own journals to write in.
Journaling has always been a part of my life and I think it’s a good place to put your feelings, where there is no judgments from anyone.
A few great party ideas:
*Beauty Salon Day- only the girls do pedicures, manicures, and mask on each other
*Scavenger Hunts are always fun, no matter what your age
* Hollywood Parties are fun-dress up like your favorite star and throw a red carpet down and check off their names as they come in and for the first hour they have to play the part of the star.
*Bowling Parties are also fun
These are just a few ideas for fun parties. E-mail me if you want to talk about getting some My feet aren’t Ugly Journal kits, the cost is only $14.99 each.
It feels as though I have been pushing up against everything lately, and feeling not very supported. This gives me the opportunity to look at why? Why not relax into it and go with the flow?
To look at the movement of water, how it just moves with ease, over rocks, and under logs. How can I emulate this free flowing water? For me, I need to realize that life is a journey, that I get to go on to learn how to love myself and show up in the world for me and others. That everything else is an illusion. My house, my car, my cloths, even how I look!
The only thing that is real is my relationship with myself, others and a higher power if you believe in one. And then this leads me back to how to have a relationship with myself? This is something I have to be conscious of every minute of the day. When I am feeling contracted or trigger with something or someone, to explore my feelings around it, not to blame the person who might have triggered me but to connect to those feelings and grow from them.
It’s just like realizing that I am pushing up against everything and life seems harder. To realize that these are feelings that I had when I was a child. To have a little conversation with my child within, listen to the feelings wrapped around those feelings and then step up and be a good mother and father to that child within. This might look like, just shifting how I am doing something…Stop pushing and relax and go with the flow.
Throughout the day, pay attention to your body, and how you feel. Are you contracted or upset? If so, don’t ignore those feelings. It’s like if you had a child of your own, and he or she was feeling badly, maybe really sad, would you ignore her feelings? I don’t think so! So show up for that little child inside of you, and be a good mother and father. Every time I feel unsupported in this world, it’s because I am not being supportive to myself. Experiment with really paying attention to your feelings for one day and attending to those feelings and see how you feel. Let me know how the day lays out for you.
Today I am 51 years young, and feeling pretty good in my body all-in-all. A few aches here and there that I presume are normal, considering I have been walking around in this body for 51 years.
It has brought me to a place of looking at my body a bit differently. I have been learning to love my body all of my life, it has been a life long journey. I believe that this is why teenage girls relate to me so well. It is because I can truly understand their hand ups when it comes to their bodies, because it is something I work on everyday.
My body has changed a lot through out the years, but probably more in the last 3 years. I woke up today greeted by a wonderful man telling me Happy Birthday, a man that loves me unconditionally. As I went through the morning to prepare to be with a group of amazing women for the day to swim at the creek, I was looking at my body and realized that even though it is a bit larger than it used to be, and a bit flabbier, I had a new awareness of my love for it. I believe it was also connected to my awareness of how much I have grown throughout these amazing years in this exact body.
Our bodies are only the vehicle that allows us to get around and do the things we need and want to do. I am in gratitude for what a wonderful working vehicle it has been for me. It is so important to be thankful for our bodies, they work hard for us. Thank your body today for being so good to you, for showing up everyday to do the things you ask of it, and love it for exactly what it looks like.
What a story… about the 18, teenage girls creating a pregnancy pact in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and on the same day that Jamie Lynn Spears gives birth to her baby.
For the first time since 1991, birth rates have risen 3 percent in 2006, according to preliminary data released in December by the National Center for Health Statistics.
It seems that this is another opportunity for parents to get close and personal with their teenagers. Instead of freaking out, ask your teenager what they think about all of this. Ask them what they think it would be like to raise a baby at there age. Communicate with your teen about issues that could affect them. Pretending like these issue don’t exist, doesn’t make it so.
Many parents are thinking how will this affect my teenager, will she think it’s cool to get pregnant? Maybe so, so you better find out and start the communication now! The only way to help your teen today is to talk to them about everything that is out there that the media is bringing to light. It’s a great opportunity to find out what they are thinking and to educate them on the real facts of a situation.
When my oldest daughter was 13 years old, I was sitting outside with her and 2 of her friends and I said to them, “Your pregnant, what are you going to do?” Hypothetically. Each one of them had a different answer. One said have the baby and keep it, one said have the baby and give it away, and the other said abort.
So, you don’t know what your teen is thinking until you ask. Start talking to your teens about everything, bring all of the issues to the light and discuss them, pregnancy, sex, drug use, eating disorders, everything. It’s up to us as parents to go to our teens and talk about things. Research the information together on the favorite tool, the Internet, and find out the facts.
We live in a different world today, compared to when I was a teenager or even my girls where teens. We have to pay attention to our kids and what’s going on with them and other teens.
I love music and I have a varied taste, from old rock, techno, rap, some country, classical, jazz, and blues. You name it and I probably listen to it.
The question is, does it affect us? I know for me music absolutely affects me, my mood, and even my behavior. I have all of my music in my computer on iTunes and I have it on shuffle. So I get to listen to a variety of music through out the day. Sometimes I notice that I am feeling anxious and tense. When my attention goes to what could be making me feel this way, I notice it always goes back to the selected song on my i Tunes. I will change the song in my playlist and start to calm down again.
I have read a bit about the affects music has on our teens and our selves, but I invite you to test it out yourself. If you have access to shuffling your music, put together a playlist of different music. Make sure you put a variety in the list and put some very soft easy music on and some heavy hard music with disturbing lyrics on. Sit back and relax as the music carries you away, pay attention to how your body is feeling with every song. Tune into your thoughts with the different songs. You might even journal about how each song affected you.
I think this is a great exercise to do with your teens some day. Have them lay on the floor and relax, ask them to pay attention to their thoughts and how their bodies feel with the different music. Maybe only pick 6 different songs, when the play list is done, ask them to journal on how they felt and their thoughts, and then talk about it as a family. The only way they are going to understand how music really affects them is if you show them. If they are more attracted to the disturbing music, ask them what they like about it, maybe they just like the beat and they really don’t even listen to the lyrics.
I suggest doing research on the internet with them to help them understand what certain music does to your being. Try not to judge them in this process, just research and talk about it. Let me know how it goes.
Another beautiful day in Sedona! I feel so fortunate to be living in a place that does it’s best at keeping me close to who I am. My partner Joe and I went for a hike at 6:00pm yesterday and the lighting was amazing. The whole hike was amazing.
Every time I am out in the powerful red rocks, I come home to who I am. I use to hike 5 days a week, sometimes 6 days a week. It was easy for me to stay connected to myself.
Is there something you do to feed your soul? Art, hiking, photography, whatever it is, be sure you remember to do it. It is so hard in this fast paced world, where we get up, go to school, then go to volley practice, or some other practice, come home, do our homework, go to bed, and get up the next day and start all over, to remember to do the things that feed us.
If we don’t stay somewhat connected to our soul, we start believing that what’s really important is all the other stuff. When I hike it makes me realize that it’s the relationship with myself and others that is the most important. This is important for all ages teens and parents alike.
What do you do to stay connected to yourself? Let me know.
