Everyone who is here at healthy weight but thinks there fat say ✋

Serenity, I’m guessing that something really awful happened to you today.

Want to talk about it?

Nothing and no one is worth making you feel that down on yourself.

Internet hugs, sweetie. It’s the best I can do from here.

Serenity, my most vivid memories of my mother are of her hitting herself in the head, and screaming at the mirror,” D, you big fat ugly *kitten*” and then crying.

When I reached my early teens she’d tell me,” I feel sorry for you. You look just like me. You’re so homely.”

Did literally beating herself up make her pretty or thin? Did cutting me down make her look or feel any better?

Words have power. Words from loved ones can cut like knives and we carry their wounds our whole lives.

Words we say to ourselves, though, those words are the most powerful of all.

All I can tell you, from experience, is change the words you use to define yourself. Look in the mirror and find something you like about yourself. Put it on a post it note if you have to. Make yourself see it. Repeat it to yourself.

And for gods sake, remember children are watching and absorbing, learning and copying.

You know what? I’m still no great beauty outside, even after large weight loss. That doesn’t change. But, dammit, I’m awesome inside.

One of my yoga instructors ends every class saying “Be kind to yourself. If you can’t be kind to yourself, how can you expect others to be?”