how to talk to your daughter

How to talk to your daughter about her body, step one: don’t talk to your daughter about her body, except to teach her how it works.

Don’t say anything if she’s lost weight. Don’t say anything if she’s gained weight.
If you think your daughter’s body looks amazing, don’t say that. Here are some things you can say instead:

“You look so healthy!” is a great one.

Or how about, “You’re looking so strong.”

“I can see how happy you are – you’re glowing.”

Better yet, compliment her on something that has nothing to do with her body.

Don’t comment on other women’s bodies either. Nope. Not a single comment, not a nice one or a mean one.

Teach her about kindness towards others, but also kindness towards yourself.

Don’t you dare talk about how much you hate your body in front of your daughter, or talk about your new diet. In fact, don’t go on a diet in front of your daughter. Buy healthy food. Cook healthy meals. But don’t say “I’m not eating carbs right now.” Your daughter should never think that carbs are evil, because shame over what you eat only leads to shame about yourself.

Encourage your daughter to run because it makes her feel less stressed. Encourage your daughter to climb mountains because there is nowhere better to explore your spirituality than the peak of the universe. Encourage your daughter to surf, or rock climb, or mountain bike because it scares her and that’s a good thing sometimes.

Help your daughter love soccer or rowing or hockey because sports make her a better leader and a more confident woman. Explain that no matter how old you get, you’ll never stop needing good teamwork. Never make her play a sport she isn’t absolutely in love with.
Prove to your daughter that women don’t need men to move their furniture.
Teach your daughter how to cook kale.

Teach your daughter how to bake chocolate cake made with six sticks of butter.
Pass on your own mom’s recipe for Christmas morning coffee cake. Pass on your love of being outside.

Maybe you and your daughter both have thick thighs or wide ribcages. It’s easy to hate these non-size zero body parts. Don’t. Tell your daughter that with her legs she can run a marathon if she wants to, and her ribcage is nothing but a carrying case for strong lungs. She can scream and she can sing and she can lift up the world, if she wants.

Remind your daughter that the best thing she can do with her body is to use it to mobilize her beautiful soul.

-  wordpress

Best Practice

“Best Practice” is a letter to oneself. A pseudo-dream where reassurances and self taught coping mechanisms intersect a shuffle of memories. It is an adventure of self care, by cartoonist and painter Joshua Jarrett.

(via The Rumpus)

**PUBLIC NOTICE**

Please ignore all that 'get fit for summer bikini body' nonsense that's floating around designed to sell you things you don't need and feelings you can do without.
It's tempting to get fixated on the ephemeral stuff, I know, but it will be a waste of your sweet and precious time.

Instead BE KIND to yourself by:

Finding ways to move that you love. LOVE LIBERATES. It will keep you coming back.

Finding ways to move that challenge your nerve, curiosity and natural urge to play.

Finding ways to move intelligently to cultivate self trust, self knowledge and self love. The more clearly you understand yourself and you motivations the better chance you have of acting well in the world.

Finding teachers that help drop you into your body and encourage you to be honest with yourself and about what you feel so you can change from working/feeling/responding from your own history to creating new, more helpful patterns, which ultimately gives you choice, health and freedom.

I could go on, but it will keep you from moving so be gone!

Recommended Read: Beauty Redifined

Something to  read... physically-photoshopping-ourselves-out-of-reality

"Here’s an outrageous idea: What would happen if confident, happy, beautiful women decided to forego painful and expensive anti-aging procedures, breast lifts and enhancements, liposuction, all over hair removal or tanning regimens? How could that change the way their daughters, students, friends, nieces and coworkers perceived themselves and their own “flawed,” lined, real faces? Their own varied-looking and perfectly functional breasts, behinds, thighs, arms and abs? How could simply owning and (treating kindly and speaking nicely about) our so-called “imperfect” bodies affect not only our own lives, but those over whom we have influence? Is it possible to slowly but deliberately change the perception of these “flaws” as something to shame, hide and fix at any cost to something acceptable and embraceable in all their human, womanly real-ness? We say yes."

Found here

Yoga For Self-Acceptance

Carolyn Gregoire Offers 5 ways the practice can heal body images issues in The Huffington Post. 

Something I am very passionate about! Worth a read...

Body image anxiety -- whether it's a fixation on a facial flaw, an obsession with calorie-counting and exercise, or general negative feelings about your appearance -- can be all-consuming, and they can take a serious toll on your well-being and self-esteem. When it comes to dealing with body insecurities and negative self-talk, sometimes the best thing can be to get out of your own head. Yoga, which is now being offered in some schools as a stress-relieving practice, can also be an effective way for young women to develop a positive self-image.

"Yoga allows us to start to slow down the self-critic, and start to observe that this voices in our heads isn't necessarily the reality," Vyda Bielkus, co-founder of Health Yoga Life studio in Boston, tells the Huffington Post. "To slow down and get into the body and say 'OK, when these thoughts are coming up, there's something actually behind the thoughts that we're observing' -- that connects us more to our true self versus the dialogue that may be running us."

Beginning a yoga program during your high school years can help you to start listening to the wisdom of your own inner voice, and to realize that your voice matters, Bielkus says. Whether it's peer pressure from your girlfriends or pressure you put on yourself, yoga can help you to find comfort and resilience by looking within and finding your own path. 

Here are five ways that a regular yoga practice can help heal body image issues and promote positive self-esteem....

Click here to read on!

Louise Bourgeois’ writings to herself.
Found via thehapticblog

thought...

a moment of self compassion can change the course of your day!