Debunking Diet Culture – Story vs. Facts – September 2022 Mantras

Debunking Diet Culture – Story vs. Facts – September 2022 Mantras

by | Sep 10, 2022 | Body Positivity, General, Parenting and Teens, Self Acceptance, Self Care, Teen Health and Wellness

Ready to challenge beliefs? Like, really challenge beliefs? Let’s do some necessary self-care by debunking diet culture beliefs that many people have accepted and internalized.

Do you know your thoughts have power? 

Your current thinking creates your current reality.

Your Now thinking creates your Now result.

The IME Community Think/Feel/Do Circuit

Check out the IME Community Think/Feel/Do Circuit below. 

Your brain is a story making machine.  

Most of what goes on in your brain, the thousands of unconscious thoughts coming up on the daily are just stories.  Thoughts are a rainbow that comes and goes; a sentence in your mind; a cloud going by while the real you is the quiet confidence of the blue sky.

You see other people and all of your life through a lens of your thoughts and most of the time you believe your thoughts to be true without challenging or questioning.  

Maybe you spend time protecting your ego and take action to protect your brain’s story and prove you are right?  I personally don’t know anything about this ego thing!

It’s not a problem for you, unless you get stuck in life, or blame other people for how you feel and for your actions. That’s called emotional childhood.  I’ll coach more on that later. 

Thoughts: The Power of Your Mind

Don’t believe me?

Check out my podcast or YouTube interview with my friend and colleague, Pete Allman where we talk about his book, “Thoughts: The Power of Your Mind”.  

It’s epic. 

Epically helpful, that is.

What Is a Belief? (Especially As It Relates to Diet Culture)

So, what’s a belief? 

It’s a powerful thought on a loop in your brain, mostly left unchallenged.

Did you know you can drop beliefs that don’t serve you like a book? 

Thought awareness is powerful.  

Most of the time, thoughts come up as a feeling, a vibration in your body. When it comes to diet thinking and beliefs and also with parenting, most of the time it’s disappointment, shame or fear that comes up as a vibration in your body.  

Here’s how it works. 

The more attachment to your thoughts or beliefs, the more powerful that think/feel/do circuit becomes in your brain. In my book I’m writing to help GenX parents deconstruct 80’s harmful and unfun diet culture so you can help your teen create healthy habit sticks for life. I’ll share more about how important “the work” is to do for yourself and in your home in my book, so get ready. 

The reality is if you don’t do “the work”, your teen will adopt diet beliefs and perpetuate the diet thinking cycle. 

When you are aware that you are not your thoughts, your thoughts are optional, same with beliefs, you can start to let go of what doesn’t serve you and create beliefs on purpose that do serve you.  It’s called a belief upgrade and it’s an epically powerful life coaching tool. 

In the book, “Helping People Change (Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth)”, coaching science shows humans are motivated to take action from a place of PEA or Positive Emotion Activation.  

Telling people (teens) what to do is authoritative compliance and evokes NEA, negative emotion activation and amotivation. For teens, for anyone to transform their health, they need PEA. 

Let’s start with some of the common diet thinking beliefs I’ve heard and thought about myself.  You may be following along with my Self-love superpower monthly mantras.  September is a month to challenge beliefs and create belief upgrades. 

Once you become aware of the beliefs or thoughts creating your feelings, you’re there.  Just pause.  You can then shift to create a belief upgrade or thoughts to think list.

30 Current Diet Thinking Beliefs

  • The only way to lose weight is to go on a diet.
  • The only way to lose weight is to deprive myself and watch what I eat all the time.
  • I have to count calories and be strict.
  • If I gain weight I will feel like a failure.
  • If I binge all of my work is gone.
  • I’m out of control when it comes to sugar.
  • I have to work out every day to lose weight.
  • A calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. 
  • Weighing myself is the only way to see if I’m successful or a failure.
  • I have to set a weight loss goal.
  • I can’t eat what I want and lose weight.
  • Everyone else gets to eat what they want.
  • I should be able to stick to eating less sugar, but I can’t.
  • I don’t believe it’s possible for me to eat sugar in moderation.
  • Every time I have something I need to do, I just grab my phone and put it off.
  • I’m such a procrastinator.
  • I hate exercising.
  • I’m not an athlete.
  • I’ll get bullied if I try out for a sport.
  • I love sports, but I’m not good enough to make the team.
  • Every time I exercise I get so out of breath.
  • Exercising just isn’t for me.
  • There must be something wrong with my body.
  • I would have less worries in life if my body was smaller.
  • I’ll feel good about myself when I reach my goal weight.
  • I know I need to love myself, but how is the question.
  • I wish I could just live my life but everyone is so obsessed with my weight.
  • Truth is I don’t really care about my health.
  • I wish I wasn’t judged by my body size.
  • I wish people didn’t feel so entitled to make comments about my body.

Changing Diet Thinking Beliefs

Now, check out my 30 belief upgrades for each day of September:

  • I’m curious to discover a non-diet approach to reach my health goals.
  • Deprivation never works long-term, is harmful and leads to binging.
  • I always get to choose how to measure my success.
  • I never make gaining weight mean anything is going wrong.
  • When I binge eat, I use my self-compassion mantras to disrupt the binge-restriction cycle.
  • My over-desire for sugary foods is a habit pathway in my brain. 
  • My body was created to move.
  • Creating healthy habit sticks is the way to help my body reach a healthy weight set point range.
  • I never have to weigh myself if I don’t want to, especially if it’s triggering for me.
  • Setting a weight loss goal dehumanizes my body and puts all my success at the finish line. 
  • I choose to eat delicious food that serves me and my health goals.
  • I stay out of self-judging by not judging body sizes and what others eat or don’t eat.
  • I’m curious to learn more brain science about sugar craving pathways.
  • I am not powerless over sugar. 
  • Going on my phone is a habit and I can easily get unstuck.
  • I can take one action step and that’s enough.
  • I get to try new ways to be active and move my body. 
  • I am an active person.
  • My past experience trying out for new things doesn’t have to be in the way of my future self.
  • I try out for the team with every intention of making it. 
  • When I’m out of breath exercising, I can take a break.
  • I trust I will discover fun ways to be active.
  • My body is working.  Shaming my body never works.
  • Wishing my body was smaller creates unnecessary drama in my brain.
  • I fully love and accept myself now. 
  • Self-love is my daily intentional habit practice. 
  • I’m choosing to live my magical life.
  • I get to create my own definition of health that works for me.
  • I connect with people who value body diversity.
  • I let people know my body is my business.

Check off the mantras that resonate with you and write one of your own.  Let’s go:

Current belief:_________________________________________________

Belief upgrade:_______________________________________________

When you sign up for my Cut the Cringe parent coaching workshop, you’ll get entered into a drawing for a signed copy of Pete’s book, “Thoughts: The Power of Your Mind”. 

Thoughts, anyone?

Self-love superpower,

Dr. Karla

Abundant Self Love – August 2022 Mantras

Abundant Self Love – August 2022 Mantras

by | Aug 17, 2022 | Body Positivity, General, Self Acceptance, Self Care, Teen Health and Wellness

What does abundance mean to you? 

The opposite of abundance is scarcity. 

Fixed, rigid, all or nothing, living small, negative self-talk, inner critic, fear of missing out, scarcity mindset, like you’ve got this one chance and you better not blow it?

I bring you a mind-blowing, or in coaching talk, belief-blowing discovery.

Did you see the Webb telescope’s image back from 13 billion light years ago?  Within a snippet the size of a grain of sand of the universe, the first image closest to when time began is full of galaxies, solar systems, nebulas of dying and birthing stars.  You can feel small or you can feel, like I do, a part of the incredible expanding abundant universe.  

When you think of your unlimited potential for self-love, you can use the tools of life coaching to snap images of your self-love universe. 

For August, there’s a lot of transitions, like summer wrapping up, school starting, activities getting going.  It can be really tough to avoid feeling dread and also like you have to get all this fun stuff in before summer ends. 

Abundant Self Love Mantras

Try my IME Community Abundant Self-Love Mantras for August:

  • 8/1 When I get stuck in fear of missing out then I miss out on my fun life.
  • 8/2 Scarcity is fear in disguise.
  • 8/3 The world is full of amazing humans I get to connect with.
  • 8/4 I’m not worried about trying new things.
  • 8/5 There’s never just one chance to try something
  • 8/6 I stay away from food rules because they’re too limiting.
  • 8/7 Restricting food creates an over desire for what I’m restricting.
  • 8/8 I can create an abundance of believable self-love thoughts.
  • 8/9 I know there are endless ways I can show self-worth.
  • 8/10 The more self-awareness, the more self-love.
  • 8/11 I haven’t even started to discover all the ways I can be kind to myself.
  • 8/12 When I feel fear of new beginnings, I always have my back.
  • 8/13 I never limit my dreams.
  • 8/14 People change and grow.  Maybe this year will be a new start.
  • 8/15 I am full of abundant self-love and compassion.
  • 8/16 When I feel anxiety, I know there’s nothing going wrong.
  • 8/17 FOMO with food is a waste of my time.
  • 8/18 Sometimes, YOLO thinking helps me when I’m stuck.
  • 8/19 When I overeat past being comfortable, I know it’s because I’m having scarcity thoughts.
  • 8/20 I love to eat an abundant variety of food.
  • 8/21 There’s never just one chance to get it right.
  • 8/22 I’ve got tons of great ideas and things I’d like to try.
  • 8/23 There’s a whole universe of health opportunities out there.
  • 8/24 If I feel stuck, I create awareness of my stuck thinking.
  • 8/25 I measure my success in endless ways.
  • 8/26 I never let anyone else create my narrative.
  • 8/27 My story is mine. I own it.
  • 8/28 My success in life is because of me.  It’s never because of or in spite of my weight.
  • 8/29 A number on a scale does not determine my actions.
  • 8/30 Every change I choose is from a place of infinite self-love.
  • 8/31 Just chilling out and resting when I feel like it, is intentional self-love.

Self-love superpower,

Dr. Karla

Debunking Diet Culture – Story vs. Facts – September 2022 Mantras

Body Image Thoughts – June 2022 Mantras

by | Jun 1, 2022 | Anti Bullying, Body Positivity, General, Self Acceptance, Self Care

Do You Bully Your Body? Here’s How to Get Unstuck from This Habit

Welcome to summer!

Whew! So far, it’s been a whirlwind for our family with my daughter’s graduation from High School and tomorrow I’m headed to Texas to move my oldest daughter into a new house (for her) with new roommates! I’m grateful I get to do it.

IME is six months or half a year, however you slice up that summer fruit, through a year of self-love superpower mantras! This glorious month of June let’s do fun stuff and get out of self-judging and hating on our bodies.

We just wrapped up Celebrate Measures of Success in May. You get to decide how to measure your success. How’d you do? If you were busy like me and didn’t get to it, no worries (I can’t stand when the Starbucks drive-thru person says, “No worries” after I place my order), you can create your measures of success this month.

Since I’m on social media a lot and lately have been going all in with my cancel diet culture posts, helping everyone stop their pursuit of thin privilege and live their magical lives, I figure June would be a great month to focus on body image.

Do you bully your body?

Do you have a certain body part that you fixate on wanting to fix? We all do sometimes.

We all have parts of us that we would choose to change. Maybe you can and that’s okay too. Maybe once you realize you can, you will decide not to.

Any decisions we make about making health behavior change or taking action in life must come from a place of self-acceptance and self-love. We cannot hate ourselves to what we want. Lots of psychology and coaching research shows this. It’s called PEA or Positive Emotion Activation. It’s cool stuff.

After years of being a pediatrician and taking care of so many patients, I can assure you that once you decide to focus on what you want in life and you have full love and acceptance for yourself, the healthy lifestyle changes become so easy. I’ve seen this time and time again with my patients and with myself.

One of the obstacles in our way is staying stuck in negative body image thoughts or staying attached to thoughts that don’t serve us. I’m not asking you to flip a body positive switch and just love yourself all day. That’s cheesy and not realistic.

When you say the letters I M E out loud, it sounds like I aM mE. The power of you as an individual with the support of a body positive community. How cool is that?

Quick Tip to Stop Bullying Your Own Body

Wear clothes right now that are comfortable that you love and feel-good in. If you have stuck thoughts that are creating negative body image feelings and actions, try my IME Community June Body Image Thoughts to Think!

IME Community Mantras for June 2022: Stop Bullying Your Body

  • 6/1 I define beauty by actions.
  • 6/2 If I want to change something about my physical appearance, I don’t
    make it mean that I’m sacrificing my values.
  • 6/3 I am deciding not to decide right now.
  • 6/4 I am never stuck.
  • 6/5 I fully love and accept myself no matter what.
  • 6/6 I make decisions from a healthy place of self-love and
    self-acceptance.
  • 6/7 Self-acceptance is always available to me like a nice warm blanket.
  • 6/8 I don’t let society define me or make decisions for me.
  • 6/9 It’s okay to wish something was different about me.
  • 6/10 I may re-decide at any time.
  • 6/11 When I decide, there is no right or wrong.
  • 6/12 I always like my reasons for deciding.
  • 6/13 I can create a thought about myself that serves me.
  • 6/14 I trust myself to stop self-judging.
  • 6/15 There are so many beautiful things about me.
  • 6/16 I am kind to myself no matter what.
  • 6/17 I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be perfectly kind to myself.
  • 6/18 I recognize when my brain gets stuck in a thought loop and I create a pause.
  • 6/19 It’s okay to allow sadness as part of my human journey.
  • 6/20 When something is hard, I say it, “This feels really hard right now. May I be kind to myself.”
  • 6/21 I recognize that life is 50/50 positive/negative right now and if I
    change my body.
  • 6/22 I don’t convince myself if I’m not feeling it.
  • 6/23 If I don’t feel body positive, I don’t lie to myself. That feels like toxic
    positivity.
  • 6/24 Being hard on myself is not helpful.
  • 6/25 Fixating on changing my body is a waste of time.
  • 6/26 I’m living my life and doing what I want.
  • 6/27 When I’m in a body negative space, I stay off Instagram.
  • 6/28 I don’t look for how to fix my body on the internet.
  • 6/29 All I must do is create space for self-kindness when I’m being hard on my body.
  • 6/30 I don’t like any of the cheesy love your body always sayings.

Be okay with having an authentic human experience which means sometimes you love your body, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you are meh.

Get Unstuck from Self-Bullying Your Body

I just want you to get unstuck from attachment to body negative thoughts. Let me know what self-love superpower mantra theme you want for July! Stay tuned for my upcoming Cut the Cringe Life Coaching Workshops for Parents of Teens where I will coach you to cancel diet culture and raise a body positive teen in a body negative world!

Please follow IME Community on social media and share with everyone you know!

Self-love superpower, 

Dr. Karla, ActivistMD

Celebrate Measures of Self Success – May 2022 Mantras

Celebrate Measures of Self Success – May 2022 Mantras

by | May 16, 2022 | Body Positivity, General, Self Acceptance, Teen Health and Wellness

May is an exciting and often stressful time of year.

Lots of wrapping up finals, graduations, planning for summer, all the things!

My middle child, Audrey, is graduating from Lincoln High School and, for some reason, seeing her senior pics and the pics of her friends she’s grown up with, is really getting to me.  

May can be a whirlwind mix of all the emotions.  

How about you? 

Pause and Get Centered

Don’t forget to create a pause and get centered and internal.

One of the most important tools I can coach you on, maybe the most important is that you get to measure your own success!

Does that sound radical to you?

It’s not.

Unfun (nufnu) toxic, diet culture has taught you, maybe you’ve even internalized these harmful keep you stuck habits: 

  1. put your success on the finish line 
  2. determine your success by external validation (yuck!)
  3. celebrating your own wins is selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, all the “bad” self things (um, no).

Dropping Toxic Diet Culture Is One Way to Achieve Some Measures of Self Success

In one fell swoop, I’m coaching you to let it all go.

Drop it like a book you don’t really want to read.  You know the kind of book everyone is saying is so good, but you start reading it, and you’re like, 

“What the heck? This thing sucks! I don’t get it!” 

Challenge everything!

Drop that cruddy book and let’s discover and celebrate the power of measuring self-success!

May 2022 Daily Mantras

As always, print my helpfulness off, share my radicalness with others, and let me know how you measure success and celebrate your self-success wins!

  • 5/1: I own my success.
  • 5/2: I get to determine how I measure my success.
  • 5/3: Someone else’s measure of success means nothing to me.
  • 5/4: I love celebrating myself by trying new things. 
  • 5/5: I create my own ways to celebrate!
  • 5/6: A measure of success for me is when I stay out of self-judging.
  • 5/7: I celebrate feeling all of my human emotions.
  • 5/8: I love celebrating with and without food.
  • 5/9: Whenever I stay out of people-pleasing is worth a celebration.
  • 5/10: I celebrate my life by listing three things I’m grateful for every day.
  • 5/11: I never wait to measure and celebrate my success.
  • 5/12: No one can ever take my success away from me.
  • 5/13: I feel successful when I create healthy boundaries for myself.
  • 5/14: I never let diet culture determine my success.
  • 5/15: A number on a scale is not how I measure success.
  • 5/16: A number on a scale is not how I measure failure.
  • 5/17: I celebrate failing because it’s all learning.
  • 5/18: I measure my success by how much risk I take.
  • 5/19: I celebrate failing by never making it mean I’m a failure.
  • 5/20: I’m having a cancel diet culture party and you’re invited!
  • 5/21: I celebrate being and not constantly doing.
  • 5/22: A big measure of success for me is knowing I am always enough.
  • 5/23: Perfect does not exist is a realization worth celebrating!
  • 5/24: I feel successful when I’ve worked hard and pushed myself out of my comfort zone.
  • 5/25: I never wait to cross the finish line to celebrate.
  • 5/26: I love to celebrate my wins in the present moment.
  • 5/27: Showing up as my true self is my greatest measure of success.
  • 5/28: I celebrate letting go of seeking validation from others.
  • 5/29: Resting, relaxing, and restoring my energy are my favorite ways to celebrate. 
  • 5/30: I feel a connection to beautiful memories celebrating with people I love.
  • 5/31: I honor and celebrate the life of people who have loved me for me. 

Stay tuned for June’s IME self-love superpower mantras when I will coach you on Body Image Thoughts to Think!

Cancel Diet Culture from Your Life with Dr. Karla and IME Community

If you’re a teen, 12 to 18 or a parent of a teen, ready to cancel diet culture from your life and achieve your weight and life goals without restriction or deprivation, make sure you subscribe to the IME Community newsletter  – you’ll be automatically added to the community to get my Dr. Karla coaching!

Self-love superpower,

Dr. Karla, ActivistMD

Debunking Diet Culture – Story vs. Facts – September 2022 Mantras

Self Awareness and Discovery – Doing the Work

by | May 9, 2022 | General, Parenting and Teens, Self Acceptance

“The Work” of self awareness and discovery is hard.

There’s no way around it.

Circa 2018 or 2019: “Mom, I know you’ve lost weight and have done a lot for your health, but you act the same.  I don’t see much of a difference.”

That was my daughter, Katherine’s comment to me after I reached my weight loss goal, referring to my emotionally reactive self which still rears her ugly head on the daily, though exponentially less these days.

Man did that one sting. 

We Cause Our Own Suffering

In “Loving What Is” Byron Katie teaches that most of the harm and suffering we cause ourselves and others is by staying attached to the thought that reality should be different.  

Should is the key word in that sentence.

Does the reality that you will cause harm and suffering in others, even your children, give you a punch in the gut?

Hitting Rock Bottom

I hit rock bottom in September 2019, after a perfect microburst storm of grief over my mom’s death, transitioning to a reality I couldn’t deny that my oldest was going away to college, and resigning from my job after enduring years of whistleblower retaliation and toxic gaslighting. 

To be honest, though extremely painful, and as difficult all the above were, the additional pain and suffering I was adding to the mix by how I was showing up as a parent with my daughter, Audrey, was the icing on my dark-times bitter cake.

Keep in mind, all of this was pre-pandemic. 

I was down on the mat and down for the count, soon to be a colossal loser because of my attachment to my belief that Audrey should change for me to feel better about myself as a mom.  It was clear in my ever-blurrier vision that Audrey was a problem I needed to fix and solve.  

From the Mouths of Babes

Keep in mind, my kid is a great kid.  She’s brilliant, fearless, and doing great things in the world.  

I have lost every argument with her since she was 3.

Flashback to 16 years ago, potty-training the most adorable child to exist with buns squished on the toilet seat, feet turned in and talking through a PhD level logic thread while sucking her thumb: 

“Hey, you don’t control my body.”

“I don’t even control my body.”

“God controls my body.”

“Wait, God doesn’t control my body.”

“If Jesus is God’s son, why would he kill his own son?”

“If Jesus is really God, why would God kill his self?”

“Fine, Audrey. All pigs can fly.  You keep crapping your pants.”

Flash forward 16 years to when I resigned from my job:

“Mom, you’re just bored.”

“You do nothing all day.”

Since our teens live in gotcha culture, failures are weaponized.  

Negative Self-Talk & Pursuit of Perfection Spans Generations

It makes sense.  When you are raised by hyper-competitive, external achievement focused, perfection driven Gen X parents, it’s going to seep in. 

Years of attachment to my negative self-talk, inner critic, spilled over and since I had minimal to no self-compassion and taught her that I could control suffering and avoid failure, I provided Audrey a lot of robust evidence that Mom must be a failure.  

Mom’s a loser and now’s my chance to let her know every time she tells me to study, come out of my room, and gets in my lane. 

Byron Katie is an enlightened genius, and I couldn’t recommend her work more.  When I say, work, I mean, “The Work” which are four seemingly simple questions that will lead you through personal inquiry to self-discovery.

What Are the 4 Questions of Self Awareness and Discovery?

The Four Questions:

  1. Is it true?
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
  3. How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without the thought?

We cringe thinking of doing “The Work” or any work on ourselves.  

Isn’t it easier to just change up other people so that we can feel a certain way? 

“The Work” is a gift of personal inquiry, of self-awareness and discovery.  The only reason you may be really frightened, even terrified to do “The Work” is because you are terrified of what you will discover.  That all this chasing down the external and changing yourself up to make yourself feel a certain way, to prove you are worthy, that you finally fit in, has not only been a colossal waste of time, but has also caused unnecessary suffering.  

It seeps over to our teens.

Maybe you aren’t willing to do “The Work” of self awareness and discovery for yourself, but I guarantee you are more than willing to do “The Work” so you are able to show up as a loving and supportive parent for your child.  

I can assure you leaning into doing “The Work” has been a transformational gift in my life.  

Right now, you may be white knuckling through life, fighting off reality like a failed superhero at every turn.  

You most likely come to parenting with some baggage, so having grace and compassion for yourself is the first step.  

Also, staying out of perfection. Perfect doesn’t exist.  Perfect parenting doesn’t exist.  

Let me know when you’re ready to do “The Work” on yourself.

That’s your first powerful decision.

Self-love superpower, 

Dr. Karla, ActivistMD

Debunking Diet Culture – Story vs. Facts – September 2022 Mantras

Stop Bullying Your Selfie

by | Apr 1, 2022 | Body Positivity, General, Self Acceptance

“But first lemme take a selfie”

A selfie is worth a thousand words, or at least a thousand Instagram comments.

There’s More to Selfies Than Pose and Click

I’m horrible at taking selfies.  Like, really bad.  I never know where to look, so I always look like I’m staring off to the side.  My kids make relentless fun of my selfie ineptitude.  In fact, one time, my oldest daughter, Katherine, got on my phone and got all my selfies together and posted them on Instagram with the caption, “My Mom’s a Savage.”

I actually took this as a compliment!

The other day I was life coaching a teen in IME Community on pictures, social media and all the things.

I always learn so much from life coaching.  It’s my all-time favorite.   

I don’t really find that teens are obsessed with taking selfies and posting them on social media. 

Teens are much more nuanced than us parents when it comes to social media platforms. 

Self-Judging About Selfies

Teens are obsessed with self-judging before posting said selfies. It makes total sense, especially if you read my recent blog on Cyberbullying and Teens. 

It’s a part of perfectionism, which is a harmful thought habit that keeps us from showing up as our true authentic selves ready to live our fun magical lives! 

More on perfectionism reset and Make It Fun to Get It Done coming up in IME Community!

There’s so much pressure, not to post necessarily, but if you want to post, teens feel the pressure to get ahead of their post and make it “perfect” to avoid criticism.  

Stop Bullying Yourself – Perfect Doesn’t Exist

Let’s repeat that: Perfect. Doesn’t Exist.

  •     “I look bad in that pic.”  
  •     “Let’s take another one.” 
  •     “That’s a bad angle.”  
  •     “I hate what I’m wearing.” 
  •     “Why does everyone else look good, but I look horrible?”

You’re judging yourself before it even goes out into the world.

“It’s permanent once I post it.” 

That’s a thought. Thoughts create feelings. “It’s permanent” creates fear which will drive the action to get stuck in self-judging perfectionism. 

Not challenging thoughts means you stay stuck in current patterns, results and reality.

Sure, that selfie becomes part of the manufactured digital universe, but it never has to permanently affect you in your mind. 

Going to Post a Selfie? Try Thinking About It This Way

Try these thoughts instead:

  •     This is a random selfie and I’m having fun.
  •     I’m willing to let people judge me. 
  •     I like my reasons for posting this selfie. 
  •     I have my own back.  

Once you post from a place of self-love, you create self-trust which is a huge self-confidence build.  You start taking more action which perpetuates more action and so on and so on. 

If your teen is indulging in selfie overwhelm, offer up one of the Dr. Karla thought challenges as a new perspective and then let it go. 

Trust your teen to create selfie self-trust and figure it out on their own. 

Make sure you join IME Community if you’re a teen, 12 to 18 or parent of a teen who is ready to cancel diet culture and co-create a body positive community in a body negative world!

Self-love superpower, 

Dr. Karla, ActivistMD