Did you know I’m a children’s book author? To get your signed copy, go to https://imecommunity.com/empowering-books/ and I’ll send you an extra copy to donate to a child who needs the magical message, your school library, your pediatrician’s office, community library, etc.
It is my very favorite thing I have done in my career – writing “The Magical Everywhere!” I was inspired to write it by one of my patients, Magical Gigi!
Listen to me read “The Magical Everywhere” and “fly around the world with Magical Gigi on a journey to find the perfect word to describe someone like you! The book was written and illustrated to honor the life and spirit of Magical Gigi, an eternally full-of-life eight year-old girl, famous for her positivity through adversity.
This blog and video come with a trauma warning. If you or your teen are experiencing depression and need to talk to someone, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
“Sometimes I feel like I want to give it up, but it’s such a big part of teenage life, I just don’t.” (Teen on Childhood 2.0 Life in the Digital Age)
Do You Know How to Help Protect Your Kids and Teens from Cyberbullying and Sextortion?
Do you feel like you can protect your kids from the dangers online?
Do you feel like your kids need to learn to navigate the digital world on their own?
After all, they live in the Information Age which surely comes with some benefits. Us Parents grew up with all of the physical dangers and there’s only so much fear we can take on.
Parents, we need to adapt and it needs to happen quickly.
The COVID pandemic has exacerbated process addictions like screen time.
Statistics show that violent crimes, physical dangers, are not as much of a risk to our children as the harms online, including cyberbullying, sextortion, digital marketing that uses highly successful and strategic neuro-marketing tactics.
An Important Documentary About Sextortion and Cyberbullying
You and your teen need to watch Childhood 2.0 The Living Experiment to really see what it’s like for our children and teens growing up in the digital age. Parents, we do hard things and it’s time to stop burying our heads in the sand when it comes to our teens and social media and the scariness of what’s out there on the internet.
If you are the kind of parent who believes “This will never happen to my son or my daughter,” you are living in an alternate reality. Process addictions like screen time addictions are real. Youth suicide rates are up and in younger children.
If you or your teen are experiencing depression and need to talk to someone, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
We can’t control all of the internet, but we also can’t throw our hands up in the air and not do anything and be totally helpless.
What is Self-Coaching?
When it comes to helping our teens there’s nothing us parents won’t do.
It’s just that we don’t cause and we don’t control a lot. Recognizing the reality that we can’t prevent suffering for our teens or ourselves is powerful awareness.
In this YouTube I am doing the hard work, putting in the time, to coach myself (aka being curious and creating thought awareness) on the topic of sextortion on the internet and our teens.
This is very hard work, but it’s the most important work us parents need to do for ourselves to truly help our teens.
You may have heard the tragic news of the high school student who was a victim of sextortion by internet trolls who sent a compromised photo of a girl he knew, or he thought was her, and then asked him to send a photo of himself. Once he did, he received an email asking for $300 or the photo would be spread on the internet. He sent the money and then received another email asking for $1,000 or the photo would be shared. He didn’t have the money and panicked and within six hours of receiving the first email he ended his life.
Why It’s Wrong to Think “This Can’t Happen to My Teen”
If you believe this can’t be your teen, you are wrong.
I was panicked with the worst fear possible when I heard this tragic story. Thoughts create feelings and feelings drive actions. I felt panic and froze. In other words, I froze in my steps and wasn’t doing anything to help my teens at all. With self-coaching, I was able to get curious and create thought awareness. Current thoughts create current reality and current result. If I wanted to get unstuck from freeze mode, I needed to create awareness of my thoughts that were creating the feeling of panic.
Once I created powerful awareness of my current thoughts and feelings and actions, then I can do some self-discovery to figure out why I keep choosing to stay stuck and then create some powerful thought shift to a thought that creates a feeling of intentional.
Positive Actions to Take Against Sextortion and Cyberbullying
Here’s what I found out.
The most powerful current thought coming up for me that was creating a feeling of panic and sending me into a stress response freeze mode was:
“I haven’t done enough to protect my kids.”
This thought created panic, the action of freezing and the result: “I’m not doing anything.”
Then, I created a thought shift to something that is believable to me and will create a feeling of intentional, which is how I decided I want to feel.
Here’s my new thought:
“I trust myself to show up even when it’s a hard issue, topic or conversation.”
Feeling: Intentional
Action: Self-coaching, check out documentary and resources and write opening to conversation script with my teen
Result: I’m showing up to help my teens through difficult times.
See how that self-coaching works? It’s important work and our teens are worth it. Make sure you check out imecommunity.com and Join for Dr. Karla coaching.
I talk about self-love superpower all the time, but where should you start to get there?
Self-love superpower starts with self-kindness
Self-kindness leads to self-trust that you will have your own back as you take action. Then, when you trust yourself to be kind to yourself no matter what, you can do anything!
Self-kindness and self-trust go together like PB&J
Do you believe you can be kind and compassionate with yourself and reach your goals and get whatever you want in life?
I’m sure you’re saying, duh, of course. Whatever.
Hold up. I’m onto you. I coach teens and know from being a human myself that it’s easy to believe this in theory, but, when it comes to taking action, especially on a goal you set for yourself, the negative self-talk, inner critic voice starts yapping away!
Stop Listening to Your Inner Critic
Instead of listening to your inner critic, start being your inner hype person.
Start by recognizing when you’re being hard on yourself and create a pause. You may feel tired, not getting the results you want, or coping with overeating food.
Thoughts create feelings which drive our action and inaction.
You are not your inner critic voice. You are not your thoughts. When you feel that negative self-talk coming up, create a pause and then an opportunity to soften up and be kind to yourself.
A Self-Love Daily Mantra
Try this daily mantra:
“I am kind to myself no matter what!”
Make sure you check out imecommunity.com and Join the IME membership community if you are a teen, 12 to 18, ready to permanently cancel diet culture, health yourself, and co-create a Body Positive community in a body negative world!
Join IME Community to Level Up Your Self Love Superpower
To Level Up on your self-love superpower toolkit, Join IME Community for my coaching on zoom! Off to write more mantras!
What a great theme for the February IME Community Self-Love superpower daily mantras.
February was a powerful month of mantras! We canceled diet culture, let go of the negative self-talk and learned the power of showing up for yourself!
Pick out the daily mantras that are a good fit for you, write them down, change them up if you want and post them on your bulletin board or write them in a journal.
Follow IME Community on TikTok to get my Dr. Karla daily self-love superpower mantras and make sure you Join IME Community membership if you’re a teen, 12 to 18, or parent of a teen, and I’ll coach you to fill up your self-love superpower toolkit!
The theme of March mantras goes along with March Madness (Rock Chalk Jayhawk!):
Self-Worth is an inside game!
Here’s your IME Community February Self-Love Superpower Daily Mantras:
2/1 – I no longer let diet culture set food rules for my body.
2/2- Giving up diet thinking is letting go of self-harm.
2/3 I will take time to heal from diet culture trauma.
2/4- I’m not wasting any more time imagining being thinner.
2/5 – I am entitled to rage at the diet industry machine.
2/6- I’m done with fighting and shaming my body. Like right now!
2/7- I can befriend the mean girl in my head.
2/8- My pursuit of thinness is really a pursuit for society’s thin privilege and is a big waste of my magical life!
2/9- I’m ready to show up for myself when no one is looking.
2/10- The truth of my own body’s story is beautiful.
2/11- The truth is I love taking risk. I eat risk for breakfast!
2/12- I believe I can be kind and compassionate with myself and achieve my goals!
2/13- I am ready to block anyone who weight bullies me!
2/14- When I compare my body to someone else’s body, it’s a micro-aggression against myself.
2/15- Time is too precious to waste beating myself up and wishing I was different.
2/16- I can’t hate myself and reach any goal!
2/17- My habits are 100% based on cues in my environment.
2/18- I don’t waste my time rationalizing the behavior of weight bullies!
2/19- I can write a letter to break up with diet culture and create my own weight neutral definition of health.
2/20- My body, my face, my soul is my beauty standard!
2/21- I recognize when I’m judging and shaming others, I’m judging and shaming myself.
2/22- I can drop my pursuit of thin privilege like a book and live my fun life!
2/23- When I give up diet thinking and fully love and accept myself now, I am well on my way to my health goals.
2/24- I can navigate weight bias at the doctor. I am not powerless.
2/25- Instead of “what I eat in a day”, I’m going to focus on “what music I listen to in a day”.
2/26- When someone thinks they can silence me, I get louder.
2/27- I always speak my truth.
2/28- No matter what’s happening in the world, it’s okay if I feel happy.
See you in IME Community!
Join IME Community to Level Up Your Self Love Superpower
To Level Up on your self-love superpower toolkit, Join IME Community for my coaching on zoom! Off to write more mantras!
Isn’t self-care like burning a beachy candle or meditating or cheesy stuff like that?
Or, how about,
Isn’t self-care just another thing I’m told I need to do to be happy? Isn’t self-care just another thing to check off my to-do list that I never actually get done and then feel bad about not doing?
It can seem that way, but let’s think of self-care in a new and different way, that’s actually really helpful and fun!
What Self Care Is…and What It Isn’t
Self-care doesn’t have to be about spending money you don’t have or taking action when you feel tired already.
Self-care also isn’t spending hours on screens or sleeping a ton.
Sure, screen time and taking an epic nap can be part of self-care. Avoid calling buffering or numbing out with screens and sleep (screen time or sleeping to avoid discomfort), self-care.
Nerd alert!
If you need more self-care research and data, here’s an article from Psychology Today with information on why self-care in teens and young adults is so needed at this time in our world.
There are also some really helpful bonus self-care tools included in this article.
IME Community has our own definition of self-care and Top 10 Self-Care Tips for Teens!
IME Community’s Definition of Self-Care:
Any action a human takes to improve mental or physical health and well-being!
That’s really it and sounds awesome, doesn’t it? What are you waiting for? Let’s get going!
And Now, the Self-Care Tips…
Here’s a GTK (good to know), the IME Community Top 10 Self-Care Tips for Teens aren’t exactly in any order of importance.
It’s up to you to decide where to start and how many to try and practice regularly.
With any action you take, just start, know you can’t go wrong and you get to try the next thing, add to the list, and create your own Top 10 Self-Care Tips for (fill in your name here). The key is to keep going and start showing up for yourself!
Self-Care Tip #1: Laugh as much as possible.
at Funny movie lines
with the class clown
at a Funny YouTube video
Self-Care Tip #2: Tap into your creativeside.
Draw something; make something; write something; sing something!
Create a WordCloud collage of your favorite things- cut them out from a newspaper or magazine.
There are no limits to your big magic creativity!
Self-Care Tip #3: Let Music transform your brain.
Create a playlist that pumps you up.
Create a playlist that chills you out.
Self-Care Tip #4: Take a social media cleanse.
Connect with friends!
Get outside and make a connection with nature!
Try cooking a new food or lots of new foods!
Self-Care Tip #5: Hang with your pets.
Visit an animal shelter.
Be of service in your community.
Think outside of yourself.
Self-Care Tip #6: Practice daily Gratitude.
Write down 3 things you are grateful for every day.
Ask yourself an Empowering Question of the day (How can I show up as my best self today?).
Write your own self-love superpower mantra (positive belief) on a post-it note.
Self-Care Tip #7: Declutter the junk
Write your to do list from what you’ve done today and then cross it off to show yourself how much action you take!
Set a timer for 15 minutes and declutter one space (your room, desk, backpack, laundry basket).
Practice personal hygiene by taking good care of your skin, taking a shower, wearing your favorite clothes.
Self-Care Tip #8: Be your future self now
Who are you at the end of 2022? How will you feel at the end of 2022?
Create that same feeling now! Fake it ‘til you make it.
Wear clothes you love and you feel comfortable in now.
Self-Care Tip #9: Take time for self-discovery.
Pretend you’re a famous guest on your favorite podcast and grab that hairbrush or spatula from the kitchen as a mic, check yourself out in front of the bathroom mirror and answer these questions:
What do you want?
What are you proud of?
What do you do to be creative?
What do you do for fun?
Self-Care Tip #10: Calm down and move your body.
Practice meditation for a few minutes a day by using an app like Headspace.
Try the 4-7-8 breathing technique by breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds, and exhaling for 8 seconds.
Get your body moving with minimum baseline movement (a few stretches will do it- heck, twerk for all I care. You can get out of bed and do it, while you’re brushing your teeth (please tell me you are brushing your teeth) or before you go to bed or when you get home from school during breaks with studying. Your body was made to move. Remember, all movement counts. Doesn’t have to be a big deal.)
