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Weighing In on HUGE

August 16, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Have you seen ABC Family’s latest summer blockbuster, HUGE? It’s the story of a group of teens at a weight loss camp, otherwise known as fat camp. When I first heard about it, I was intrigued, skeptical and disgusted all at the same time. Another show focusing on what is wrong with teens today and yet another blatant example of the media exploiting social issues to their advantage. Due to a regular Monday night commitment, I haven’t been home to watch it, but as I said, I was intrigued, so I had been taping it. Last week I sat down to a HUGE marathon and have to say, not only was I pleasantly surprised, I actually loved it.

HUGE is well written and the characters are engaging, interesting and so lovable - even though none of them would ever claim that to be true. There are so many layers to the premise of this show. Yes, it’s about body image and all that goes with that, but it is about so much more; relationships, mother/daughter dynamics, friendships, fitting in, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, addictions and 12 step recovery, surrender, spirituality, self-esteem, confidence, families, resentments, forgiveness, prayer, religion, affirmations, gratitude, divine guidance, sports, teamwork, leadership, trust and learning to speak the truth.

The ramifications of such a powerful show are, dare I say, HUGE! I can’t say that I’ve laughed out loud, but I have cried and have identified with so many of the raw emotions that these characters are dealing with. The main character, Will is played by Nikki Blonsky and she is so full of anger, resentment and resistance to change. She is afraid that if she gives in, she will be succumbing to society’s expectations of who she should be. She is caught between the message of self-acceptance and trying to swallow the implications of what that means in an environment that is forcing you to shrink to an acceptable size.

Jess Weiner, Global Ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and teen girl advocate has been blogging about HUGE before it even aired and has created a weekly Conversation Guide for each episode. As a Hollywood insider and a voice for change, Jess has interviewed the creators and all the cast members. The writers, Savanah Dooley and Winnie Holzman along with Nikki Blonsky all said that they hope this series becomes more than a show about body image and that people will really resonate with the characters. I’d say that their focused intention has made manifest and together they have created a powerful vehicle for compassion and change. Just like The Cosby Show initially began as a show about a black family, or Will and Grace started out as a show about being gay, both of them became so much more and gave us the opportunity to see past the initial label. HUGE has the potential to be way more than just a show about overweight kids.

As a teen girl advocate myself, self-esteem and empowerment has been the theme of my work for the last fifteen years as well as the focus of my own healing journey for my entire life. I’m not working to fix anyone, but rather to help young women look within for their power, voice and truth. At first glance, HUGE may appear to be just another show about fixing what’s wrong with teens today, but after watching my HUGE marathon I am excited and filled with so much hope. Finally something good on TV that just might actually make a difference.

Definitely check out HUGE on Monday nights on ABC Family and also check out all the other cool interviews on Jess’s blog. The latest is with Ari Stidham, the guy who plays Ian. His advice to any girl that has an issue with her body? “Confidence. Love yourself because you’re a human being. Don’t love yourself because you look a certain way. Love yourself because you were put on this Earth for a reason. And um, that’s attractive.” OMG Ari, I couldn’t have said it better if I tried!!!

When the Bully is You!

January 29, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

And by you, I mean me.

I’ve been procrastinating about writing this article for about a month now because it’s rather humbling to discover that after lecturing about self-esteem and empowerment to teen girls for over a decade that the bully was actually me.

But after reading an article in the Boston Globe the other day about Phoebe Prince, a fifteen year old girl who committed suicide after being bullied at school by the so-called “mean girls,” I knew that the time had come to tell this story. I hope to shed a different light on the topic of girls and bullying in order to better understand both perspectives and to help heal both the bullies and the bullied.

I’ve never been one to hop on the anti-bullying crusade because I have learned that whatever we push against, we actually bring more of the same back into our experience. In other words, what we resist persists. Mother Teresa understood this universal law of cause and effect and was well known for never attending anti-war protests and would only attend peace rallies. Our thoughts become our experiences so becoming outraged and pushing back against the mean girls is a losing battle and one that I choose not to participate in.

Every girl I know has been bullied in some way to various degrees. And if we are being totally honest, we have all probably bullied someone else too and like my own recent revelation, perhaps you were never really aware of it.

This past fall I received a friend request on Facebook from a girl I went to junior and senior high school with. When I saw her name I actually cringed as she and I did not get along nor did we hang out in the same circles. To put it bluntly, I couldn’t stand her. Susan was such a goody two shoes, always trying too hard. She was the girl who would raise her hand and remind the teacher about a quiz we were supposed to have that day.

I didn’t friend her immediately, but mentioned it to my friend Elaine who also went to school with us. When I said the other girl’s name, Elaine said with such compassion, “Oh, as I recall, people were not very kind to her in high school.” As I drove home from Elaine’s that day I thought to myself, Hell, I probably wasn’t that kind to her… that girl drove me nuts! My very next thought was that I owed her an amends because I am not the same person I was in high school and looking back I could see that Susan was just so desperate to be good enough and to fit in - and I knew that feeling well.

When I friended her, I included a note and apologized for the way I treated her in high school. Here’s what I wrote:

I remember you well Susan and I remember never being very kind to you. I’m really sorry. For most of my life I suffered from low self-esteem and I took every opportunity to tear others down in order to try and artificially build myself back up. Although it’s no excuse, my dad died when I was ten and my mother was an
angry, abusive, lonely and sick widow with five kids. She died when I was 16 and left me with a gaping hole inside of me and desperate to fill it up - so I chose anger, drugs and alcohol.

When Susan responded she told me about her own challenges that she faced as she maneuvered her way through school:

Although no one ever knew it, I was being abused by my father all through school. I’ve worked incredibly hard to heal through the scars left and to realize who I am meant to be, but I also happen to feel like that is a life long mission, and somewhere in us, no matter how old we are, is this little girl who can easily sabotage us if we give her a voice.

Then she added:

I was estranged from my parents for 13 years and am still estranged from my Dad. My mom and dad divorced 3 years ago and my mom came back into our lives. I forced her into some counseling with me to help her heal a bit. During one of those sessions, my counselor asked her if she had ever believed me when I told her what my dad was doing. She responded that that was why she sent me to counseling as a teenager. When prompted a bit more, she said I had come home from school telling her of being bullied by kids at school and that she had called one of the mothers to talk about it. The mother told her I must be lying so she decided to get me some counseling. That was your Mom, BTW. So in this very random and bizarre way, there was good that came out of it.

It just goes to show you that you never know what kind of burdens someone else is carrying. I teach girls that all the time - that it takes nothing to be kind, and your words can either build someone up or tear them down.

This story also paints a revealing portrait of the insecurities of a bully. For the most part, bullies see in their victims something about themselves that they secretly hate or are unwilling to look at and accept. As with me and Susan, her desperate attempt to be good enough was like a mirror being held up to me and I just couldn’t look at it - so instead I lashed out from a place of defensive fear. We were actually more alike than we were different. We were both desperately looking for love, we both felt unworthy of that love, we both felt abandonment and loss and we attracted each other like magnets.

Since the story broke about the suicide of Phoebe Prince, there have been hundreds of blog posts, articles, legislative joint panels targeting bully prevention and in South Hadley, MA, letters from parents and residents prompted the creation of an antibullying task force at the high school. Every outcry is fueled by anger, outrage, pain and fear.

But how is any of this truly helping the situation if in fact that what we resist persists? Pushing against bullying is only creating more of the same. Our thoughts create what we see - wanted or not. What we see creates our experience and if we just keep focusing on what is and saying things like “We must put things in place to stop this bullying” we are still focused on the experience and therefore that is still what we are thinking about and as a result we will continue to see more of the same.

So what can we do?

We must shift our thoughts away from what we don’t want and hold a vision of every girl finding her true power and learning how to tap into the source of her higher power for her guidance. What we don’t need is more anti anything. What we do need and what is most lacking in our culture is a return to spiritual values and a return to love. To me, God is love and yet God gave us the freedom of choice. So when we are consciously choosing love, we are allowing the grace of God to flow into the situation. Grace, simply put is the unmerited and unconditional love and strength of God that can and will heal any situation.

We must let go of playing the blame game. Whenever we are pointing a finger out there, there are always three more pointing right back at us. Years ago, I read a book called “Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood.” The author, Wayne Mueller told about the time he was asked to head a task force in California following the Rodney King beatings and trial and the ongoing riots in LA. His only stipulation for heading up this coalition was that everyone involved must commit to letting go of blame. The parents were blaming the schools, the educators were blaming the legislators, the cops were blaming the kids and the kids were blaming all of the above. No healing can happen as long as we hold onto the blame. We must take responsibility for the fact that we are sad, hurt or afraid and then learn to shift those thoughts from the contrast back to what it is we want. Otherwise we are simply participants in the no-win vicious cycle.

If you are being bullied - you must take responsibility for letting go of the victim mindset by understanding where your true power comes from. As difficult as this may sound, you must be willing to forgive and yes, even love the bully. Hurt people hurt people. See the bully with a giant bandaid on their forehead and know that they are trying to get their power by making you feel less than. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” When you let go and surrender your thoughts of being victimized, it’s like putting down the rope in a tug of war and the bully is simply holding a limp rope with no resistance and no power surge left to be had.

If you are the bully - get in touch with your real, underlying feelings for why you do what you do. Everything we do is either an act of love or a call for love. Bullying others in a strange way is simply a call for love. That power rush that you feel by making others feel less than is fleeting and it will never be enough nor will it sustain you and guide you towards becoming the magnificent person you were born to be. That kind of power can only be found by connecting to your own higher power - the source of all love, joy, well-being and prosperity. Make amends and say you’re sorry and then most importantly forgive yourself. You will be amazed at the new sense of freedom and power you feel as you let the grace of God flow into your heart.

If you are the parent of a bully or the bullied - the first thing you must do is heal your own mind and conditioned thoughts so that your reactions are not being filtered through the lens of blame, guilt, shame and buried wounds from your own past. Once we do that we can let go of the need to defend the actions of our children which comes from a place of fear and insecurity about how it reflects back to us and our parenting skills. We can then step back objectively and be fully present and available to our kids who, whether they are the bully or the bullied, are both crying out for unconditional love.

I wish I had had the opportunity to coach Phoebe and teach her to find her own inner power and strength. But perhaps Phoebe played a bigger role than any of us can even imagine and that she gave her life to bring a new awareness into the world. That is the thought I choose to embrace and to remember that the only thing I have power over is my own thoughts. Today I choose thoughts of love and forgiveness and that makes one less bully in the world today.

note: Susan has given me permission to use her name and share our story. We have met several times now for tea and healing and she is very open with her story as well as her love and forgiveness.

Girls Helping Girls

October 30, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

You don’t have to look very far to get a glimpse of what’s wrong with girls today. Pick up any magazine, peruse your local bookstore, google “teen girls” or turn on the television and view the vast array of in-your-face perspectives of the dark side of growing up girl in today’s image-obsessed culture. Shows, magazines and even the very self-help experts themselves, portrayed as counter-culture saviors to assist today’s young women maneuver their way through the pitfalls of adolescence, all focus more on the problem and what’s wrong vs. the solution and what’s right with girls today.

All of this can be very overwhelming and there are days that I feel like throwing my hands up in the air and asking “What’s the use?”

Last week, like an answered prayer, I got the shift in perspective I had been asking for and I was filled up with hope watching two young women demonstrating everything that’s right with girls today. I was invited for the second year in a row to speak to 1500 7th grade girls at the Young Women’s Leadership Conference in York, PA. I was the opening keynote speaker, presented a workshop on body image and then closed the conference with a message of hope and a take action challenge for the girls to find their power within and to dare to step up and make a difference in this world.

The event was held at York College and this year, students from SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) were to present a 15 minute program to the girls during the conference as part of a community outreach project. The conference planner had told me that in years past, these presentations hadn’t gone over very well and the girls didn’t pay attention. So I offered to coach the girls who were in charge of the project to help them create a presentation that would engage, inspire and challenge their audience. Trust me, 7th grade girls can eat you alive if you don’t gear a program that answers the questions What’s in it for me? and Why should I listen to you?

It was such a privilege to work with Nicole Smolenski and Shablis Glover, the SIFE project directors. They were so open and willing to be coached because they really wanted to succeed and more importantly to make an impact on younger women. They remember what it was like to be in 7th grade and they know how hard it can be desperately trying to fit in while secretly hoping to stand out.

Shablis Glover, Kathleen, Nicole Smolenski

Nicole and Shablis entitled their program “Dressing the Girl in the Mirror” which dovetailed off my talk, “Loving the Girl in the Mirror: Reflections of Your True Self.” They took every suggestion I gave them and ran with it. They created a phenomenal PowerPoint presentation that showed similar outfits, each created from name brand stores along with their whopping price tags and then demonstrated how to create that look for less. But they didn’t just tell them – they showed them.

The girls teamed up with a local consignment store and then enlisted the help of their fellow SIFE members as models and created a fashion show that totally rocked the house! It was so amazing and these models of every shape and size really worked it! They showed the girls how cool it can be to be yourself and how to step out in confidence without the designer labels. It was just so powerful to watch girls helping girls and it was such a privilege to be a small part of making that happen.

Click here to see more pics of the fashion show and to see the photos of me presenting to the girls click here!

It’s moments like these that remind me why I do the work that I do. Amidst a world of twittering publicity hounds all vying for the media’s attention in the hopes of becoming the next “big thing” we can sometimes get caught up in all of it and lose our way and wonder how on earth we can begin to be heard and make a difference. And every now and then I get a note like the one below that helps me to know that my voice and my message of hope is being heard… and for that I am so grateful.

My daughter, was a participant in your Young Women’s Leadership Conference the other day in Pennsylvania.

I would like to thank you for inspiring my daughter! She has been talking non-stop about you and your message. She has been through a lot in the past few years… her father & I divorced, her father is not as involved in her life as she would like, I remarried to a wonderful man with three sons, and her Aunt, to whom she is close, was recently diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer. My daughter is a trooper, but often times she internalizes things & then “blows up”. However, in the past couple of days, she is smiling, she’s positive, she is repeating what she heard at the conference & it is amazing!!

Thank you for being such an inspiration & for connecting with my daughter at such an impressionable time in her life!

Teen Halloween Alert: Scary Trick

October 14, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Contemplating what to dress up as for Halloween? How about a lollipop?

A recent ad for Ralph Lauren has sparked a huge controversy all over the internet. The image displays the already thin model, Philippa Hamilton wearing the latest of Ralph’s fall designer duds, but the photo has been digitally altered to the point where her waist is actually smaller than her own head! And yes, she actually looks like a human lollipop!

Mothers scrambling to find the latest L’il Lollipop costume for their daughters!

“NO! you say, “Not Ralph too?” Yup – even Ralph. But wait, it gets worse, Ralph actually sicked his lawyers on the sites that first commented on this travesty. The blog Boing Boing, who was the first to bring this to light received copyright infringement violation notifications – but would not back down. Boing Boing editor, Cory Docktorow wrote “So, to Ralph Lauren, GreenbergTraurig, and PRL Holdings, Inc: sue and be damned. Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better.” And then went even further saying they would continue to push back and inform the public about this to ensure that they got a good look at Ralph’s practices and promised to feed his models soup and sandwiches to fatten them up!

And it worked! Ralph conceded and finally fessed up and issued this statement:

“For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

So girls, as you make this oh-so-important decision about what to be for Halloween, spend some time contemplating who you want to be in life. Decide now to be a leader, to be brave and let your voice be heard. Let the media and the world know that you refuse to buy into society’s standards and illusions about beauty.

Here are 6 simple things you can do to change this travesty and take charge for yourself and for women all over the world:

Raise your awareness about the media’s manipulation by visiting sites like About Face that aims to combat negative and distorted images of women.
Question today’s standards of beauty and decide for yourself your own definition of beauty – to me Confidence is Beautiful!
Raise your voice and let companies know that it’s not cool to distort women’s bodies and to warp young women’s minds into thinking that fake is real – because it’s not.
Gather strength in numbers and use the power of a group to boycott companies and magazines that distort the truth by using this topic for a school project or community outreach program.
Love and appreciate your body – exactly the way it is. Make a list of all the things you appreciate about your body instead of focusing on all of your faults.
Be compassionate for women of all shapes and sizes. You may never know what inner battle is going on inside someone else. You could be the one who builds her up or tears her down. Now that is real power!

The timing for this media brouhaha was perfect as I am preparing a Body Image program for 1500 7th grade girls at the Young Women’s Leadership Conference in York PA. It’s hard to think about world peace and becoming a leader when all you can think about is how much you hate your thighs. It’s time to change all that and to teach girls that real beauty comes from within.

Stop buying into and accepting this Trick and then open your arms to the Treat that you will experience by daring to become Your Very Best YOU!

Posted in Body Image | Self-Confidence | Self-Esteem | Teen Girls |
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The Quest for the Perfect Breasts

October 7, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

It’s October and time again for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I am all for finding a cure for breast cancer and any kind of cancer for that matter, but what I am not all for is focusing on the disease itself. The Law of Attraction states that whatever you focus your attention upon is returned to you multiplied. So if that is true, why on Earth would we want to set aside a whole month placing all of our focus on the disease of breast cancer? (But no, if you focus on that picture above, you will not grow bigger boobs – that’s not how the Law of Attraction works!!)

So I’m proposing “Love Your Boobs Month!” As a matter of fact, another teen empowerment specialist, Jess Weiner just wrote a fabulous article this month in Seventeen Magazine about Making Peace with Your Boobs! (Great minds think alike apparently!!)

I’m a 53 year old woman with the chest of a pre-pubescent 12-year-old. My cup size is 34 nearly A and I have to shop in the girls department for beginner bras! It has taken me a lifetime to learn how to love and accept my breasts exactly the way they are. I even did a stand-up comedy routine at a comedy club about my quest for the perfect breasts. I made fun of all the names of bras like The 18 Hour Bra for example – who the hell wears a bra for eighteen freaking hours at a time? Another was a bra called Sweet Nothings and I lamented, they may be nothing to you, but I fed two babies with these sweet nothings!

When I was 15 years old, my mother was taking me and my siblings out for dinner. I came downstairs all dressed up and ready to go and my mother took one look at me and said “Can’t you stuff? I don’t want to be seen with a flat-chested daughter!” My own mother didn’t even love and accept me just the way I was, so how was I supposed to love myself?

I’ve been teased mercilessly all my life for my flat chest. In Junior High School a boy called me a Carpenter’s Dream, which translated meant – flat as a board and easy to screw! One might wonder why I didn’t just say “screw it” and get a boob job. Well first of all, I never had a spare ten grand lying around! But seriously I just never, ever wanted to go to such extremes to fit in and be just like everyone else. I knew that my life lesson was all about self-love and acceptance and two pounds of rubber and silicone wouldn’t change the inside of me – the part that never felt good enough.

On the bright side, I was an aerobics instructor for ten years prior to my current career as a Confidence Coach and Inspirational Speaker and Author, and being flat-chested certainly had its advantages back in the day of “feel the burn” and “pump it up.” Whenever I’d turn up the music and increase the intensity, all the big-boobed women in class would moan and grab hold of their racks for dear life – mine never moved the entire time!

Some day, when I get a spare minute or so, I want to write and star in a One Woman Play called Boobs, Jugs, Hooters & Tits and donate all of the proceeds to Healthy Breast Research. Imagine if everyone took all the money they’ve spent on boob jobs and put it towards programs that foster inner beauty and self-esteem? The thought of it makes me well all up and get all misty eyed. Fortunately for me, I always have some tissues on hand – looks like Mother always did know best!!

Yes ladies, it’s definitely time to make peace with da girlz!!

Teen Girls: Making the List

September 29, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Last week at New Jersey’s top-ranked Milburn High School, senior “it” girls circulated their annual “Slut List” of incoming freshman girls. A dozen or more names are written on a piece of notebook paper along with vulgar descriptions and are copied and circulated around the school.

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One might assume that this is just another awful example of girl bullying, but in this case, you’d be wrong. According to William Miron, the principal of Milburn High, this has been going on for a decade and said “We’ve had girls obsessed that their names are on it, and girls who were upset that they didn’t make the list.”

That’s right, some girls actually are disappointed if they don’t make the list! Is this really what girl power is all about? Seriously?

As a Confidence Coach, I help girls learn how to look within, find their truth and autentic power and dare to speak that truth. But has the message of Rachel Simmons’ book “The Curse of the Good Girl” been misconstrued and sent girls careening in the opposite direction towards becoming badder than bad?

I’ll never forget the day in high school when my “so-called” best friend came up to me and in the name of “I thought you’d want to know” informed me that there was a rumor going around school that I was a slut. I felt like I had just been sucker punched. I remember actually laughing and pretending that it didn’t bother me one bit, but inside I was humiliated and mortified.

It was September of my sophomore year of high school and just one month before, my mother died. I was sixteen, alone, scared and was literally looking for love in all the wrong places. My dad died when I was ten so I had no parental guidance whatsoever and had to maneuver my way through this world alone. I was desperate for love and tried to get it in any way I could – and it backfired miserably.

Many years of self-esteem building and therapy sessions later, I am passionately determined to help teen girls find their authentic voice and power and learn how to break free of the societal brainwashing that masquerades as “girl power.”

We live in a culture where becoming well known supercedes just about every other value we hold dear. And it’s not just with our youth, adults buy into this just as much and the acclaim and fame seems to go to those with the biggest friend list on facebook and followers on twitter. Is it any wonder that girls would get a power rush at the mention of their name making it onto any list?

Every single one of us is looking for love in all the wrong places. The fulfillment, the self-worth, the self-respect can only be found within from the source of all love and power. Jesus said “the kingdom of heaven is within you” and Buddha said “look within, thou art the Buddha.”

Stop for a moment and just take a breath. Notice the air as it moves in and out of your body. Quiet your mind and be still. Turn down the volume of the world’s chatter where everyone is clamoring for their spot and just be. Turn your attention inward and listen for that soft and gentle guidance that will lead you towards your best and highest good – better than you could ever imagine.

We really can create anything our heart desires. So why not put all of your energy on creating what you really want instead of wasting another moment of your life hoping to be on some stupid list. The only list I hope to be on is God’s list of those who woke up and remembered the truth about my power of choice to co-create a life beyond my wildest dreams when I connect to the source of all love within.

Posted in Coaching | Self-Confidence | Self-Esteem | Teen Girls |
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Teen Girl With the Weight of the World on Her Shoulders

April 9, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

A Response to Jayleene

what can you do when the world’s weight is on your sholders? i feel like i might just break down completely…and then end up Back in Rehab..but instead of outpatient in will be Inpatient…my problem is something that you spoke about when you came to my school..thou it’s not somthing you talked alot about..i guess it’s hard for people to understand what i do..and i don’t feel like saying cause i get judged. or called crazy. so whatever. but i guess i just need help..i need to know what to do so i can help myself..to stop my hurting.

Hi Jayleene – thank you so much for reaching out to me. That is a HUGE accomplishment and it is like your soul is tugging on your sleeve trying to get your attention to wake up and discover your true power.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing to yourself – drugs, sex, cutting, drinking… whatever. They are all ways that we try to numb our feelings and escape the effects of low self-esteem. The reason your feelings are so heavy and you feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders is because your strategy for trying to control things just isn’t working and you’re trying to change things externally instead of looking within to change the only thing that you can control – your thoughts.

What you think about becomes your reality and you attract back whatever you focus on the most. Learning to control your thoughts and harness the power of your mind can be challenging if you’ve always given in to lazy thoughts or bought into society’s standards about who you “should” be and you haven’t been able to truly know who you are.

The very first thing you need to do is to just breathe. Take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths and just imagine yourself breathing out all of the stress and pain that you’ve been carrying around for so long. Just that simple act can quiet down your mind and help you to feel less stressed and out of control.

From your email, I can see that you’re focused on feeling crummy and insecure and in pain. It will take some effort to shift your thoughts, but try making a list of things that you’re thankful for. It may sound dorky, but it can really help you learn how to train your mind to look for the good instead of the bad. It’s like sending your brain to the gym… you need to give it a good workout.

Then start saying positive things to yourself like:

I am enough

I am good enough

I am a child of God

I have a right to be here

I am loveable

I have a right to love and be loved

Who I am makes a difference

Even if you don’t believe them at first, your soul will recognize it as the truth. Your ego has been running the show and the ego runs on fear. In every moment we have the choice to see the world through the eyes of fear or love. The more you practice this kind of self-talk, the more you develop self-love. Over time it becomes a habit and eventually forms new beliefs within us. That is the way to build up your own self-esteem. Nobody can do it for you, but you have to believe that you are worthy and deserving of a happy life – and you are, simply because you are the beloved child of God.

I would love to coach you to help you shift your thoughts to what you want instead of what you don’t want. But you’d have to talk to your mom or dad about hiring me as your life coach. More and more girls are discovering their power and reaching out and asking for help. The sad thing is that most parents immediately think therapy… and although there are many benefits to therapy, therapy looks backwards and tries to figure out what’s wrong and coaching helps you look at everything as just contrast to help you get clear about what you want and what’s right and then helps you move towards that.

A great life is within your power. You are stronger than you can even believe. How do I know? I have been where you are. Maybe the circumstances are different, but the feelings are the same and I have turned my life around. I know firsthand that this is all possible. Your soul already knows the truth… and we’re here to remember and return to the source of our true power.

You will be in my thoughts and prayers. Please try some of the suggestions I gave you. Nothing changes unless something changes – and the only thing you have the power to change is YOU.

There is only so much I can do in an email and I really hope you let someone know how much you’re hurting.

GIANT HUGS,

Kathleen

Teen Girls: Getting the Love You Need

February 10, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

I can still remember the year my mother forgot to buy my Valentine’s cards for the class. I stayed up late to make my own out of pink and red construction paper and then attempted to decorate a Kleenex box with paper doilies. I walked into school with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat knowing full well that my efforts at cutting and pasting would pale in comparison to everyone else’s store-bought heart-shaped cards with adorable sayings like “puppy love” and “hey cutie pie.” To this day I can remember those feelings of being less than and just wanting to be liked and noticed.

Valentine’s Day, a day in February that is supposed to represent love, for many represents the exact opposite. It’s actually been dubbed “Singles Awareness Day” by those who have been made to feel less than because they don’t have “that special someone” to give or receive a Valentine.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. That’s a lot of love.

So where is the love?

Many of today’s teens are struggling with the exact same emotions of wanting to be liked and noticed but if you don’t happen to be one of those lucky billion who actually receive one of those “Be Mine Valentine” messages this year, it can feel pretty crummy. But love is not an emotion to be reserved for one day out of the year, nor is it something to be rationed out only to certain people.

Want to be and feel a part of this billion dollar love fest? Here are a few strategies to be your own Valentine.

Become attractive! Start treating yourself the way you want that someone special to treat you. As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Attracting love into your life starts by developing the attraction factor from the inside out. Self-confidence is sexy because when you look like you don’t need ‘em is when they come flocking to you!

Rid yourself of jealousy. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start appreciating the gifts in your life. Jealousy is one of the lowest and most negative energies and actually attracts more scarcity and lack back to you. Gratitude, along with joy and love is the highest frequency and the most powerful energy on Earth and being in that state attracts more love back to you.

Learn to love and accept yourself – just the way you are. Knowing that you’re worthy and deserving of only the best is an important part of building your own self-esteem. We teach others how to treat us by the way we treat ourselves and unconditional love has to begin with you through self-love.

One of the most famous quotes about self-love is by Marianne Williamson from her book, A Return to Love…”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world.”

This year pay less attention to the whole “Be Mine” frenzy and focus all your efforts to “Be YOU.” Who are you? You are one in a billion and there is no one quite like you – Valentine!

Daring to Disagree: Taking the Sting Out of Queen Bees & Wannabees

January 28, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

For most of my life, I was a people pleaser; afraid to rock the boat and speak my truth. But thankfully because I walk my talk and practice what I preach, I have dared to go deep within and have found my voice and my true power. As a result, I am no longer willing to acquiesce to the opinion or acclaimed wisdom of others when I just don’t agree – even if that other person is a best-selling author and her book was the basis of a hit movie.

I recently attended a program by the author of Queen Bees & Wannabees who spoke about girls and bullying. I walked out of the auditorium feeling uneasy and the energy in the room was palpably heavy. The woman I went with, who also works in this field, took voracious notes and loved it. I wrestled with these feelings for days and then about a week later it hit me – I just do not agree with this woman’s approach and I believe that if we keep focusing on the “reality” or the problem, we’re only going to attract more of the same back to us. I believe we need to shift our focus back to the cause (the mind/heart/spirit of girls) rather than focusing on the effect (mean girls and bullying) or things will never change.

I feel like I’m taking on Goliath as everyone made such a big deal over this author, paid her big bucks and her book was what the movie “Mean Girls” was based upon. This is an entire culture that has bought into this fear-based “reality.” As a matter of fact, the speaker, Rosalind Wiseman’s opening comment was “We live in a fear-based culture.” Duh, tell me something I don’t know.

I do believe that Ms. Wiseman is making an impact and her book has shed a light on the issues that so many girls face in our culture and society. In her talk she said that she doesn’t really care whether people like her or not, but that her hope was that her program will get people talking. I’ll give her credit for that because she certainly got me thinking and talking about it.

But I guess for me, the most valuable thing that has come out of this experience has been the realization of how, for most of my life, I have cared too much about whether or not people like me. The good news is that finally I have learned to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about me and care more deeply about what I think. And as long as I stay connected to God and continually ask for His divine guidance, well then that’s all that really matters.

I was nudged by God to dare to write this article. My hope is that it will help girls become aware of how much they care about what others think about them and then to inspire them to go deeper, to connect to their higher power and their highest self and discover their own truth.

So how do you do that? You start by slowing down and learning how to quiet your mind. Our busy mind chatter is like static on an old fashioned radio. When you practice being still, focusing on your breath and quieting down your thoughts, it’s as if you’ve turned your dial, adjusted your station and tuned into the channel that allows you to receive the transmission that leads to your truth.

There’s no law that says you have to tune in, but unless you do, you will be forever looking outside of yourself for your answers and thinking that everyone knows more, has more, is more than you – and you will never be enough.

The answers you seek are inside of you… and your truth will set you free. Because only then will you dare to disagree and by doing so you bless both you and me.

Posted in Self-Esteem | Teen Girls | Trust |
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Heal Our Young Women ~ Heal the World

January 20, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

While millions of Americans journied to our nation’s capital to be a part of history in the making, while workers watched the inauguration online through CNN & Facebook, while people from around the world observed the 44th President of the United States of America take his oath of office and pledge his allegiance and service to our great nation, many girls across the country still were unable to shift their focus away from their own inner battles to embrace the power of this day.

In the middle of watching the streaming video from CNN in partnership with Facebook, I received not one, but five emails from teen girls who were all asking me advice on how to be thin, how to be more confident, how to get a guy to like them, how to stop being so shy and quiet – and basically how to be anyone else but who they are.

After watching the whole inaugural celebration starting with Denzel Washington’s opening yesterday to the Reverend Lowery’s impassion benediction today, I have been renewed with such an incredible feeling of hope and confidence. My burning passion to help teen girls to heal their inner conflict has been reignited and I am on fire to continue to do my part to help young women find their voice, their power and place as the ones who will heal the world.

As the Rev. Lowery implored God to help Americans make “choices on the side of love, not hate, on the side of inclusion not exclusion, tolerance not intolerance.” I implore you to help me, help our young women to learn how to choose love over fear – and it must begin by helping girls learn how to love themselves.

In that effort, I am pleased to announce that a publisher has expressed interest in my book “Loving the Girl in the Mirror: Reflections of Your True Self.” The book will focus on aspects of the self: self-knowledge, self-image, self-respect, self-esteem, self-talk, self-care, self-acceptance and ultimately self-love. It will also deal with and help to heal the negative aspects of the self: self-doubt, self-sabotage, self-injury and self-loathing.

I am so grateful to the girls who have dared to reach out to me and ask for help. I love receiving your emails and although I cannot personally respond to all of them – I do respond to many of them and am taking a part of each of them into the essence of this book.

Within the coming weeks, I’ll be announcing a Mother/Daughter Empowerment Workshop Series that I’ll be hosting in my home called Kitchen Counter Conversations. One of the most sacred and powerful relationships in the world is the bond between a mother and her daughter. Yet it can also be one of the most troubling relationships and the source of so much stress and frustration for both the mother and the daughter. Through this endeavor we strive to teach mothers and their daughters how to form a co-creative alliance and partnership that creates a solid foundation of strength and confidence to help girls better handle the challenges “out there” by having the home be a safe and peaceful place for rest, renewal and respect.

So please check back for more information on the series and the book.

Yes We Can!

Dare to Shine in 2009 ~