You dont have to motivate yourself that way it isnt working.

i never liked the saying

always be kind because you never know

what someone is going through

because it implies that you should only

treat others with kindness

just in case they are deeply struggling

in a way however you do know what

everyone is going through

because every single person on this

earth is deeply suffering in their own

way

there is none of the implied doubt only

when

i finally really felt that sentiment was

i able to start treating myself

and everyone in my life with a different

level of kindness that i hope to inspire

today

when i originally sat down to write this

talk my instinct was to give you my

steps as to how i improved my own mental

health

but as time progressed i continued to

revisit the truth

that the only person who can really

change your life is you

i wasted many years of the past pouring

my energy

into the mental health of others until i

realized that i was pouring it in the

wrong direction

outward and in order to be able to

spread the kindness to others who are

suffering i had to first learn how to

give grace and compassion towards my own

struggles

so my goal here isn’t to give you a set

of affirmations or habits or exercises

to improve your mental health because

those are a click away on google

instead i’m going to attempt to be as

raw and as vulnerable as possible

to show you that there’s a real life

outside of the pain that you feel every

day

but it can only be healed by you

the toxic thought patterns the negative

self-talk that i used to indulge in the

most frequently was hating my body

i thought that the stronger my hate grew

the more that my body would shrink

i was so afraid that if i loved my body

it would somehow enable me to become

overweight

which is something that society had

taught me to fear

i didn’t realize that at the end of my

binges telling myself that tomorrow

would be different

it was just another program of self-hate

that i had to change

at the time i was unaware that dieting

was a normalized form of harming myself

in the last six years i have been to

inpatient programs outpatient programs

and

all different kinds of therapies

including eft

emdr nutritionists eating disorder

counseling

trauma specialists cbt group therapy you

name it

i have probably tried it and i had

always preached that i would do anything

not to be feeling the way

that i had been feeling because

truthfully i didn’t want to die

but i also knew that i couldn’t keep

living the way that i had been

i was so desperate not to feel this way

yet i refuse to try and change how i

felt about myself

throughout all of the years of therapy i

wouldn’t try affirmations or self-love

exercises because i told myself they

were stupid

and that they wouldn’t work a girl who

had even flown to colorado to do a sweat

lodge in search of answers

wouldn’t even look in the mirror down

the hall and try

saying i love you i did four months of

cupping

two hours twice a week i saw

acupuncturists and four chiropractors in

five years

literally bending over backwards to try

and cure

my depression yet i refuse to say that i

love myself

i didn’t know a life outside of the

shame and hate that i was using

to fuel my actions and it wasn’t until i

came home from a mentally debilitating

day of work

where i was laying on the shower floor

that i decided it was time for a change

i usually coped with my depression

through long hot showers for many years

before i realized that if what i was

doing was working

and i wouldn’t still be feeling this way

so i started to say that i love myself

out loud

which is something that i had never

tried before i repeated it over

and over until i was sobbing and at the

time i had no idea why

i was deeply programmed to hate myself

to hate my body and to scrutinize my

every word

and gesture as some sort of survival

mechanism

to conform to who i thought i needed to

be for the people around me

and i say survival mechanism because in

some sort of subconscious way

other people’s thoughts about me felt

like a threat to my survival

my old coping skill would have been to

berate myself after a bad day of work

in hopes that the shame would be so

great that i would remember never to

make that mistake again

but that wasn’t working because 21 years

of being angry and embarrassed and

shameful had gotten me to this place

crippled on the shower floor after a

hard day of work

so i started to really ask myself what

might

loving and forgiving myself do for me

instead

for so long i was afraid that if i

forgave myself it would somehow enable

me to keep making mistakes

until i realized what a huge lie of the

mind that was

speaking from experience i promise you

it is much

easier and more beneficial to walk

through life without hating who you are

i have had three serious eating

disorders over the course of several

years

bulimia nervosa anorexia nervosa and

binge eating disorder with occasional

purging

and i’m exposing this part of my life

that used to bring me

deep deep shame in an effort to convey

that i walked through every single day

with only hate for myself

and i know what it feels like to not

have the strength to even brush your

teeth

but the good news is you don’t really

hate yourself

you may hate this version of yourself

you may hate the programming that you

have been operating out of

but you don’t hate who you really are at

your core

and loving yourself won’t make you

conceited it won’t make you selfish or a

bad person

and it won’t enable bad behaviors but it

will help you to realize that every

single person on this earth

is in their head 24 hours a day the

exact same way you are

feeling just as lost as you are and we

all deserve to take up space on this

earth

you deserve to love yourself and forgive

the suffering

i promise you it’s better than feeling

yourself with hate and shame

you don’t have to motivate yourself that

way anymore

it isn’t working

now epiphanies are great but it’s hard

work and change

that you choose to make every single day

that’s going to make the tangible

difference in your life

my intention is to show you that it’s

possible to live outside of this

realm of hate but it’s slow and it’s

with changes that you make

every day of your life i’m not talking

about a new job we’re moving to a new

city

i’m talking about mental work to uncover

how you’re harming yourself and others

in your daily life

for so many years i was fighting to hold

on to my old life

while simultaneously trying to release

my depression

i would try a new medication every month

yet i kept myself trapped in the same

routines

hoping that a new therapist or med

combination was finally going to be the

fix for me

and there was so little i knew about how

i was actually harming myself

and my body with the choices that i was

making

and it’s obvious to me now why i was so

unhappy

but at the time i was genuinely at a

loss for what more i could do

because anyone faced with my list of

therapies and medications would think

that i had tried it all

but despite all of the external sources

that i had turned to

i didn’t try changing how i felt about

myself and how i felt about the world

and i now understand that my habits were

little ways

to fit the narrative that i had created

about myself

about what an awful person that i

thought i was

and now i use my habits as displays of

love

each day that i make the bed it’s

because i deserve a clean made bed that

makes me feel comfortable

and i eat three meals a day because i

decided that i’m a good person

and then i deserve to eat i forgive

myself

because i deserve unconditional love and

that’s not because i’m a perfect person

who doesn’t make any mistakes it’s

because i’m a human being

and i’m trying my best and that always

deserves love

i love myself it’s possible

and you deserve it too thank you