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