In case you missed my announcement on Periscope* yesterday, I wrote a book!!!! My book baby – Body Image Remix – will be coming out at the end of November.

Even bigger news: you’ll be able to get a copy for free! Make sure you’re on my mailing list to find out about how to get a free copy and also how to win an advance copy and membership to the 21 Step Body Image Remix program… Until then, here is what’s been on my mind lately…

It’s OK To Not “Like” Your Body

“We are all awesome/beautiful/perfect!!” Says memes, moms and body wash companies that also make margarine. No. No we’re not.

I sometimes feel like the body positive movement is doling out trophies to kids sitting on the sidelines picking grass and I think we can do better. Allow me to explain…

You are not all awesome. You are not all perfect. And you are certainly not all beautiful. And thinking that we should be is not helping us to feel like we’re enough as we are.

Here’s my honest truth: Sometimes I feel beautiful and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like the way my legs look and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think I’m charming and funny and other times I think I’m an impatient stubborn mental case that belongs in a padded cell with Hannibal Lecter eating some dude’s liver. Sometimes I feel all of those things in the same day! Oh yeah, it’s an insane clown posse party happening up inside this girl’s head!! BUT…

None of these things dictate how I feel about myself or my sense of worth. They are simply observations without judgment or emotional implications.

We are made up of an evolving tapestry of good, meh and not so good – being cool with each of those parts is imperative to actually “loving yourself”.

You don’t have to “like” your body to be comfortable in your skin.

You don’t have to feel beautiful to be kind to yourself.

You can be ugly and still do the things you want to do in life – like take up space and be seen.

You don’t have to admire every part of yourself to feel the things you want to feel, like the joy of orgasms and ice cream (preferably together).

And you certainly don’t have to “fix” the pieces of you that aren’t self-helped before you can feel like you’re enough.

Here’s a radical suggestion: Try not liking certain parts of yourself and be OK with that.

Give yourself respect and kindness regardless of whether you curse your stomach every time you walk by a mirror.

I know that we receive thousands of messages daily saying that we’re not enough, but let’s stop trying to achieve a sense of “enoughness” through emotional attachment to beauty, perfection and appearance.

Liking every part of yourself and feeling “beautiful” is not a box you check off in order to love your body. Loving your body happens when you embrace your whole self – even the ugly messy bits.

*BTW, are you following me on Periscope yet? Because if not, you may have missed this.

Be Smashing!