Do you bully your body? How to get unstuck from your body negative thoughts! IME Body Image Thoughts to Think for June! Welcome to summer! Whew! So far, it’s been a whirlwind for our family with my daughter’s graduation from High School and tomorrow I’m headed to Texas to move my oldest daughter into a new house (for her) with new roommates! I’m grateful I get to do it. IME is six months or half a year, however you slice up that summer fruit, through a year of self-love superpower mantras! This glorious month of June let’s do fun stuff and get out of self-judging and hating on our bodies. We just wrapped up Celebrate Measures of Success in May. You get to decide how to measure your success. How’d you do? If you were busy like me and didn’t get to it, no worries (I can’t stand when the Starbucks drive-thru person says, “No worries” after I place my order), you can create your measures of success this month. Since I’m on social media a lot and lately have been going all in with my cancel diet culture posts, helping everyone stop their pursuit of thin privilege and live their magical lives, I figure June would be a great month to focus on body image. Do you bully your body? Do you have a certain body part that you fixate on wanting to fix? We all do sometimes. We all have parts of us that we would choose to change. Maybe you can and that’s okay too. Maybe once you realize you can, you will decide not to. Any decisions we make about making health behavior change or taking action in life must come from a place of self-acceptance and self-love. We cannot hate ourselves to what we want. Lots of psychology and coaching research shows this. It’s called PEA or Positive Emotion Activation. It’s cool stuff. After years of being a pediatrician and taking care of so many patients, I can assure you that once you decide to focus on what you want in life and you have full love and acceptance for yourself, the healthy lifestyle changes become so easy. I’ve seen this time and time again with my patients and with myself. One of the obstacles in our way is staying stuck in negative body image thoughts or staying attached to thoughts that don’t serve us. I’m not asking you to flip a body positive switch and just love yourself all day. That’s cheesy and not realistic. When you say the letters I M E out loud, it sounds like I aM mE. The power of you as an individual with the support of a body positive community. How cool is that? Here’s a quick tip: Wear clothes right now that are comfortable that you love and feel-good in. If you have stuck thoughts that are creating negative body image feelings and actions, try my IME Community June Body Image Thoughts to Think! 6/1 I define beauty by actions. 6/2 If I want to change something about my physical appearance, I don’t make it mean that I’m sacrificing my values. 6/3 I am deciding not to decide right now. 6/4 I am never stuck. 6/5 I fully love and accept myself no matter what. 6/6 I make decisions from a healthy place of self-love and self-acceptance. 6/7 Self-acceptance is always available to me like a nice warm blanket. 6/8 I don’t let society define me or make decisions for me. 6/9 It’s okay to wish something was different about me. 6/10 Imayre-decideatanytime. 6/11 When I decide, there is no right or wrong. 6/12 Ialwayslikemyreasonsfordeciding. 6/13 Icancreateathoughtaboutmyselfthatservesme. 6/14 Itrustmyselftostopself-judging. 6/15 Therearesomanybeautifulthingsaboutme. 6/16 Iamkindtomyselfnomatterwhat. 6/17 I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be perfectly kind to myself. 6/18 IrecognizewhenmybraingetsstuckinathoughtloopandIcreatea pause. 6/19 It’sokaytoallowsadnessaspartofmyhumanjourney. 6/20 Whensomethingishard,Isayit,“Thisfeelsreallyhardrightnow. May I be kind to myself.” 6/21 Irecognizethatlifeis50/50positive/negativerightnowandifI change my body. 6/22 Idon’tconvincemyselfifI’mnotfeelingit. 6/23 IfIdon’tfeelbodypositive,Idon’tlietomyself.Thatfeelsliketoxic positivity. 6/24 Beinghardonmyselfisnothelpful. 6/25 Fixatingonchangingmybodyisawasteoftime. 6/26 I’mlivingmylifeanddoingwhatIwant. 6/27 WhenI’minabodynegativespace,IstayoffInstagram. 6/28 Idon’tlookforhowtofixmybodyontheinternet. 6/29 AllImustdoiscreatespaceforself-kindnesswhenI’mbeinghardon my body. 6/30 Idon’tlikeanyofthecheesyloveyourbodyalwayssayings. Be okay with having an authentic human experience which means sometimes you love your body, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you are meh. I just want you to get unstuck from attachment to body negative thoughts. Let me know what self-love superpower mantra theme you want for July! Stay tuned for my upcoming Cut the Cringe Life Coaching Workshops for Parents of Teens where I will coach you to cancel diet culture and raise a body positive teen in a body negative world! Please follow IME Community on social media and share with everyone you know! Self-love superpower, Dr. Karla, ActivistMD