(gentle piano music)
- Hi there, it's Kati again, and thanks for checking back.
Now, today's topic is something that
I feel really needs to be revisited,
and so I'll come back to it periodically,
and I would love to get your feedback.
I always say, you know, make your comments below,
let me know what you think,
and today's topic is kinda one of those topics
where we've talked about it before,
but I do get a lot of questions
and video topic ideas and things like that from you guys,
and it all has to do with self image, body image.
(groaning)
I hate how I look.
I hate how I feel.
I hate, I feel like everybody's judging me,
I hate going out, people are looking at me.
I don't even trust when my boyfriend tells me I look good
or my girlfriend tells me I look good.
I think you're lying, ugh!
Right, we all feel that way?
So, what do we do about it, right?
We know we feel like crap a lot,
but we have to figure out how to make it better,
and there are a couple little tips that I'll give you today
that I really think can benefit.
Now, the first tip is something that I've told a lot of you,
and I'm sure I even put it in other videos,
but this is the post it note tip.
And if you've already done it,
take the ones you have, throw them away,
and we're gonna do it again.
And I'm a big fan of post it notes,
'cause I like lists and things like that,
so I always have those on hand.
So grab some post it notes, and I want you to jot down
things that you like about yourself.
I know you're thinking,
"Kati, I just told you I don't like anything.
I hate myself, bleh!"
No, there are certain things that
I'm sure you like.
I am always on time, I'm a great listener,
I'm a great friend,
I mean, there's a ton of things that you can think of.
I'm great at art, I always do my assignments on time,
or, you know, whatever you can think of.
If you have trouble, I'd like you to come up with
about five to ten, but if you have a lot of trouble,
ask somebody that you care about.
Ask them.
Just ask them for like one or two things,
and just say you're, I know you think,
"Kati, that's gonna be really weird,"
but just say, "You know, I'm just trying to
put up positive things around the house
to make me feel good in the morning,
and I'm writing these things down."
I know that might be kinda weird,
but if they're your friend, they don't care, they know.
They might even know you have an eating disorder,
and you're trying to better yourself,
so you can just say it's part of
what my therapist told me to do.
That's okay, right?
Heck, I would even ask my friends, you know?
They would give me the, you know,
the information that I'm needing.
So get your post it notes, write some things down.
Put these on your mirrors
or on the door right before you open,
like in the morning you come out of your bedroom,
put your post it note there.
You see it, it says,
"I'm beautiful" or "I'm really good at art"
or "I'm amazing," or whatever.
Then you go into the bathroom,
you go to brush your teeth, you look up and it says,
"I always am there for my friends."
Think about how much negativity
your eating disorder gives you,
and how much we have to undo.
Because all studies show,
that for every one bad thing that's said,
we need five good things to make it go away.
One to five.
It's always the one to five rule, even in relationships,
one bad thing you say to them,
we need to say five nice things to make it equal.
So, all those things, all day,
that your eating disorder is saying,
we have to try to negate some of them,
so that's why I said five to ten,
'cause we at least want you to run into five of them
on your way out the door.
Because I'm sure your eating disorder
has told you, like, 30 bad things
before you even made it.
So, just think about that.
So that's the first tip, post it notes.
Now the second tip that kind of builds
from the post it notes, is in your journal.
I want you to make a list of the top ten
qualities that you like about yourself.
Now this part of the process,
this is kind of, you know how we say recovery
is not perfection it's a process?
So, we're going to make this list,
and then I want you to go to your three best friends,
or three closest people,
it could be your sister, it could be your mom,
it could be your best friend,
it could be anybody in your life,
that you speak to a lot and you really feel connected to.
Try to find three people,
and ask them for their top three things they like about you,
and I want you to write them down.
Now I know this sounds really weird, and you're thinking,
"they're going to think I'm being weird".
But, like I said, you just say,
"this is something I'm doing to better myself."
And, recovery's hard and there's going to be things
that we do that aren't comfortable.
I know following your meal plan,
or fighting the urge to binge,
or fighting the urge to purge.
Those are all hard and uncomfortable,
but we have to work through them to get better.
So, we're going to ask people for their top things,
that they like about us.
We're going to write them down,
and then I want you to take some time,
and I want you to journal about how it felt.
What'd you tell yourself?
Every time they were saying something good,
did you think of like, 20 things that aren't good,
and why you shouldn't believe them?
And why was it so hard to believe them?
'cause they're someone you would go to for advice probably,
and ask about other things.
But, why when it's directly you,
and things they like about you, you won't believe them?
Just kind of, you know, interesting information,
information that we can slowly process, just think about it,
and so do that for those three people.
See what comes up.
Put those on post it notes, maybe.
Add those to your feel good routine.
But, these are things that we need to do periodically.
This is like taking your car in to get the oil changed.
You have to do it every three thousand miles,
I think that's how often you're supposed to do it.
But, I know cars are all different,
but you get the analogy, right?
We're gonna have to do check ups.
We can't just expect to do this once,
and to fix all the negativity
that's been going on for so long.
So, I want you to take your time,
I want to do this over and over again.
Try to come up with, in two more months,
try to come up with ten more things,
that you like about yourself, that are good.
Or, if in the middle of the week, you're like,
"you know what?
I'm a really good driver.
Or, I'm a really good parallel parker."
Something random happens, write it down,
add it to your list as you think of those things,
because we want to try to seek out positive,
instead of seeking out negative.
Does that make sense?
So, let's work on that.
Let's try to equal out our five to one thinking.
Remember that, because I know how much negativity goes on,
and this can help build our self esteem,
this makes us feel better about ourselves.
If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend
that tells you all those positive things start maybe
putting them in your phone under the notes section,
I put everything in my notes,
cause that helps me for my video ideas and things like that.
So, put it down in your notes,
add it to your list when you go home.
We have to keep doing this,
because our eating disorder is so negative,
we have to fight back, it's a fight.
We're in a battle, right?
And we're gonna win.
So, keep doing this, let me know how it goes,
leave comments below, like,
"wow, I came up with three things today
that I like about myself."
That's a huge step, right?
These are amazing, share your positive reinforcement,
share all of the positivity versus the negativity, okay?
And we're gonna keep working harder,
we're gonna keep putting one foot in front of the other
as we fight the negativity
to a healthy mind and a healthy body.