The Lies

1. Lie #1: Outside factors are making me unhappy.

   "... if you're unhappy, that's on you."

   "You must choose to be happy, grateful, and fulfilled. If you make that choice every single day, regardless of where you are and what's happening, you will be happy."

2. Lie #2: I'll start tomorrow.

   "If you constantly make and break promises to yourself, you're not making promises at all. You're talking."

   "When you really want something, you will find a way. When you don't really want something, you'll find an excuse."

3. Lie #3: I'm not good enough.

   "Even though I was the youngest, I was a very self-sufficient child, and I think the combo of those two things meant that I was largely ignored - unless I did something good."

   "When I succeeded, I got praise and attention; I felt liked and accepted. But the moment the audience stopped clapping, it all went back to the way it was before."

   "What this has taught me as a child and what I carried into adulthood ... is the belief that in order to be loved, I felt I needed to produce something."

4. Lie #4: I'm better than you.

   "The first step toward getting past the desire to judge and compete is admitting that nobody is immune."

   "The second step is recognizing that just because you believe it doesn't mean it's true for everyone."

5. Lie #5: No is the final answer.

   "... no is only an answer if you accept it."

   "When it comes to your dreams, no is not an answer. The word no is not a reason to stop. Instead, thinks of it as a detour or a yield sign. No means merge with caution. No reminds you to slow down - to re-evaluate where you are and to judge how the new position you're in can better prepare you for your destination."

   "Perception means we don't see things as they are; we see things as we are."

   "You don't see things as they are; you see things through the lens of what you think and feel and believe."

6. Lie #6: I should be further along by now.

   "... everything happening exactly when it's supposed to ... Or maybe that goal wasn't ever meant to be yours."

   "Today there may be items on your to-do list, but you also have a long list of things you have achieved. You've already done little things and big things ... goals you accomplished years ago that are on someone else's bucket list. Focus on what you have done ... Celebrate the small moments. They're sacred, even if they aren't stepping stones to something else. Nothing is more important than today."

7. Lie #7: I need to make myself smaller.

   "There are hundreds of ways to lose yourself, but the easiest of them all is refusing to acknowledge who you truly are in the first place."

   "You - the real you - is not an accident."

   "Don't sit this one out. Don't let someone else's opinion of you determine your worth. Don't miss out on the chance to live the life of incredible possibility in front of you."

   "You were not made to be small."

8. Lie #8: I will never get past this.

   "There are many types of trauma - big, small, childhood, adult - but we all belong to a club we never asked to join."

   "You cannot ignore your pain. You cannot leave it behind completely. The only thing you can do is find a way to embrace the good that came out of it - even if it takes you years to discover what that is."

   "The path through hardship or extreme trauma is one of the most difficult things a being can encounter. But make no mistake: the only way is to fight through it. Pain and trauma are a violent whirlpool, and they will drag you under if you don't battle to stay afloat. There will be times, especially in the beginning, when it will take everything within you to keep your head above those waves."

   "But you must keep your head above those waves. It's so difficult, but you are tough. Even if you don't feel it at the time, the very fact that you're still breathing in and out means you're fighting back against the tide that wants to sweep you away. Don't let it. After a while I promise it will become easier to tread water, and finally you'll learn to swim against the current."

9. Lie #9: I am defined by my weight.

   "Who you are today is incredible. You have so many qualities to offer the world, and they are uniquely yours."

   "... humans were not made to be out of shape and severely overweight ... we function better mentally, emotionally, and physically when we take care of our bodies with nourishment, water, and exercise ... it's not your weight that defines you, but the care and consideration you put into your body absolutely does."

   "You need to be healthy."

   "You don't need to be thin. You don't need to be a certain size or shape or look good in a bikini. You need to be able to run without feeling like you're going to puke. You need to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. You need to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water every single day. You need to stretch and get good sleep and stop medicating every ache and pain ... You need to take in fuel for your body that hasn't been processed and fuel for your mind that is positive and encouraging. You need to get up off the sofa and out of bed and move around."

10. Lie #10: There's only one right way.

    "We have to consider if there are areas where we stay safely inside the lines we've drawn or those drawn for us by our family of origin. And how we can know the right community to seek out if we've never been a part of it before?"

    "There isn't one right way to be a woman. There isn't one right way to be a daughter, friend, boss, wife, mother, or whatever else you categorize yourself as. There are so many different versions of each and every style on this planet and beauty lives in that dichotomy."

    "Every day you get to choose the way your world looks. Regardless of how you were raised or what you were taught to believe, you get to decide where your story goes from here."

11. Lie #11: I need a hero.

    "And the things you've achieved? The big and little stuff that peppers your life and adds flavor, the achievements that have made you who you are - those are all you."

    "Only you have the power to change your life."

    "You have the ability to change your life ... You just have to stop waiting for someone else to do it for you."

    "Girl, get ahold of your life. Stop medicating, stop hiding out, stop being afraid, stop giving away pieces of yourself, stop saying you can't do it. Stop the negative self-talk, stop abusing your body, stop putting it off for tomorrow or Monday or next year. Stop crying about what happened and take control of what happens next. Get up, right now. Rise from where you've been, scrub away the tears and the pain of yesterday, and start again ... Girl, wash your face!"