Julianne Harvey

No one can make us feel inferior without our consent.  If we are giving others permission to seem better than we are, the place to address the problem is in us, not in the person we are comparing ourselves to.

This is a problem for just about everyone on the planet, and one I have really struggled with in the last few years.  When I was pretending to be someone I wasn't so tha...

It is not selfish to look after yourself.  We all know people who look after themselves all of the time and don't give two blind damns about others, and this is why self care ends up with a bad rap. 

I believe that the world is filled with two kinds of people: givers and takers.  Those who give tend to bleed until they run completely dry, and then have minor (or major) b...

We tend to be so critical of our own bodies.  We can look at other women and accept them as they are, but we struggle to offer the same love to ourselves.  We study pictures of us and examine every inch, shocked at how big our thighs look or how flabby our arms are.  We obsess over our double chin, our facial hair or our belly fat.  We long to look like Jennifer Aniston but secretly doubt that we have the willpower to get ther...

Now that I am more fully aware of who I am and developing courage each day to live as myself with less fear, I see how much time I wasted living on the edge of my own identity. It makes me feel sad to have existed as a shadow of myself. The worst part is that I wasn't even aware of it. If I'm honest, I recognize now that I wasn't thinking about my identity at all.

Most of what I wrote i...

I posted a few months ago about body image, and how I wanted to learn to love my body before I focused on changing it.  I would love to have a flat stomach again, and pronounced cheekbones, and be able to try on anything I want when I go shopping.  I recognize that for this to happen I must be disciplined about what I eat and be willing to exercise more.

Up...

Ava got her hair cut last week, and she was thrilled with the change.  So was I, because it meant less crying and histrionics in the mornings when I was brushing her long and tangled hair.  Jason was out of town when I took her to get it cut, and that night as she was getting ready for bed and preening in the mirror, she looked at me and said, "Mom, do you think Daddy will like my new hair?"

Not long ago, I saw a friend who I haven't seen for a year.  She had lost a lot of weight, and looked amazing.  Instantly I knew that pang of insecurity for the thirty or so extra pounds that I could shed to be at my ideal weight. 

We sat down to chat, and during the initial volley of catching up, I tried to remind myself that I was working on myself from the inside out,...