self-esteem

Obviously, now from my elder perch, I realize it’s best to withhold judgment, especially contempt for actions that bring personal joy at life stages you haven’t reached yet. (Though I’m still not married and get cranky that women are taking their husband’s last names more so than twenty years ago.)

I look pregnant. This body has made six humans. This belly has been inflated and collapsed and inflated and collapsed, and so on. What should it look like?

Have the post-holiday engagement "forever-alone" blues? Here's how to create the relationship of your dreams.

Everyone has their inner critic, the voice in your head that whispers all manner of terrible things:

You look fat in that outfit.

When you hear the buzzwords “body shame” or “body positivity,” it's common to think those phrases only apply to those who have a little extra junk in the trunk, but a huge demographic is excluded the conversation when it takes that cliché Christina Aguilera “We are Beautiful” turn.

We really want people to like us. It’s just human nature. You may say you don’t care if people like you, and on the surface, that may be true. However, there’s a part of you that understands that openly not caring about being liked immediately makes you more likable — self-assurance is an attractive quality to have.

We live in a world where people are easily influenced. Heck, I'm a writer and influencer for a living, so I get this in its most extreme state. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty — the big life decisions — I want my son to have a strong head on his shoulders and do what he instinctively knows is right for him.

[W]hy must the acknowledgment of my beauty be predicated on how well and how often I contort to attempt to fit into some kind of ideal? Why can’t I be all the iterations of me and still be beautiful?