Monthly Archive for September, 2009


Learn to Love Yourself the Just the Way You Are

But I Want Yours!

“I wish my hair was curly like yours!”

“No way!!! I wish I had beautiful straight hair like yours!”

This conversation is almost universal. It seems that we all want what we don’t have—or perceive that we don’t have. Whether it be straight or curly hair, blonde or brunette, blue-eyed or brown-eyed, tall or short, full-figured or thin, everyone seems to want what someone else has.

The problem with this phenomenon is that it leads to a negative body image. Instead of seeing yourself as beautiful, you see yourself in a negative way. You focus on what you don’t have instead of what you do have. This kind of comparison to others always leaves you feeling badly about yourself.

Why Does It Matter?

Having a good body image is good for your health. When you feel good about your body, you can feel good in other areas of your life. It works the same way with a negative body image—a bad image leads to feeling bad in other areas of your life. In fact, a negative body image can lead to many different problems such as:

  • Emotional distress
  • Low self-esteem
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Eating disorders
  • And more

If you have a negative body image, you are not alone. And it is no wonder. Television commercials, print ads, movies, and even children’s toys bombard the population with the “perfect” body image—typically quite thin and young. These advertisements lead you to believe that if you aren’t the perfect shape, you will not find happiness, love, money, health, or enjoyment.

This message couldn’t be farther from the truth. You don’t need to have your body be a perfect shape—instead, you need to have a healthy body. And guess what? There is no perfect shape for health!

You don’t have to change your body to be happy. Instead, you simply need to change your mind!

Although this may take a bit of time and training, it is possible. And the outcome will be well worth the effort.

The first thing you need to do is realize that you have a unique body. There is not another one in the world that looks just like yours. Even if you are an identical twin, there will be some differences, no matter how small. Your unique body is your very own. No advertisement or friend or even family member can tell you what your body should be like. In the end, you only have to satisfy yourself. Yet still—this is no easy feat!

So the next step is to learn to stifle those negative thoughts. It is tempting at this point to try to come up with excuses for why this simply isn’t possible for you. If you catch yourself thinking in “Yes, but” terms, such as “Yes, but my unique body is too thin” or “Yes, but my unique body is too heavy” or “Yes, but those women in the advertisements really ARE beautiful” then you need to know that those “yes, buts” are bad news! They are nothing more than negative self-talk, and they will never get you to your goal of healthy body esteem.

Simple Steps for Increasing Positive Self-Talk

The only way to get rid of negative self talk is to replace it with positive self talk. Let’s learn how.

  1. First, become aware of what you are saying to yourself each day. How many “Yes, buts”? How many negative things? The best way to figure this out is to write down what you say to yourself for a few days.
  2. Now, take that list of negatives and write down a positive thought to replace the negative one. Be very specific. For example, if you said, “I hate the way I look. Everyone that sees me thinks I am ugly.” The positive could be something like, “I accept the way I look and focus on being the best me I can be.”
  3. Your list will now have what you say most often to yourself as well as new things to say instead. It is time to cross out the negatives! Use a dark marker and cross through each negative thought while reminding yourself that you are choosing to think different thoughts from this moment on.
  4. Read your positive statements several times every day. If you find that you have a negative thought in your head, simply tell yourself “STOP!” Then replace it with the positive thought you now have. If a new negative thought arises, write it down, come up with a positive and realistic thought to replace it, and then cross out the negative. Over time, the negative thoughts will happen less and less often and the positive thoughts will come to you effortlessly.

How you feel about yourself is something you CAN control. It is all up to you. Rather than see yourself through the eyes of a world overly-fixated on an artificial and narrow standard of body shape and size, see yourself through your own eyes and be happy with what you see. You can do it and you will be happy that you did.

Kimberly Krueger, MSW, LCSW is a therapist and the founder and director of Southlake Counseling and The Center for Self Discovery in Davidson, NC. Kimberly may be reached at kkrueger@centerforselfdiscovey.com. This article may be used but original content must be kept in tact and full credit must be given to author, including contact information.

Published on Monday September 28, 2009 in Article and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Anorexia and Trauma: What Happens When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Trauma and Stress are Culprits

Though there is no one particular cause of anorexia nervosa, stressful and traumatic events can and often do play a role. Since events like this leave you feeling out of control, the need to regain control becomes paramount. For some people, overeating, or in the case of those who suffer from anorexia nervosa, restricting food intake, is one way to regain a feeling of personal control.

When something traumatic happens to you, you may feel badly about yourself. Instead of seeing the event as bad, you begin to see yourself as bad too. For instance, if you have been assaulted, you may believe you are the cause of the assault. You may feel that you deserved it. Though not true, these negative thoughts can cause all kinds of problems – usually problems with how you see yourself and how you take care of yourself.

Bad things that can happen can be huge, such as being sexually assaulted or having a potentially deadly disease like cancer or being in an accident or house fire. Bad things can be smaller, too. They can be things like being in a bad relationship, having a job failure, ongoing stress, or witnessing a terrible event. Whether the event is big or small in the eyes of another, in your own eyes, it is very big and very real and leaves you feeling out of control.

Trying to Gain Control

When something bad has happened to you, your body responds. Sometimes it responds with headaches or stomach pains or even lots of colds! You may also take out your distress on your body. With anorexia, you do this by not eating, using laxatives, or exercising too much. When your body produces symptoms, it is manifesting the stress. When you take out your distress on your body, this is your way of showing the effect the stress and trauma has on you without ever having to really talk about it or confront it.

Since the trauma or stress has left you feeling out of control, you may be desperately trying to regain control. The problem with using food as a way of gaining control is that you actually lose control of your body, your life, and even your emotions to the relationship you are forming with the food!

In the end, using food to control your life does not work. Starving yourself or only eating certain foods or over-exercising seem to work in the short run by comforting or soothing you, but these behaviors have so many long term consequences that practice of them leave you worse off than before. What you will need to do is find other coping methods that help you feel better but don’t cause health or safety issues.

This is easier said than done. If you knew a better way, surely you would already be doing it, right? That is why asking a professional for help may be the answer.

Face It and Get Through It

To find a new way to express the pain of the events that triggered your eating disorder, you will need to make changes in how you think about the event and what you do for control. To do this, you will need to seek support to learn new, healthy ways to cope with emotional pain.

Traumatic events happen to everyone. In order to move beyond the pain, you will need to remember that the event was bad. You were not bad, you did not deserve the pain, you were not the cause of the pain, and you deserve to get better, feel better, and say yes to life!

Kimberly Krueger, MSW, LCSW is a therapist and the founder and director of Southlake Counseling and The Center for Self Discovery in Davidson, NC. Kimberly may be reached at kkrueger@centerforselfdiscovey.com. This article may be used but original content must be kept in tact and full credit must be given to author, including contact information.

Published on Monday September 28, 2009 in Article and Eating Disorders. 0 Comments Tags: .

The Importance of Taking Time for You

Who is the Most Important Person You Know? You Are!

Life can be a juggling act that requires a lot of practice. Everything is vying for your time—job, friends, family, social commitments, etc. The more you add to your plate, the more likely you are to “drop the ball” when it comes to remembering to make time for YOU in the midst of it all.

The Cat in the Hat Syndrome

Whenever I think of time management, I always think of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat. At one particular point in the book, the cat is showing off his incredible balancing skills:

I can hold up the cup
And the milk and the cake!
I can hold up these books!
And the fish on the rake!
I can hold the toy ship
And a little toy man!
And look! With my tail
I can hold a red fan!
I can fan with the fan
As I hop on the ball!
But that is not all.
Oh, no.
That is not all….
That is what the cat said…
Then he fell on his head!

If this sounds like you, if you are trying to juggle everything while proving to the world that you can do everything, then you have forgotten two very important things. The first is that you are not capable of being everything to everybody. The second is that you will certainly fail if you don’t take time for yourself. And think about it….how can you be there for anyone else if you are on your head?!

Include Yourself in Your Balancing Act

Taking time for you is essential to your health and happiness. You will never be able to keep juggling everything in your life if you put yourself at the bottom of the list. Eventually, you will come crashing down, just like the cat. The better you take care of you, the better you will be able to be there to help someone else as well.

How long has it been since you had any “me time”? If you had to pause for more than a moment or two to come up with the answer, then it has been too long! In an ideal world, everyone would have at least one hour per day to themselves. However, in the real world, any amount of time is better than no time!

Here are a few tips to help make time for yourself more likely to happen:

  1. Keep a diary of your daily activities and then evaluate what you do, when you do it, and how long it takes. You may be surprised to find ways to consolidate your activities so that “me time” is available.
  2. Create a “space” in your home that is just for you and just for relaxation. In this “me space” you may not bring in work or worries. This is your space for reading, listening to music, meditating, yoga, or other relaxing activities.
  3. Learn to say NO! Remember, you can’t be all things to all people. Give yourself permission to say no to someone else as a way to be able to also say “yes” to yourself.

Want Some “Me Time” But Don’t Know What To Do?

If you are struggling with “me time” ideas, here are a few things to get you started:

  • Go for a quiet walk. Or a jog, if that is more your style
  • Soak in the tub
  • Read a good book. If you don’t have time for the whole book, try reading one chapter every day. Or even listen to a book on tape while driving in your car
  • Chat with a friend
  • Listen to your favorite music
  • Meditate
  • Take a yoga class
  • Paint, draw, journal, explore your creativity

This is just a partial list. The point is to find something you enjoy and make time to do it.

In the midst of balancing your cake and books and fans while bouncing on a ball, be sure that you remember to find time for yourself. You are, after all, the most important person you know.

Kimberly Krueger, MSW, LCSW is a therapist and the founder and director of Southlake Counseling and The Center for Self Discovery in Davidson, NC. Kimberly may be reached at kkrueger@centerforselfdiscovey.com. This article may be used but original content must be kept in tact and full credit must be given to author, including contact information.

Published on Monday September 28, 2009 in Article and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: .

Just Say No: For Those With an Eating Disorder, 
It is More Than a Cliché

Just Say No. If you are a teen or a parent of a teen, or even watch TV for that matter, you have heard the slogan. It refers to a person’s ability to say no to sex before marriage and/or no to drugs and alcohol. Since this slogan is so prominent, those wishing to say no to these things may experience that they have an easier time doing so, in that negative peer pressure is less evident in these instances.

Yet, sex, drugs, and alcohol are not the only things you can or need to say no to.

Picture in your mind the busiest woman you know. She is working or stays home with her children, a Girl Scout leader, a Sunday school teacher, cooks at least 2 meals a month for someone she knows that is sick or having a hard time, baby-sits for parents who just need a break from their kids, and on and on. This person may love her life and all that goes on it in. She may also feel as if she MUST do all that she is doing and simply cannot “just say no.”

Why Saying No Is So Hard

We learn early on that what we do affects others and can even affect what they think of us. Therefore, especially as children, we try to please those that are important to us. As we get older, we find that we are still trying to please those around us because it has become a habit. It is fine to want to please others. The problem comes when you do so at your own expense. The easiest way to set boundaries that allow you to please others, yet give yourself the freedom to do for yourself, too, is to “just say no.”

This is easier said than done. Many of us learned that saying no was wrong. Society looked down on it. Our families disapproved when we said it. If we are females in this society, we may have also learned that saying no is aggressive and that aggression is bad. We may have learned that we will be rejected or that someone will get even with us if we say no. We may have learned that we will be labeled as selfish or worse. We may have learned that saying no leads to abandonment.

Whatever we learned in our past about saying no, it affects us now. Changing such long-standing beliefs is not easy, so we keep saying yes over and over again even if we really wish we could say no.

Saying Yes and Anger: How They Relate

If you say yes to something that you don’t really want to do or feel uncomfortable doing, you will feel resentful and angry. If you do not feel that way now, you will be gin to at some point in the future. Repeatedly saying yes when you want to say no may also have the ripple effect over time of making you feel depressed and out of control of your own life.

When you feel these things, you want to strike back. However, most of us are far too socially-minded to strike back at others. Instead, we tend to self-destruct by striking back at ourselves.

If you have intense anger at a situation that you feel helpless to control, you may begin to take it out on yourself by engaging in self-harm, drug or alcohol abuse, or by misusing food. These are all ways to express anger and frustration without having to actually talk about it. While it may feel worthwhile in the short-term to engage in these behaviors, over time the behaviors themselves can have a devastating effect not only on your relationship with yourself, but in all of your relationships.

So, what can you do about it? Learn to say no.

Learning to Say No

Saying no is not easy, especially if you believe that others will be disappointed or angry with you. If you are feeling this way, you may not make your message clear. You may hesitate and say no with a questioning voice. Saying no firmly is not aggressive but assertive. Just do it in a firm but empathetic way – “I won’t be able to watch your twins on Saturday. I have plans with my family.” If you would like to offer help at a later time, you can then say something like, “I have the first weekend in October free if you’d like to plan for 3 to 4 hours away on that Saturday.”

Most importantly, do not apologize for saying no to someone else so you can respect your own need for you-time. You have the right to say no. You have the right to have time free just for you. Saying you are sorry, such as “No, I can’t watch the twins. I’m sorry” states that you believe you should and you are seeking affirmation from the other person that you should be feeling guilty for saying no. The truth is that you can say no any time you need to, even without an excuse!

As you learn to say no, you will feel more control over your life. As you practice this valuable skill over and over again, your own stress level will decrease and you will find that you like yourself more – and enjoy your own company!

Just say no. It is more than just a slogan or cliché. Use it for your benefit!


Kimberly Krueger, MSW, LCSW is a therapist and the founder and director of Southlake Counseling and The Center for Self Discovery in Davidson, NC. Kimberly may be reached at kkrueger@centerforselfdiscovey.com. This article may be used but original content must be kept in tact and full credit must be given to author, including contact information.

Published on Monday September 28, 2009 in Article and Eating Disorders. 0 Comments Tags: .