Why Self Esteem may not be enough:
In today's world, over 30 years since the start of the women's liberation movement, it's hard to argue that women and girls have more opportunity than ever before. They can choose their career, relationships and life paths with far more freedom than previous generations.
While that is great news, today's statistics tell us that how girls and women really feel about themselves hasn't changed nearly enough:
- One in 2 women will marry and divorce. 20% in the first five years. Next to losing a child, divorce is the most stressful event of someone's life.
- 1 in 3 women will find herself in an abusive relationship before the age of 20, 80 percent will go back.
- 75 percent of women will develop an eating disorder at some point in her life, 10% a life-threatening one such as bulimia or anorexia
Today's woman knows she can do anything, but she now feels pressured to do everything, perfectly and right now. While she may now be able to claim equality to men, she's created an entirely new jail cell for herself in which she can never do, be, have or give enough, although she will exhaust herself trying to get there.
Christine Arylo, inspirational catalyst and self-love expert, and SARK, bestselling author and artist, say we are having a "self-love crisis," one is which women are silently beating themselves up for everything they aren't, and one in which women are still looking for love and acceptance on the outside vs. the inside. Their answer? Dare to love yourself.
Arylo and SARK both take a unique and creative approach to teaching women how to really love themselves, with their books, workshops and "Daring Acts of Self Love" … actions any woman can use to take to take the pressure and stress off and pour the self love on. The acts are daring because they will make you uncomfortable. They will make others around you uncomfortable. But one of the first rules of self-love is get used to being uncomfortable, loving yourself is a daring act!
Simple but Daring Reminders Every Woman Needs to Hear
- Be Your Little Girl Again. You put way too much pressure on yourself today to be serious and responsible, and while you may have more responsibilities, no one said you had to give up having fun.
Remember something simple you loved doing as a little girl - cartwheels, batons, hula hoops, skipping - and just do it. You don't have to plan it or schedule it, just spontaneously do this seemingly silly act and you will notice a huge difference. It's a proven fact that laughter and smiling reduce stress hormones and increase happy hormones.
- Go on A Comparison Diet. When you notice yourself judging yourself for what you didn't do, could have done or should have done. Or comparing yourself to someone else. Stop in your tracks.
You've just taken a bite of a big poison apple that is poisoning your image of you. Set down the poison apple and instead find a mirror, look into it and say something positive to yourself at least 10 times. And the temptation is too great to stop eating that poison apple, throw a lifeline out to a friend and ask her to say something positive to you 10 times.
- Do the I Love ME Self-Serenade. When you are down in the dumps, there's nothing much better than singing to lift you up, and when you do it self love style, you sing out loud, with full gusto all the reasons you love yourself.
Yes it will feel uncomfortable, so what. That's the point. You keep singing and singing all the things you love about you until you feel the energy shift, along with it your perspective.
- Drop the world off your shoulders -- if only for 10 minutes. And reconnect with a bigger world. In that state of overwhelm where you feel like you have to do it all but can't do another thing, literally walk away. Drop it all. If you have kids, find someone to watch them. And get reconnected with yourself. One of the biggest reasons we feel so stressed out is that we feel totally alone, like we have to do it all.
You've lost your connection to yourself and to something bigger than you, so you think you have to do it all alone. That's why things like yoga, meditation and journaling work, because they reconnect you with you and with this greater energy.
But even if you don't have 90 minutes for yoga, everyone has 10 minutes. Take it. Breathing and getting into nature (even just laying on the grass) are the two fastest ways to reconnect.
Join Christine and SARK at www.selflovestudio.comon November 11th at 6 p.m. PST for a one hour in-depth conversation self-love--it's free for all women interested in falling more in love with themselves!
About Christine Arylo
A new kind of self-love expert, Christine Arylo, inspirational catalyst, takes a fresh approach to redefining self-love for today's woman as hip, hot and hers. Arylo traded in twelve years of creating powerful images for brands like Visa and Gap, to inspire women to bust through their limiting self-images and self-expectations.
As an author, coach and speaker, Arylo is an expert at helping women to get the success and happiness they want by living and loving their most real and wise selves first. She is the author of Choosing ME Before WE www.mebeforewe.com the founder of the Madly in Love with ME™ movement and the publisher of the online no-taboo talk forum Girltalk... taking it deeper www.letsgirltalk.com.
About SARK:
SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) is the author and artist of 15 bestselling books, and creator of hundreds of products. An acclaimed speaker and transformational teacher, she is the CEO and founder of Planet SARK, a thriving business that promotes empowered living. She is featured in the PBS series; "Women of Wisdom and Power." SARK lives in San Francisco. Visit her at www.planetsark.com.
