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Hello, hello, and welcome to Clyde Cruz. I'm your girl,
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Israel Risen. Thank you for joining me. I'm grateful to
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be back in my own energy. Hallelujah. La, la, la, la.
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All that good stuff. So, the title is called Before
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You Change Your Body, Learn to Love the Person Living
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in It. And we need to have a conversation about self-love.
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And I don't mean that cute little internet version of
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self-love where You take a bubble bath, light the candles,
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and buy yourself something from somewhere expensive and suddenly you're healed. No,
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I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the kind
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of self-love that allows you to look in the mirror
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without a filter, without an audience, without somebody liking the picture,
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and without somebody desiring you and still say, I am enough.
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Because somewhere along the way, we created a world where
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simply existing in your natural body started feeling like an
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act of rebellion. Like, what happened? Like, seriously? What happened
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to us? We have people looking at perfectly normal human
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faces like something is wrong because there are lines around
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the eyes. Baby, those lines are called years, okay? You
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survive them. That's not a manufacturing defect. That's evidence. We
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have people afraid of pores. Pores, y'all. Your skin is
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supposed to have pores. Folks are zooming into pictures at
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500% like, oh my God, what's that? A pore, beloved.
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That's a pore. You are a mammal. And I'm laughing,
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but underneath that joke is something serious because people are
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becoming increasingly uncomfortable with simply looking human. And the entertainment
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industry has played a huge role in creating that discomfort.
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For decades, we have been shown manufactured beauty and told
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it was natural, perfect lighting, perfect angles, professional makeup per
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You know, personal trainers, stylists, cosmetic procedures, retouching, filters, editing,
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and now artificial intelligence. Then the finished product gets placed
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in front of everyday people who are standing in the
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bathroom at 6.30 in the morning under fluorescent lighting wondering
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why they don't look the same. Because, baby, they don't
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even look like that, okay? That's the part nobody wants
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to talk about. You're comparing your Tuesday morning face to
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somebody else's multimillion dollar production. Of course, you're going to
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lose that competition because that competition isn't real. And then
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we wonder why so many young people are growing up
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believing their body, their natural bodies are somehow unfinished. The
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nose isn't right. The lips aren't big enough. The waist
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isn't small enough. The hips aren't wide enough. The chest
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isn't shaped correctly. The jaw isn't sharp enough. The skin
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isn't smooth enough. The hair isn't long enough. The muscles
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aren't big enough. The butt isn't big enough. And before
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somebody has even had enough time to discover who they are,
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they've already received, like, they're receiving a list of everything
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society believes they should change. That's so fucking heartbreaking. Now
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hear me clearly. Adults have the right to make personal
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decisions about their own bodies. This isn't about attacking somebody
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who got cosmetic surgery. It's not about laughing at somebody
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who uses Botox. It's not about condemning tattoos, piercings, makeup, wigs, extensions,
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or anything else people use to express themselves. The deeper
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question is, who convinced you that you needed it? And
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that's where self-love requires courage, because there's a difference between
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I enjoy expressing myself this way and I cannot tolerate
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myself unless I look this way. So those are two
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completely different conversations that you just got to have with yourselves.
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And one comes from creativity. The other may come from pain.
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So the pain deserves compassion, not ridicule. Okay. But we
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still have to talk about the environment producing the pain, right?
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Because the right now we have industries worth billions of
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dollars right now that benefit financially when people dislike themselves.
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Think about that shit. If you wake up tomorrow morning
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completely comfortable with your face, somebody loses money. If you
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decide your natural hair is beautiful, somebody loses money. If
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you stop obsessing over whether your stomach is perfectly flat,
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somebody loses money. If aging stops terrifying you, somebody loses money, child.
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And if you stop believing every new trend requires you
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to rebuild your faith, somebody's losing money. Insecurity is profitable.
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Do you hear me? And once you understand that, you
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start asking different kind of questions. I used to be
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obsessed with those magazines. But then I started looking at
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these bitches. I'm like, and I saw one in real
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life once. I was like, that bitch did not look
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like that in real life. And it just snapped me
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out of that non-reality on the cover of the magazine.
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You start looking at it and advertising differently instead of
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asking like, how can I look like her? You start
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asking questions like, why are they trying so hard to
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make me dislike myself? Now that is a dangerous consumer, okay?
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Because somebody who loves themselves It's much harder to manipulate.
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And then we have to talk about entertainment because entertainment
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used to contain sexuality. Now it's just terrible. Today, sometimes
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it feels like sexuality contains entertainment more than anything. And
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everything has to be sexual. I mean, a song, a
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sexual video, sexual advertising, sexual dance, sexual... Award shows are sexual?
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Somebody's selling bottled water. Why are you crawling across the
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kitchen counter like that? Sexual, you know? I'm trying to hydrate,
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you know? Why is everybody naked? What the hell is
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really going on on the planet right now? And adults
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can decide what entertainment they want to consume, right? But
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children are watching too. That's the conversation. Young people are
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observing messages about beauty. desirability in adulthood. before they have
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developed the emotional maturity to properly, you know, like interpret
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those messages. And a child shouldn't grow up believing their
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greatest accomplishment is becoming sexually desirable, especially young girls, you know.
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A girl's first understanding of her power should not be
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people want my body. Her power should be I can think,
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I can build, I can create, I can solve problems,
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I can make people laugh, I can lead, I can invent,
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I can write, I can paint, I can study, I
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can survive, I can establish boundaries, I can walk away,
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I can choose, I belong to myself. And young boys
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need protection from distorted messaging too, because boys are being
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exposed to hyper-sexualized content and unrealistic expectations about women. So masculinity, money, status,
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and relationships are just all distorted. So then we got
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to wonder why authentic intimacy becomes difficult. When you've consumed
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thousands upon thousands of manufactured images, right? On an online,
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walking around, normal human beings can just start looking insufficient
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and real relationships are edited. Real bodies change. Real people
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wake up with bad breath. Like real people gain weight,
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lose hair, lose weight. Get scars, get stretch marks, you know,
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go gray, get sick, recover, age, get tired, have emotional seasons.
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That's humanity, you know. And if your idea of love
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cannot survive humanity, you don't understand love yet. And it's
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just best if you're by yourself for a while. And
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there's nothing wrong with that. And that's why loving yourself
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has to become deeper than appearance because here's something nobody
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can escape. Your body is going to change. I don't
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care how beautiful you are today. Change is coming, okay?
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Gravity has a contract with everybody on this bitch, all right?
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And everybody, rich, poor, celebrity, unknown, influencer, accountant, nobody is
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negotiating that we had a gravity trial, okay? Eventually, something
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is going south and that's okay. Because your body was
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never supposed to remain frozen at 25 years old forever anyway.
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So you're supposed to evolve. And there's beauty in every
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season when you stop demanding that one season last forever.
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You know, imagine looking at an oak tree in autumn screaming,
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you looked better in June. Like the fuck? Like that
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would be ridiculous, right? The tree is changing because it's alive.
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So are you. And this obsession with youth has robbed
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people of something beautiful, the privilege of aging. There are
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people who didn't even get your years. Remember that. Somebody
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didn't make it to 30. Somebody didn't make it to 40.
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Somebody didn't make it to 50. Somebody didn't make it
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to 60. Somebody didn't make it to 70. And you're
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standing in the mirror angry because you found a gray
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hair or wrinkle. Baby, that gray hair, that wrinkle, maybe
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a receipt saying you made it, okay? Wear that thing
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like a medal if you want to. Self-love also means
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becoming careful about whose opinion gets access to your identity, okay?
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Everybody cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem, okay? Everybody
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cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem. Understand that. Everybody
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cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem. I said it
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three times, right? Was that three times? Everybody cannot... Because
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if somebody says you're unattractive, your entire understanding of yourself
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could just, now, it's just going to collapse, right? If
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somebody rejects you, that does not automatically mean something is
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wrong with you. If somebody leaves you, it doesn't erase
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your value. It If somebody chooses somebody else, your beauty
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did not evaporate. Sometimes rejection is simply incompatibility. Sometimes somebody
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else's preference has absolutely nothing to do with your worth.
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But we've created this strange culture where people think being
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desired equals being valuable. No, baby. Those are not synonyms, okay?
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You can be desired and deeply disrespected. Okay? I have
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personally had that happen to me. Be desired. And not
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one man I've ever been with respected me. Not a
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single one. They desired me. But not one respected me.
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So you can be pursued and still not be loved. Okay?
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You can receive thousands of compliments. And still hate yourself.
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That was me. I hated myself. Everything about me. Now
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I love everything about me. But back then, I hated
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everything about me. And I couldn't... People would say I
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was beautiful. I couldn't see it. You can have millions
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of followers and feel completely alone. And how many of
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us have been in rooms where it's a room full
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of people and you still feel alone. So... External validation
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is a terrible foundation because it requires other people to
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keep supplying the materials. And people are inconsistent, you know.
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Today they love you. Tomorrow they'll be distracted and hate you,
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you know. Next week somebody new is trending. So if
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your identity depends entirely on applause... You're going to spend
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your entire life auditioning, auditioning for relationships, auditioning for friendships,
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auditioning for strangers, auditioning for social media, auditioning for people
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who don't even like themselves. At some point, you've got
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to walk off the stage, take the costume off, wash
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the makeup off, put the phone down, sit quietly with
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yourself and ask, who am I when nobody is watching?
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Do I like that person? Do I respect that person?
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Do I protect that person? Because we talk about protecting
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everybody except ourselves. You protect everything you love, right? To
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include your children, your friends, your partners, your reputation, right?
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But will you protect yourself from environments that constantly convince
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you you're inadequate? Sometimes self-love is unfollowing an account. Sometimes
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self-love is ending a relationship. Sometimes self-love is moving. Sometimes
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self-love is saying, you know what, I don't need to
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see content that makes me hate my body every morning.
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Sometimes self-love is admitting, you know what, I'm chasing this
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procedure because I'm hurting. You know, and maybe before changing
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the outside, you spend some time understanding what's happening inside.
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Because no cosmetic procedure can permanently cure an internal belief
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that says, I am not enough. And that's all I
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see out here is a lot of people, this cosmetic surgery,
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and all I see is, I am not enough. You
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can change your nose and insecurity can move to your waist.
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You can change your waist and insecurity moves to your skin.
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You can change your skin and insecurity moves to your age.
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You can spend your entire life playing whack-a-mole with insecurity. Boom,
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you know, fix that. Here comes another one. Boom, fix that.
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I mean, it's never ending. So at some point you
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realize maybe the body wasn't the enemy. Maybe the belief was.
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And this is especially important for the youth, okay? I'm
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speaking really to the youth out there. Adults have a
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responsibility to give young people something entertainment culture often doesn't
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give them, perspective. Tell children they're beautiful is real. You know,
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you tell children that beauty is real, but beauty isn't everything.
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You know, you tell them attraction is natural, but attention
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isn't identity. And you tell them that their body deserves
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respect before it ever becomes decoration. Teach them how algorithms work.
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Teach them that the image they're comparing themselves to may
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have been edited. And teach them that celebrities have teams.
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Teach them that trends are temporary. Teach them that somebody
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becoming famous for looking a certain way does not mean
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they must look that way too. And most importantly, let
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young people see adults who are comfortable being human. Let
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them see somebody laugh with crooked teeth and wear their
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natural face and love their freckles and rock their bald
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head and wear their gray hair, have a soft stomach
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and have scars and have stretch marks and exist without apologizing. Yep,
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got cellulite. Because sometimes representation isn't Seeing somebody perfect, sometimes
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representation is seeing somebody free. And that's what I want
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more people to experience. Freedom. Freedom from constantly checking the mirror.
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Freedom from competing with strangers. Freedom from needing everybody to
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want you. Freedom from believing aging is failure. Freedom from
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thinking sexuality is your greatest currency. Freedom from believing you
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have to reconstruct yourselves every time beauty standards change. Because,
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you know, like, beauty standards will change all the time.
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That body every day is buying, you know, that body
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everybody is buying today, yeah, give society 10 years. They'll
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tell you something else. Then people will be, like, reversing
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procedures trying to match the next trend. Your body... Was
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never supposed to become fast fashion. You live there. Treat
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it like a home. Feed it. Move it. Rest it.
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Protect it. Decorate it if you want. Change things if
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you've thoughtfully decided that's right for you. But don't stand
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outside your own body every day acting like an abusive landlord.
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This is wrong. That's ugly. Fix this. Hide that. Enough.
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Your body carried you through heartbreak. It carried you through grief.
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It carried you through stress. It carried you through mistakes.
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It carried you through nights nobody knew you were struggling.
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It carried you through every single day you've been alive.
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Maybe it deserves gratitude. And if there's something about yourself
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that you genuinely want to improve, improve it from love,
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not hatred. Like when I exercise, I exercise because I
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love my body. When I started off at 318 pounds,
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I hated myself. I had to lie to myself. And
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I said I had to lie to myself until I
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actually started to love my body. Now I say I
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love my body. I mean I love my body. But
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I started off lying to myself because I was that
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far gone mentally. So... Eat better because you love your body, right?
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And then you rest because you love your body. And
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then you heal because you love yourself. And you set
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boundaries because you love yourself and you grow because you
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love yourself. And if you choose to like change something
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about your appearance, let that decision belong to you and
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you alone. Not an algorithm, not a partner, not a
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celebrity trend, not no people working with you, not strangers
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in a comment section. Because one of the greatest things
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you can ever teach yourself is like, I don't have
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to become somebody else to deserve my own love, you know.
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And maybe that's the message our culture desperately needs right now,
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especially our children. You are more than a body. You
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are more than somebody's fantasy. You are more than your likes.
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You're more than your followers. You're more than your waistline.
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You're more than your face. You're more than your age.
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You're more than rather somebody chooses you. And entertainment can
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sell fantasy all day long. let entertainment entertain but don't
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let it become your mirror okay don't let an industry
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designed to capture your attention become the authority that determines
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your worth okay turn the screen off occasionally go outside
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look at look at actual people Human beings come in
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thousands of shapes, shades, heights, sizes, and ages. And somehow
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we were convinced only five of them are beautiful. Please.
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Humanity is bigger than that. So love yourself while you're becoming.
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Love yourself before the transformation. Love yourself during the transformation.
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Love yourself when everybody applauds. Love yourself when nobody understands.
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Love the younger version of you. who didn't know better,
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love the current version, who's still figuring things out, and
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leave enough love for the older version of you who's coming,
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because one day you're going to look back at a
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picture you're criticizing today and say, wait a damn minute,
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I was fine and a motherfucker, you know, like, I
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look at my picture, I'm like, man, I was fine,
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and I thought I was so fat, and I didn't
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even weigh 118 pounds at that time, and I thought
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I was so fat. So your future self is going
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to want to travel back through time and shake you, okay,
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from your past looks, okay? Like, what the hell are
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you talking about? You look fine. So save yourself the trip.
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Look in the mirror today. Smile at that person and say,
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I refuse to spend another lifetime at war. With the
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body that carried me here. I can grow. I can change.
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I can improve. But I will not hate myself into
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becoming somebody I think the world will finally approve of.
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The world changes its mind every five minutes. I choose peace.
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I choose discernment. I choose authenticity. I choose myself. And
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perhaps the greatest rebellion in an age obsessed with modification
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and comparison and attention and perfection is simply being able
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to look at yourself exactly as you are and say,
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you know what? I love the person living here. Now
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take care of yourselves out there and stop being so
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hard on yourselves, you beautiful souls.
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Hello, hello, and welcome to Clyde Cruz. I'm your girl,
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Israel Risen. Thank you for joining me. I'm grateful to
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be back in my own energy. Hallelujah. La, la, la, la.
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All that good stuff. So, the title is called Before
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You Change Your Body, Learn to Love the Person Living
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in It. And we need to have a conversation about self-love.
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And I don't mean that cute little internet version of
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self-love where You take a bubble bath, light the candles,
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and buy yourself something from somewhere expensive and suddenly you're healed. No,
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I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the kind
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of self-love that allows you to look in the mirror
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without a filter, without an audience, without somebody liking the picture,
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and without somebody desiring you and still say, I am enough.
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Because somewhere along the way, we created a world where
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simply existing in your natural body started feeling like an
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act of rebellion. Like, what happened? Like, seriously? What happened
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to us? We have people looking at perfectly normal human
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faces like something is wrong because there are lines around
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the eyes. Baby, those lines are called years, okay? You
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survive them. That's not a manufacturing defect. That's evidence. We
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have people afraid of pores. Pores, y'all. Your skin is
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supposed to have pores. Folks are zooming into pictures at
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500% like, oh my God, what's that? A pore, beloved.
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That's a pore. You are a mammal. And I'm laughing,
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but underneath that joke is something serious because people are
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becoming increasingly uncomfortable with simply looking human. And the entertainment
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industry has played a huge role in creating that discomfort.
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For decades, we have been shown manufactured beauty and told
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it was natural, perfect lighting, perfect angles, professional makeup per
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You know, personal trainers, stylists, cosmetic procedures, retouching, filters, editing,
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and now artificial intelligence. Then the finished product gets placed
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in front of everyday people who are standing in the
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bathroom at 6.30 in the morning under fluorescent lighting wondering
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why they don't look the same. Because, baby, they don't
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even look like that, okay? That's the part nobody wants
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to talk about. You're comparing your Tuesday morning face to
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somebody else's multimillion dollar production. Of course, you're going to
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lose that competition because that competition isn't real. And then
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we wonder why so many young people are growing up
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believing their body, their natural bodies are somehow unfinished. The
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nose isn't right. The lips aren't big enough. The waist
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isn't small enough. The hips aren't wide enough. The chest
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isn't shaped correctly. The jaw isn't sharp enough. The skin
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isn't smooth enough. The hair isn't long enough. The muscles
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aren't big enough. The butt isn't big enough. And before
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somebody has even had enough time to discover who they are,
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they've already received, like, they're receiving a list of everything
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society believes they should change. That's so fucking heartbreaking. Now
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hear me clearly. Adults have the right to make personal
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decisions about their own bodies. This isn't about attacking somebody
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who got cosmetic surgery. It's not about laughing at somebody
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who uses Botox. It's not about condemning tattoos, piercings, makeup, wigs, extensions,
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or anything else people use to express themselves. The deeper
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question is, who convinced you that you needed it? And
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that's where self-love requires courage, because there's a difference between
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I enjoy expressing myself this way and I cannot tolerate
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myself unless I look this way. So those are two
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completely different conversations that you just got to have with yourselves.
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And one comes from creativity. The other may come from pain.
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So the pain deserves compassion, not ridicule. Okay. But we
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still have to talk about the environment producing the pain, right?
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Because the right now we have industries worth billions of
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dollars right now that benefit financially when people dislike themselves.
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Think about that shit. If you wake up tomorrow morning
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completely comfortable with your face, somebody loses money. If you
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decide your natural hair is beautiful, somebody loses money. If
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you stop obsessing over whether your stomach is perfectly flat,
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somebody loses money. If aging stops terrifying you, somebody loses money, child.
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And if you stop believing every new trend requires you
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to rebuild your faith, somebody's losing money. Insecurity is profitable.
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Do you hear me? And once you understand that, you
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start asking different kind of questions. I used to be
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obsessed with those magazines. But then I started looking at
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these bitches. I'm like, and I saw one in real
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life once. I was like, that bitch did not look
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like that in real life. And it just snapped me
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out of that non-reality on the cover of the magazine.
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You start looking at it and advertising differently instead of
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asking like, how can I look like her? You start
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asking questions like, why are they trying so hard to
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make me dislike myself? Now that is a dangerous consumer, okay?
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Because somebody who loves themselves It's much harder to manipulate.
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And then we have to talk about entertainment because entertainment
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used to contain sexuality. Now it's just terrible. Today, sometimes
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it feels like sexuality contains entertainment more than anything. And
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everything has to be sexual. I mean, a song, a
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sexual video, sexual advertising, sexual dance, sexual... Award shows are sexual?
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Somebody's selling bottled water. Why are you crawling across the
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kitchen counter like that? Sexual, you know? I'm trying to hydrate,
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you know? Why is everybody naked? What the hell is
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really going on on the planet right now? And adults
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can decide what entertainment they want to consume, right? But
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children are watching too. That's the conversation. Young people are
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observing messages about beauty. desirability in adulthood. before they have
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developed the emotional maturity to properly, you know, like interpret
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those messages. And a child shouldn't grow up believing their
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greatest accomplishment is becoming sexually desirable, especially young girls, you know.
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A girl's first understanding of her power should not be
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people want my body. Her power should be I can think,
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I can build, I can create, I can solve problems,
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I can make people laugh, I can lead, I can invent,
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I can write, I can paint, I can study, I
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can survive, I can establish boundaries, I can walk away,
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I can choose, I belong to myself. And young boys
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need protection from distorted messaging too, because boys are being
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exposed to hyper-sexualized content and unrealistic expectations about women. So masculinity, money, status,
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and relationships are just all distorted. So then we got
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to wonder why authentic intimacy becomes difficult. When you've consumed
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thousands upon thousands of manufactured images, right? On an online,
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walking around, normal human beings can just start looking insufficient
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and real relationships are edited. Real bodies change. Real people
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wake up with bad breath. Like real people gain weight,
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lose hair, lose weight. Get scars, get stretch marks, you know,
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go gray, get sick, recover, age, get tired, have emotional seasons.
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That's humanity, you know. And if your idea of love
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cannot survive humanity, you don't understand love yet. And it's
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just best if you're by yourself for a while. And
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there's nothing wrong with that. And that's why loving yourself
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has to become deeper than appearance because here's something nobody
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can escape. Your body is going to change. I don't
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care how beautiful you are today. Change is coming, okay?
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Gravity has a contract with everybody on this bitch, all right?
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And everybody, rich, poor, celebrity, unknown, influencer, accountant, nobody is
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negotiating that we had a gravity trial, okay? Eventually, something
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is going south and that's okay. Because your body was
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never supposed to remain frozen at 25 years old forever anyway.
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So you're supposed to evolve. And there's beauty in every
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season when you stop demanding that one season last forever.
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You know, imagine looking at an oak tree in autumn screaming,
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you looked better in June. Like the fuck? Like that
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would be ridiculous, right? The tree is changing because it's alive.
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So are you. And this obsession with youth has robbed
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people of something beautiful, the privilege of aging. There are
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people who didn't even get your years. Remember that. Somebody
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didn't make it to 30. Somebody didn't make it to 40.
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Somebody didn't make it to 50. Somebody didn't make it
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to 60. Somebody didn't make it to 70. And you're
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standing in the mirror angry because you found a gray
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hair or wrinkle. Baby, that gray hair, that wrinkle, maybe
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a receipt saying you made it, okay? Wear that thing
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like a medal if you want to. Self-love also means
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becoming careful about whose opinion gets access to your identity, okay?
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Everybody cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem, okay? Everybody
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cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem. Understand that. Everybody
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cannot have voting rights in your self-esteem. I said it
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three times, right? Was that three times? Everybody cannot... Because
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if somebody says you're unattractive, your entire understanding of yourself
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could just, now, it's just going to collapse, right? If
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somebody rejects you, that does not automatically mean something is
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wrong with you. If somebody leaves you, it doesn't erase
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your value. It If somebody chooses somebody else, your beauty
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did not evaporate. Sometimes rejection is simply incompatibility. Sometimes somebody
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else's preference has absolutely nothing to do with your worth.
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But we've created this strange culture where people think being
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desired equals being valuable. No, baby. Those are not synonyms, okay?
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You can be desired and deeply disrespected. Okay? I have
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personally had that happen to me. Be desired. And not
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one man I've ever been with respected me. Not a
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single one. They desired me. But not one respected me.
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So you can be pursued and still not be loved. Okay?
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You can receive thousands of compliments. And still hate yourself.
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That was me. I hated myself. Everything about me. Now
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I love everything about me. But back then, I hated
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everything about me. And I couldn't... People would say I
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was beautiful. I couldn't see it. You can have millions
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of followers and feel completely alone. And how many of
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us have been in rooms where it's a room full
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of people and you still feel alone. So... External validation
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is a terrible foundation because it requires other people to
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keep supplying the materials. And people are inconsistent, you know.
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Today they love you. Tomorrow they'll be distracted and hate you,
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you know. Next week somebody new is trending. So if
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your identity depends entirely on applause... You're going to spend
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your entire life auditioning, auditioning for relationships, auditioning for friendships,
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auditioning for strangers, auditioning for social media, auditioning for people
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who don't even like themselves. At some point, you've got
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to walk off the stage, take the costume off, wash
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the makeup off, put the phone down, sit quietly with
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yourself and ask, who am I when nobody is watching?
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Do I like that person? Do I respect that person?
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Do I protect that person? Because we talk about protecting
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everybody except ourselves. You protect everything you love, right? To
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include your children, your friends, your partners, your reputation, right?
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But will you protect yourself from environments that constantly convince
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you you're inadequate? Sometimes self-love is unfollowing an account. Sometimes
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self-love is ending a relationship. Sometimes self-love is moving. Sometimes
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self-love is saying, you know what, I don't need to
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see content that makes me hate my body every morning.
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Sometimes self-love is admitting, you know what, I'm chasing this
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procedure because I'm hurting. You know, and maybe before changing
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the outside, you spend some time understanding what's happening inside.
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Because no cosmetic procedure can permanently cure an internal belief
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that says, I am not enough. And that's all I
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see out here is a lot of people, this cosmetic surgery,
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and all I see is, I am not enough. You
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can change your nose and insecurity can move to your waist.
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You can change your waist and insecurity moves to your skin.
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You can change your skin and insecurity moves to your age.
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You can spend your entire life playing whack-a-mole with insecurity. Boom,
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you know, fix that. Here comes another one. Boom, fix that.
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I mean, it's never ending. So at some point you
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realize maybe the body wasn't the enemy. Maybe the belief was.
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And this is especially important for the youth, okay? I'm
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speaking really to the youth out there. Adults have a
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responsibility to give young people something entertainment culture often doesn't
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give them, perspective. Tell children they're beautiful is real. You know,
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you tell children that beauty is real, but beauty isn't everything.
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You know, you tell them attraction is natural, but attention
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isn't identity. And you tell them that their body deserves
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respect before it ever becomes decoration. Teach them how algorithms work.
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Teach them that the image they're comparing themselves to may
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have been edited. And teach them that celebrities have teams.
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Teach them that trends are temporary. Teach them that somebody
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becoming famous for looking a certain way does not mean
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they must look that way too. And most importantly, let
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young people see adults who are comfortable being human. Let
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them see somebody laugh with crooked teeth and wear their
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natural face and love their freckles and rock their bald
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head and wear their gray hair, have a soft stomach
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and have scars and have stretch marks and exist without apologizing. Yep,
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got cellulite. Because sometimes representation isn't Seeing somebody perfect, sometimes
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representation is seeing somebody free. And that's what I want
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more people to experience. Freedom. Freedom from constantly checking the mirror.
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Freedom from competing with strangers. Freedom from needing everybody to
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want you. Freedom from believing aging is failure. Freedom from
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thinking sexuality is your greatest currency. Freedom from believing you
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have to reconstruct yourselves every time beauty standards change. Because,
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you know, like, beauty standards will change all the time.
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That body every day is buying, you know, that body
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everybody is buying today, yeah, give society 10 years. They'll
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tell you something else. Then people will be, like, reversing
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procedures trying to match the next trend. Your body... Was
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never supposed to become fast fashion. You live there. Treat
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it like a home. Feed it. Move it. Rest it.
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Protect it. Decorate it if you want. Change things if
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you've thoughtfully decided that's right for you. But don't stand
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outside your own body every day acting like an abusive landlord.
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This is wrong. That's ugly. Fix this. Hide that. Enough.
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Your body carried you through heartbreak. It carried you through grief.
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It carried you through stress. It carried you through mistakes.
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It carried you through nights nobody knew you were struggling.
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It carried you through every single day you've been alive.
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Maybe it deserves gratitude. And if there's something about yourself
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that you genuinely want to improve, improve it from love,
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not hatred. Like when I exercise, I exercise because I
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love my body. When I started off at 318 pounds,
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I hated myself. I had to lie to myself. And
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I said I had to lie to myself until I
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actually started to love my body. Now I say I
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love my body. I mean I love my body. But
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I started off lying to myself because I was that
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far gone mentally. So... Eat better because you love your body, right?
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And then you rest because you love your body. And
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then you heal because you love yourself. And you set
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boundaries because you love yourself and you grow because you
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love yourself. And if you choose to like change something
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about your appearance, let that decision belong to you and
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you alone. Not an algorithm, not a partner, not a
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celebrity trend, not no people working with you, not strangers
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in a comment section. Because one of the greatest things
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you can ever teach yourself is like, I don't have
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to become somebody else to deserve my own love, you know.
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And maybe that's the message our culture desperately needs right now,
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especially our children. You are more than a body. You
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are more than somebody's fantasy. You are more than your likes.
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You're more than your followers. You're more than your waistline.
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You're more than your face. You're more than your age.
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You're more than rather somebody chooses you. And entertainment can
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sell fantasy all day long. let entertainment entertain but don't
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let it become your mirror okay don't let an industry
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designed to capture your attention become the authority that determines
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your worth okay turn the screen off occasionally go outside
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look at look at actual people Human beings come in
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thousands of shapes, shades, heights, sizes, and ages. And somehow
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we were convinced only five of them are beautiful. Please.
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Humanity is bigger than that. So love yourself while you're becoming.
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Love yourself before the transformation. Love yourself during the transformation.
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Love yourself when everybody applauds. Love yourself when nobody understands.
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Love the younger version of you. who didn't know better,
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love the current version, who's still figuring things out, and
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leave enough love for the older version of you who's coming,
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because one day you're going to look back at a
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picture you're criticizing today and say, wait a damn minute,
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I was fine and a motherfucker, you know, like, I
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look at my picture, I'm like, man, I was fine,
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and I thought I was so fat, and I didn't
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even weigh 118 pounds at that time, and I thought
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I was so fat. So your future self is going
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to want to travel back through time and shake you, okay,
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from your past looks, okay? Like, what the hell are
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you talking about? You look fine. So save yourself the trip.
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Look in the mirror today. Smile at that person and say,
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I refuse to spend another lifetime at war. With the
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body that carried me here. I can grow. I can change.
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I can improve. But I will not hate myself into
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becoming somebody I think the world will finally approve of.
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The world changes its mind every five minutes. I choose peace.
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I choose discernment. I choose authenticity. I choose myself. And
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perhaps the greatest rebellion in an age obsessed with modification
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and comparison and attention and perfection is simply being able
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to look at yourself exactly as you are and say,
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you know what? I love the person living here. Now
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take care of yourselves out there and stop being so
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hard on yourselves, you beautiful souls.
