How To Raise Your Child To Hate Themselves

How To Love Yourself, Despite How You Were Raised

Take a breath.
You are so beautiful.
The way your hands curl around your guitar to sing away the pain,
the way your chest rises and falls as you finally get enough sleep,
the way you hold the pencil to draw exactly how you feel,
the way you smile when you win a game of your favorite sport,
the way you laugh and grin and dance and move,
you are full of grace and love,
you are a phenomenal creation so full of potential.
You are a garden of good things.
Compliment yourself on the new shoes you saved up your money to buy,
or the new pair of glasses you had stressed about getting,
or the new stretchmark you discovered on your thigh or hip,
or the new freckle that made its way onto your skin.
Count the stars at night and make wishes, even if the stars are as still as the world below it,
take a breath and tell yourself all the things in life that make you happy.
Realize that you are a galaxy full of wonders and things that others can see, but you find it difficult to;
that the messy hair you stumbled out of bed with and worried that looked terrible
won't matter to the person next to you who falls in love with the way you say a certain word,
and the way you think you look in that hand-me-down shirt that you were so hesitant to wear
won't matter to the friend who grins every time they see you make a certain funny face.
You are much more than what meets the eye.
You are not what you wear,
how you look,
how much money you have,
how many people love you,
how you are treated,
or how you were conditioned for so long to think.
You are you.
Open your eyes and smile at yourself in the mirror,
and find yourself pretty for the first time in such a long time,
and think back to the time that you were four and your parents scolded you for thinking such;
and tell them outloud that they were wrong.
Hold yourself in the highest regards.
Love yourself.
Take a breath,
and smile.
You are worth more than the cosmos.