“I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn’t as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing. That’s really what people said about me. And unfortunately, when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it. I always ask myself, how did a girl with incredible insecurities, anxiety, depression, body-image issues, eating issues, who hates to be touched, who has intense social anxiety. What was I doing getting into this business? But over the years I became a good actress. I put on a very smiley face, or a very strong face. I always felt like I had something to prove. People can say anything about how I look, about how I talk, about how I act. But in seven years I never missed a job, canceled a job, was late to a job. No one can ever say that I don’t work my a** off. My immediate trauma response is people-pleasing. It literally makes me sick to my stomach if I leave somewhere and someone is unhappy with me, so I always go above and beyond, but the issue with that is that I get home and I don’t have enough for myself. For so long, I didn’t know what I was crying about. I always felt so lucky, and that would get me even more down on myself. There were people online saying, you live this amazing life. So then how can I complain? I always felt that I didn’t have the right to complain, which meant that I didn’t have the right to get help, which was my first problem. When you are forced to be perfect every day, in every picture, you start to look at yourself and need to see perfection at all times, and it’s just not possible.” -Vogue

“I started by making gratitude lists. I write down, using pen and paper, 20 things I’m grateful for. I repeat many of the same things, but every time I write down those people or things (my husband Ben, my health, our children, our future grandchildren, my career, our homes, my friends, hot baths, nourishing food) my heart warms and my whole energy expands. The trick is to be honest about what I’m truly grateful for and not to force things. It’s okay if all I can muster is ‘this bed, this glass of wine, this Planet Earth series,’ as long as I’m telling my truth. After we lost the pregnancy, I started doing positive self-talk out loud to myself. I talked directly to my body. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for growing beautiful Ella.’ And as I thought of her, for the first time in days I started welling up with gratitude. ‘I trust we will do this again,’ I said as I remembered that about a fifth of all pregnancies don’t make it all the way. ‘You have a natural wisdom,’ I said, and my body does; I could feel it in my bones. Putting my hands on my head, I said, ‘I love you.’

Moving my hands to my face, I repeated, ‘I love you.’ I covered my arms, my belly, my butt, my legs, down my whole body, and ended at the tips of my toes, ‘I love you.’ And by the end of the exercise, I felt better. I felt connected to my body. I felt love for my body. I started doing this exercise every day, and my physical and mental well-being improved greatly. Then I started doing ‘the talk’ in the shower and it became a habit. You can apply this exercise to anything, whether you’re recovering from an injury or connecting with yourself after a lifetime of body-mind conflict. It’s about being in communication with yourself and appreciating what you have.” -People

“At one point Instagram became my whole world, and it was really dangerous. In my early 20s, I felt like I wasn’t pretty enough. There was a whole period in my life when I thought I needed makeup and never wanted to be seen without it. The older I got, the more I evolved and realized that I needed to take control of what I was feeling. I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and feel confident to be who I am. Taking a break from social media was the best decision that I’ve ever made for my mental health. I created a system where I still don’t have my passwords. And the unnecessary hate and comparisons went away once I put my phone down. I’ll have a much better relationship with myself. I’m a big believer in therapy, and I always feel so confident when I’m taking care of myself. If I’m not in the best headspace and my friends invite me out, I won’t go. I’ve lost my sense of FOMO, which I’m proud of. Sometimes I push myself too much, and it catches up to me. But I try to balance out everything as best as I can. I like to be there for my friends and celebrate everyone. But I have to make sure that I’m OK, you know? Because if I’m not OK, I can’t be OK for other people.

Changing the narrative of mental health and creating a curriculum that hopefully can be implemented in schools or a system for resources that are easily available. I’m just so passionate about that, and I think I will continue to be for the rest of my life. Especially since the pandemic, there are so many people I know who craved help but had no idea how to get it. I have big aspirations for that field and really want to implement more education behind it.” -InSTYLE

“You can never win, really. It’s exhausting to compare yourself. It certainly doesn’t lead to any kind of happiness. But there isn’t a woman I know who hasn’t fallen victim to it. I know people who are obsessed with comparing themselves to celebrities, or who still think about that one girl in high school all the time. Even elementary school. We learn this stuff so young. I couldn’t figure out a moment where I’ve been in my body and not self-aware on some level.” -ELLE

“I was bullied heavily in the 80s, and that was about the only time I let it get to me. I found ways to love life so that I could compartmentalize the notion that somehow I wasn’t good enough. After a while you just kind of go, ‘I am what I am.’ I finally got to that, and I just thought how meaningless it is to judge someone strictly by their appearance. You’re looking at a picture and going, ‘Oh, that’s not right. She’s not following the rules.’ I was never one for rules.” -People

“I never liked the way I looked. I didn’t feel like I fit in. I felt I stuck out all the time, and I didn’t like it. It was a strange time.” -ELLE

“If someone told me 15 years ago that my body would go through so many changes and fluctuations, and that I would feel more womanly and secure with my curves, I would not have believed them. But children and maturity have taught me to value myself beyond my physical appearance and really understand that I am more than enough no matter what stage I’m at in life. Giving zero F’s is the most liberating place to be. Also knowing true beauty is something you cannot see. I wish more people focused on discovering the beauty within themselves rather than critiquing other folks’ grills.” -ELLE

“I meditate every morning for at least 15 or 20 minutes. I first got into it after reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. A dear friend gave it to me while I was going through a really bad breakup, and it taught me about sitting with what is uncomfortable. With meditation I find everything about my life improves: my health, my sleep, my habits, my emotional state and my energy. I have struggled with body image issues my whole life. I’ll turn 42 in December, and I’m trying to embrace that my body doesn’t do what it used to. Ultimately, whether one pair of jeans fits or not, I can still enjoy the world and the people I love.” -People

“I got tired of trying to be who everybody wanted me to be. There’s always going to be something that people hate me for, whether it’s wanting me to not be black, or a woman, or tall, or short, or skinny, or thick. Other people might love me for it, but I don’t want to constantly change who I am for outside validation. That just sounds like hell. I was constantly hiding myself and felt shame about having acne. So instead of getting to the bottom of my acne and trying to understand it. I was covering it up. trying to be perfect. But you’re never going to get to the nitty-gritty of something when you do a lot of covering up. I feel more beautiful when I;m being kind and of service to others. I’m happy to be alone just vibing with myself. The only person you’ll always have is you, so you really have to be kind to that person. During a recent Peloton class, I went so hard that by the end I was hugging myself like, ‘Girl, you’re amazing.’ I don’t run from my past, and I’m not ashamed that I came from poverty. I want other people to know they’re beautiful not in spite of, but because of, where they come from. It’s not about changing who you are to step through the doors; it’s about being who you are when you get there.” -InSTYLE

“My big thing that I’m working on in life right now is treating myself and being good to myself because it’s a very hard thing to do. Including taking care of my health and even how I talk about myself. My husband will catch me being like, ‘I’m huge today’ or ‘I feel so ugly,’ and he’ll be like, ‘Hey, tell yourself you’re pretty. You’re beautiful, remind yourself.” – People 

“Joy is available to anyone who wants it without having to fix or change anything about yourself. Yes, I could lose ten pounds, and wouldn’t complain if I lost twenty, but my outlook is not dependent on it. Today, in this body, I am ready to embrace myself as joyful and happy. I don’t want to waste time anymore.” -People

“Being able to say you are a conscious, responsible human being is more important than losing 5 pounds or having abs. Women are tired of being told what they should look like. It’s time to normalize normalness. And I want to create that safe and honest space for people to feel good about themselves.” -InSTYLE

“Our generation talks so much about self-love and body confidence, yet I believe we have the most unrealistic standards of any other generation. Insecurities, especially in girls, are really affected because of social media…that need for validation.” -GL

“We talk so much about our physical bodies, but what about our mental health? That’s why I started posting a therapy selfie every Wednesday. I’m as proud, if not more proud, of the work that I do on my mental health as I am about the work I do at the gym.” -People

“I don’t focus on what people say about me, even when I’m filming. I occasionally think, ‘Oh, why didn’t I hold my tummy in?’ but it doesn’t last because I was trying to be something other than I am, which would make me feel even more uncomfortable. The shape of your body, that’s where the flesh settles, isn’t it? You can’t do an awful lot about that.” -People

“Oh, 11-year-old Anya was an awkward phase, for sure. My head was smaller and my eyes were the same size. I was waiting for my head to grow a bit. Make me look a but more proportional. My mother raised me to always be looking at things inside of people rather than their outside. The most beautiful thing about me is my desire to interact with the outside world. And when you’re interacting with the outside world you’re not looking at yourself, you’re looking at the person in front of you. All the information I was being given was: There’s something wrong with you.” -Vanity Fair

“I don’t think there’s ever really a full recovery from eating disorders. You have to work at it every day. Of course, there are mornings when I don’t exactly love what I see in the mirror. Then I’ll make a point to look at everything I’m nitpicking about myself my stomach, my legs, my arms, and imagine that I’m talking to someone else. If I were talking to someone I love, like my little brother or my mom, could I tell them the terrible things I say to myself during the worst of my eating disorder? Of course not! I just have to focus on not saying those things to myself, either. At the end of the day, you can’t start recovering from an eating disorder until you learn to accept and love yourself. The only person who can truly decide if you’re going to start your recovery is you. You have to be 100% determined to do it. But once you realize all the fun, happiness, joy, and accomplishments disordered eating causes you to miss out on, that’s when you’ll find the will to take a different road. And know that I’m right there on it with you.” -GL

“I’ve learned that positive people attract positive people, and if you’re happy with yourself, you become a better person who’s able to live a truthful, authentic life. It requires a lot of patience to deal with hate online. At the end of the day, if people are going on social media to spread hate, then I don’t respect them. So why would I care what they say about me? I knew I wasn’t taking care of myself, and that would have me feeling insecure. Now I don’t have the same anxiety I used to about food and my body. And I’m not putting all my self-worth in my appearance. There’s so much more to life than that.” -InSTYLE

“I wasn’t getting jobs, I wasn’t getting booked, I was told I was too fat or too ugly. You’re living on a risk-reward system, and that can be extremely damaging. It was an uphill battle to believe in myself at all. But I knew I was intelligent, and I knew I wanted to get my education.” -People

“When it comes to body image, we’ve been fed this narrative where we have to fit this one ideal. I just have to remind myself that I’ve been told a lie. I look in the mirror sometimes if I’m feeling self-conscious about some part of my body and I just tell it, out loud, ‘I love you, little roll here. I love you, little scar here. Oh my God, that’s like a memory. Don’t change. You’re beautiful.’ I feel super silly doing it at times, but it does kind of work in a way. It sort of helps hack my brain. It’s empowering to say, I’m in love with all of this.” -ALLURE

“Yes, I’d like to lose the weight. But I may never lose the weight. How do I love me for who I am right now? Today. In this body. At this age. I am trying my darnedest to get rid of decades of feeling ‘less than’ because of the way I look. The whole journey for me of gaining weight, losing weight and gaining weight and losing weight is because I never dealt with the nasty, dusty emotions that keep hurting me and aren’t doing me any service.” – People

“I didn’t really see beauty in myself. I think it’s cool that we get the opportunity to turn off. My dream is to just take off my nails, not wear makeup, just grow my fro out and walk around naked in my own garden. That’s the goal.” -People

“Your self-esteem shouldn’t be attached to being perfect or judged. What if we all just did what makes us happy. I think one of the things I’ve understood as I’ve gotten older is how little I care what other people think of me. What I’m mostly concerned about is how I feel about myself. And if I can’t love my aging body, it’s not very kind to this body that’s been working so hard to keep me in the game. If I look at my stomach where my skin is loose because I had a daughter, I think to myself, ‘Oh, the skin…’ And then I go, ‘Who are you? This is not your higher self talking. Look at that beautiful daughter that you made in your body, this human being who’s the most important thing in the world to you, that changed your life .’ Considering what my body has put up with, I just have to be grateful. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to not be great at something. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Don’t be afraid to just be whatever it is you are.” -People

“I was making millions of dollars. But then I’d have moments in my personal life I was not valuing myself because of my weight, not having good self-worth, not having kind thoughts. I thought of myself as trash, so I was treating myself as trash. I’ll just eat all that rubbish and junk food and not treat myself with love and kindness and respect. It was about dealing with the emotional issues that caused me to emotionally eat. You cry a lot. Analysis things. It’s really hard to know why you don’t feel worthy. That’s what I’m trying to overcome.” -People

“I was called Fatso, Four Eyes and Four Lips because I used to lick my lips, so I’d always have a red ring around them. That set the tone for me all the way through my college days of being really insecure. In grade school I was socially awkward, and I became a little heavy.” -People

“I was always looking for something outside to fix my insides. But I had to learn that whether my life was beyond my wildest dreams or a total mess, it didn’t change how I felt in my mind. I used to have this desire to rewrite my origin story. But it was only in embracing it that I could walk through the other side and transform it into a beautiful silver lining. I spent most of my life dying to be typical. But I grew up with a single mom; I was a musical-theater kid who really had no social status; and I was overweight. Every kid endures teasing, but when you have this thing you can’t hide, it invites extra. It become clear that I was the same head in a new body. I was forced to face the fact that I used food to numb my feelings. I was trying to quiet the voice that told me all the reasons I wasn’t enough. It took me a really long time to love the 15-year-old version of me. But now I understand how strong he was. And by doing my best to break down that false identity I had of myself, I was able to get to the place I was always seeking. As a result of good living, it became a good life.” -People

“I look back and I think of all the minutes and hours I’ve wasted upset over how I looked or something that was out of my control. I wish I could get that time back, although it has lead me to where I’m at now. I truly don’t dress for men at all. I dress for me and what I think is cool. When I was younger, I was constantly wanting to be with or date someone because I was so deathly afraid of being single or by myself. Now I’m at the point where if I meet someone, they better really elevate my life, because I love being single.” -Cosmopolitan

“My mom is a girl from New York, and my dad is a strong, sturdy Dutchman. I grew up with dual citizenship, and I still don’t have a grasp on American beauty standards. It used to be about having blonde hair, blue eyes, skinny-girl stuff, but now it’s like if you are true to yourself and an individual, you’re beautiful. As a girl who’s happiest in an oversize T-shirt and seawater in my hair, I’m pleased with that.” -Allure

“I’m a bohemian type of person, but to me [American beauty] is being a strong-minded human who makes her own decisions-being able to plan your own life and live to please anyone but yourself.” -Allure

“I was the only African-American girl in my middle school class. I felt like I needed to straighten my hair to fit in. Once I embraced my natural hair, I loved it” -GL

“I love when girls of color don’t relax their hair and go natural. It’s really inspirational because growing up you’re kind of punished to fit the mold.” -GL

“I don’t like it when people think it’s hard for me to see myself as beautiful.” -Glamour

“In the beginning of my career, I handled rejection by personalizing it. For me, people were just cementing what I felt like I already knew about myself: that I wasn’t attractive.” -People 

“If I could tell my 13-year-old self anything, I would tell he that she was enough. I wasted so much time listening to the naysayers. An I just wish I had listened to the other voices of people saying that I was beautiful and talented. I always thought that when you listen to that you were conceited, but I wish I had listened to that more. I wish I has pranced through the world with just hoity-toity confidence and overexuberance.” -People 

“I’m definitely teaching Genesis that beauty is within. I mean, we have got to get past physical beauty, selfies, even though I’ve taken a selfie in my day. But I always say, ‘Genesis, your heart and your head are the two most important parts of you.’ The physical falls away. The things that you can take with you that really are of value have nothing to do with the physical.” -People 

“Not everyone is going to be kind, and not everyone is going to be respectful on social media. Sometimes those comments can get into the psyche, but I am not going to go crazy because of some keyboard warrior somewhere. That doesn’t stop me wanting to be who I am or say what I think or do the things I do.  I workout and I aim for health- I don’t aim to be skinny. I’m over that sort of pressure. I just want to feel good. Yoga helps me de-stress, and meditation has helped me identify things that I need to heal from. That has made me a much happier and more confident person. I’m very proud of my journey, I’m just being myself, and that’s all I can try to do.” People Magazine

“It’s crazy how hard we girls are on ourselves about the way we look. I feel responsibility to my followers to be a role model. I want so badly for them to know their worth as human beings.” GL

“I’ve always felt so funny about my looks. I think that it’s very rare to think that you’re a beautiful person, and so I feel like every other woman- like, I don’t see that when I look in the mirror.”

Cutting, she says now, provided “a physical release of all this intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.” But as she read about both science and spirituality, she says, “I was like, ‘This is pointless- my body is my temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I learned to see myself as worthy.” People Magazine

“I was always embarrassed about them (eyebrows) when I was a child, so it’s nice that [the positive response] helps other girls accept theirs. Now I could talk about brows all day. I feel that some days you wake up and you’re having a bad day and you just have to try to remember that it will be all right. It’s a daily mantra. It’s not about trying to be weird. W’re all weird. It’s about being who you are and not trying to be anyone else.”  PEOPLE

“I was always trying to be something that I wasn’t. As I got older, I started to realize that what I was born with is what I should be celebrating.”  Teen Vogue

“As a dark-skinned girl, I have many things that I’ve gone through that I wish more people would have addressed so I wouldn’t have felt so alone. I just want other girls to look up to me in that way. My goal is to break the boundaries and everything a person things a black woman should be. I just want to keep changing the game.”  Teen Vogue

MINNIE DRIVER’s self-assessment is sadly moo-ving

“I was an ugly cow when I was younger.” In Touch

KATE on being mentally bullied

“When I was a teenager, I was very overweight. I was 190 pounds when I was sixteen. And as an actress I wanted to play Alice in Alice in Wonderland … And, so, over the course of a year, I very, very sensibly lost the majority of the weight. I changed the way I thought about food and my body.”  Vogue

In the March 7 issue of US Weekly, Kate said classmates called her Blubber. She has said she was “mentally bullied. “…..I would just sit there and think, ‘Let this make you stronger.’

DREW BARRYMORE on happiness, body image, relationships and more

“I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven’t had anybody looking over me, and I’ve found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people.”  Elle

In an article in the February 23 issue of People magazine when asked about her life after the house fire and the demise of her marriage to Tom Green, Drew said, “…..All of a sudden I was free to be exactly who I wanted to be rather than who I thought I had to be for anyone else or anything else.”  Did you know that Drew was called “Fatso” by the boys when she was in school? Yes she was. When asked about her wild days of drinking she said, “…..I’d been suffocating myself with trying to be such a good person that I realized I was making myself miserable.” “…..I can feel beautiful on the inside-and I can tell that shows on the outside. It’s amazing to me.”

“Maybe it’s different for every person, but my personal downfall in a relationship is losing a sense of myself, getting too involved in their world and their opinions and their lifestyle. I always have to struggle to be my own person, whether it’s as stupid as what I like to eat for breakfast or as big as how to conduct myself as an individual. What’s saving me in this relationship is the fact that I feel like I’m remaining my own person.” She also said, “…..If we could just admit our faults, at least we could be human. I think what became more important to me was not how other people saw me but how I saw myself. I do run a company. I am consistent at work. My bosses think that I will show up on time, and I’m reliable to them. I can respect myself. That ended up becoming the important journey for me.  And, of course, I’ll always be a bit of a ridiculous clown, ’cause I just can’t help it.” Glamour

“I think that it is so important to believe in yourself and believe in your empowerment and not wait for someone to rescue you and do it for you. That you can go out there and create it all for yourself.”  In The Actor’s Studio

“During my teen years … I was awkward; I had braces; I was overweight. I was always teased. It’s so funny because it’s always those kids who get beaten up in school who end up triumphing. It’s almost like you need that to build character-even though it’s painful to go through it.” Teen People

CHRISTINA RICCI  on feeling ugly

“I got ugly. Throughout my childhood, my favorite [rejection] was: She looks too healthy. They wanted that really gaunt, runaway girl kind of look. I was, like, Mom, I thought you could never be too healthy. She (Christina’s mom) said, “Ignore them.”” Movieline Magazine

“I was really fat for a year. I was ugly. People would come up to me in the street and say, “Weren’t you Wednesday in The Addams Family? God, you’ve gotten so fat. I felt I was a separate person from the person they were talking about, and I’d want to take them aside and scold them: You can’t talk to me like that. Being overweight made it so hard for me to get films. I didn’t work for a year because of it, and it was devastating.” Interview Magazine

“As a teenager, I didn’t like to look in mirrors. I’d put collages and stuff over them; left the lights off in the bathroom. Those are the years when I feel like you hate yourself or love yourself.” Elle Girl

 CAMERON on body image

“When I was growing up, I hated my body, I was extremely, extremely skinny as a child for years I was seventy-nine pounds, and much taller than everyone else.

When I was in junior high, people thought I was sick. They used to call me Skeletor, or Skinny Bones Jones and all those other horrible names”

 Leonardo unpopular? Imagine that!

“I was entirely an unpopular student. I think teenage life is filled with narcissism and giant mood swings that are unnecessary and constantly inflating problems to phenomenally unrealistic proportions.”   GQ

“We all have horrible fears and insecurities that we need to overcome. Mine came from never feeling accepted by any group, never being received. In school I was about a foot shorter than anyone else, always jumping up and getting laughs-a little smart-ass with a big mouth. School was like this wild safari where I could make a name for myself, but it never really worked. They just basically looked at you as the class clown and dismissed you.  I never belonged.  Parade

LIV TYLER on losing weight

 
“…..I’ve been told if I lose weight, I’d have more work, but I refuse to submit [to that]. To the rest of the world I’m slim, and I like the way I am.”  Glamour

“I was not asked at all. I didn’t go to my senior prom. I often danced by myself on the side.

“Growing up I was a string bean-skinny and tall-and I felt self-conscious about that. I worried about how skinny I was, the fact that I had no chest, my frizzy hair. When I started to work in television, makeup artists would point out flaws I’d never even noticed before, and it made me feel even more insecure.”

BEN STILLER wants you to treat each other kindly

“I was pretty insecure [around girls] because I had bad skin. Not really bad skin, but I had pimples. It affected my sense of who I was. It’s such a silly thing when you look back, but at the time, it drove me crazy. …..[High School] can be brutal because of the cliques and the way kids treat each other. But stick it out — it gets better. Things that seem like they mean the world at the moment, you’ll look back on and realize weren’t that important. It sounds like an after — school special, but it’s true.

“I was like any other teenage girl who wanted to be someone I’m not, and that was defined by what boys liked and what images of beauty the media perpetrated. Plus, when I was 7 years old, my ballet teacher said that I didn’t have a dancer’s body. That rang in my head as “I’m not normal; my body is wrong.” It affected me in profound ways. I’m a strong girl, but I’ve always been a believer that when I can’t manage, I surrender. I get myself to a place where someone can help me. I’m prouder of overcoming bulimia than of anything else I’ve done – more than having a number one record or selling out a concert. Celebrate yourself, embrace your struggle, and don’t walk with shame, because nothing is as bad as you probably think it is. When I got through bulimia, I stopped living as a prisoner. Let your body fall into its natural state. Every minute you stay enthralled with a diet or get caught up in how you think you should look, you lose, because you’re not enjoying life.”

“It was a very vulnerable time going from being insecure about my body and who I am to becoming comfortable with me. I had to tune out what the hell everybody else had to say about who I was. When I was able to do that, I felt free.”  Parade

“I wish every woman would love themselves and embrace what they were given naturally. I’ve been fortunate to have the career I want without changing what I look like. If [producers] ever demanded I lose so much weight that I’m not even a remnant of who I am, then hell no, I’m not going to do that. Besides, there’d be a lot of girls out there who wouldn’t be inspired had I not been that girl with a little more weight who carried herself with that self-confidence.”  In Style

“One of the things that struck me at fashion shows is how great these incredibly thin women look in photographs but how in real life it’s too thin. They would be more attractive if they were a little heavier. And I actually don’t think this desire to be rail thin is as pandemic aesthetically as the fashion world presents it to be. I don’t think men prefer women to look like that.”

“The modeling industry goes in and out of different styles and body types that are supposed to be hot at that moment. And right now, it’s not so much the heroin-chic, because the models are looking a little bit healthier to me–and when I say healthy, I don’t even mean body type, I mean just facial pigment and stuff like that. They have blush on their cheeks now again and they look a little healthier. But still such a stick, skinny ideal–which would have worked for me when I was 11 years old because I was 98 pounds and my same height and now I’m 130. So I was really, really thin and insecure. It would have worked well for me to look at that in a magazine and see that that was called beautiful. But the majority of little girls aren’t that way. The majority of them are struggling with their weight and are the opposite way. So I just think it’s important to show different body types and say that they are all beautiful which is not really what they do. When I lost all this weight–I went to an all-black private elementary school–and all the kids used to call me all kinds of horrible names. Then when I went to a mixed junior high school and all of my white friends would be like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so gorgeous. You’re so skinny. ‘By the way, I looked disgusting, I looked sick. But they’d be like ‘You’re so skinny. I wish I could be like you.’ And all my black friends would be like, ‘Girl, eat a pork chop! You are so skinny.’ And the white guys would be like ‘Tyra’s cute’ and the black guys would be like, ‘She’s too skinny. She needs some booty. I don’t want her.’ So it’s so cultural. And it’s sad because women, when it comes to their body types, are ruled by men in their culture. So white women want to be super skinny because that’s what white men seem to be attracted to. And the black guys want more meat.”  GQ

Nora Ephron said, “She (Nicole Kidman) told me that as a teen she was tall and gawky and covered with freckles. She would think, why does this body have to represent me?”   Glamour Magazine

 “I think that we’re all sort of sick of being judged on how we look no matter if we’re too skinny. It seems you can’t be just right anymore. You’re either too fat or too skinny too old or too young too ethnic or too not, you know. You rarely go wow that girl’s just beautiful.”  Today Show

 Salma urges fans to not be impressed with her:

“In my world, you have to be so beautiful, so skinny, so rich, so famous – and I don’t believe you really have to be any of those things. You simply have to be who you are. I do have thighs and a butt. I have cellulite. Don’t be too impressed with me. Don’t try to dress like me or wear your hair like mine. Find your own style. Don’t spend your savings trying to be someone else. You’re not more important, smarter, or prettier because you wear a designer dress. I get them free and I’m too lazy to go out and look for my own. I, a rich girl from Mexico, came here with designer clothes. And one day, when I was starving in an apartment in Los Angeles, I looked at my Chanel blouses and said, “If only I could pay the rent with one of these.”  O magazine

“Each morning I’d have to walk down ‘Main Street’ a hallway that ran through the middle of the school where all the lockers were. Everyone hung out on those stairs between classes, and whenever I had to pass by, my bullies Jenny, a ninth grader, and a devoted group of her friends would yell out to me.”

“Brownie, go back to your country! Do you smell curry coming? Go back on the elephant you came on.” (bullies comments)

“I tried to ignore them. I put my head down and made my way through that section of the hallway as quickly as I could. Then I tried avoiding Jenny and the other hecklers: I stopped taking the school bus; I stayed away from where they congregated. Sometimes I was alone; sometimes I was with my friends Camiele, Luba, and Forough, fellow outsiders who were treated exactly the same way I was. The four of us clung together, trying to create a sense of being cool and superior to combat the battering our egos were taking. But things eventually escalated. I was tired of being called names, having vile things written about me in the bathroom stalls, and getting shoved against lockers and buses. I’d spoken to my guidance counselor, but nothing much changed. I hadn’t wanted to involve them. My parents had raised me to be someone who finds solutions, and since I hadn’t been able to find a way to stop the bullying, I was starting to think that my solution was to go back home. I had been happy and confident when I arrived in Newton, but I couldn’t maintain my sense of self-worth. I started to believe that I was somehow less than those around me. I couldn’t sleep. My grades dropped.

One call home was all it took. My parents heard my pain, confusion, and complete emotional exhaustion, and my mom was on the next plane with my brother. That day, as mom and I stuffed into a backpack what was inside the metal locker. All the bits and pieces of my thirteen months in Newton, who I’d been and who I was still becoming, it was hard not to feel like I’d failed. But slowly, over time, mom and dad each helped me to rebuild the confidence I’d lost.” -People

How did the bullying you experienced in high school there affect you?

“I took it very personally. Deep inside, it starts gnawing at you. You don’t even notice the way you’re acting and how you’re reacting. I went into a shell. I was like, ‘Don’t look at me. I just want to be invisible.’ My confidence was stripped. I’ve always considered myself a confident person, but I was very unsure of where I stood, of who I was.”

After a year of it, you finally told your parents and moved back home. How did you rebuild your self-esteem? 

“A lot of kids go through this and don’t have the ability to get away from their tormentors. When I went back to India, I was surrounded by so much love and admiration for just who I was. My dad said, ‘Leave your baggage behind.’ And I tried to. In India I was in school, and I was onstage. I made new friends who were amazing and loving. I was doing teenage things, going to parties, having crushes, dating, the normal stuff. It just built me up.” -People

“We limit ourselves the majority of the time. And where it really hit me hard is: We should never have to dim our light in order to make others feel… If anything, we should shine as bright as we can to liberate others to do the same. I live my life by that quote. For so long in my life, I felt like I was dimming my light because I felt uncomfortable. When I was at school, I was dyslexic and struggling like hell. And one of the only few black kids in my school, being put in the lowest classes and never given a chance to progress or even helped to progress. Teachers were telling me, ‘You’re never going to be nothing.’ I remember being behind the shed, in tears, like ‘I’m not going to be anything’. And believing it for a split second. The most demotivating thing to hear, especially when you witness them doing the complete opposite with your white counterparts. I don’t actually hold any grudge against those people, because they fueled me up. There’s a lot of feelings that I suppressed at the time that I didn’t even realize that I suppressed, emotions and feelings that I had when I was younger and it all came up. There was a lot of the N-word going around. Go back to your country. Even today, I remember how terrifying it was. I really, really couldn’t understand it. It was like, are they talking to me? I’m from here. What do they mean? I could never understand it. When you’re being attacked, there’s this fear, there’s fear, and there’s anger as well because you want to get them back for the pain that they’re causing you. I never spoke about it to my parents. I didn’t speak about it to my mum, I didn’t think she’d understand. And my dad, I was probably too scared to tell my dad, because I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss. You know, I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t defend myself. I just remember a lot of times just being alone, just in tears in my room.

I love music so much. I would say music saves me every single day. People say ‘Lewis Hamilton’s doing music? Oh, I’m sure that’s going to suck.’ It’s only when they hear stuff that I do, then they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re actually pretty good.'” -Vanity Fair

He had no idea he was ‘different’ until a playground bully called him the N-word in kindergarten.

“I didn’t even know what that word meant. But I knew that he thought I’m supposed to feel different and that was somehow bad. But I didn’t feel that way in real life.”

What he did feel was a call to the stage, finding his middle school drama club a place of refuge from bullying that targeted “kids like me or Praveen or Ed… because we were supposedly the weird, ugly, fat, skinny, dark fill-in-the-blank-different kids.”

Kal Penn (rejecting a friend’s suggestion of Kal Pacino) and soldiered through racist encounter after racist encounter. -People

“My mom pulled me out of a school where I was one of only a few black students (I was being bullied because of my race) and switched me to a predominantly black school. Problem solved? Not exactly. Suddenly, I was being mocked and harrassed not because I was a minority, but because of my darker skin tone. That’s when I realized what colorism truly was: being belittled based on the specific shade of your skin. I was called names like ‘burnt biscuit’ and told that I’ve ‘been in the oven too long’  by classmates who were lighter than me. Those were hurtful ways of saying that I was too dark and therefore not as ‘pretty’ as a light-skinned black girl or an actual white girl. Because, I learned even black people have been historically conditioned to idolize white beauty standards. It was especially painful because I thought we were supposed to uplift each other. I thought I was in a safe space with my peers. But I could still feel the sting of racist attacks and taunting bringing me down. My grandmother from Louisiana, so she’s always coming up with fun and clever ways to phrase her feelings. When she first told my sister and me to ‘flex in our complexions,’ I didn’t realize how important her message was. But after being teased for so long, it sunk and it has been a part of me ever since.

You’ll find colorism in unfair treatment in the school system (dark-skinned girls are three times more likely to be suspended from school than our lighter-skinned peers). It pains me to see so many young black queens and kings trying to dim their own light because they feel pressure to conform to what the world has told them is beautiful. But I see that changing, and I’m going to be part of that change. I hope you’ll join me. I want you to know that if you feel different, or anything less than proud of your complexion, you need now, more than ever to find your allies and stand by each other’s side.” – GL

“I was bullied heavily in the 80s, and that was about the only time I let it get to me. I found ways to love life so that I could compartmentalize the notion that somehow I wasn’t good enough. After a while you just kind of go, ‘I am what I am.’ I finally got to that, and I just thought how meaningless it is to judge someone strictly by their appearance. You’re looking at a picture and going, ‘Oh, that’s not right. She’s not following the rules.’ I was never one for rules.” -People

“I was a deep thinker and was spiritual and creative when I was very little. I would posture ideas to myself and those around me. Who am I? Who are we as humankind? Then I began channeling this into music, characters in school plays, poetry. Needless to say, at some point, lots of people found me peculiar. Weird was a word I heard a lot. Thus began my journey with bullying. Once I was thrown in a trash can by a group of boys shouting, ‘That’s where you belong!’ I had depression, anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, and masochistic tendencies that included scratching or cutting my arms with knives when I was in emotional distress. I still struggle with some of these things. My trauma history is extensive. I was repeatedly r**ed when I was nineteen. I grew up around alcoholism. Finally, I have at least figured out the through line of all the things I’ve been through. In every instance, there was an absence of kindness. It’s important to pause and think about what you’re doing, in case you might hurt someone. And by someone, that includes yourself. Don’t just respond with kindness, fill the empty with it.” -People

“I know how bullying feels. I understood how the world defined me at that point in 1973, as a dark-skinned Black woman. That’s a brutal one-two punch, that not only are the bullies running after you, calling you ‘black ugly n*****’, but the world sees you like that. How you react is based on survival. The key is to survive. I did what was at my hand to do at 8 years old. I fought. And that fighting served me because I’m still on my feet. I can look back at that little girl and feel great compassion for her but also I can look back at those bullies, and I can forgive. What I understand now at 56 is the gift of my powers but also the limitation of it. The only person I can save is me. Listen, when you’ve taken your last breath, it’s about your journey. You and you alone. All of those things happened to me, but I own it. And it’s a part of who I am.” -People

Harlow was bullied and tormented by classmates over her appearance.

“Growing up. I never saw anyone like me on TV. billboards or on the runways. I felt like I was the only person in the world like me.”

Things began to shift in her teens when a friend, journalist Shannon Boodram, encouraged her to pursue modeling.

“She used, to photograph me a lot, but I never took it seriously. The more I did it, the more of a following I gained on social media. I was getting a lot of love and support and people telling me that I inspired them. So I was like, ‘If doing this thing that’s just fun for me is inspiring people, then it’s a win-win.” -People

At school the bullying started and was so severe that at one point he was stripped in the bathroom by a group of girls and dragged into a crowded hallway. “They were going to teach me how to wear a bra.” -People

“When I was at school, I was bullied. The lunchroom was the bane of my existence. I was only about 12 when I had an identity crisis. I just didn’t know where I fit in.” -People

Stacy faced severe bullying because of psoriasis. “It was so severe and pretty traumatic. Kids at 11 aren’t kind. They were leaving notes in my locker saying, ‘You look like the elephant man, go home before you infect us.’ Nobody understood that psoriasis isn’t contagious, and it can’t kill you, but it’s the kind of disease you sometimes wish could. After all those years of being looked at with an air of disgust, I wanted to command respect; I wanted to be beautiful and be considered cool.”  -People

“My passion for strength was out of self-defense. I used to get picked on a lot because I was different in the way I dressed and expressed myself. As you’re an adolescent, social cliques form, and I didn’t fall into any one of those. I got tired of getting beaten up. I asked my dad for a weight set, and he got me one at 13. I started working out, and I haven’t stopped. I was doing it to protect myself, but that time spent in my little home gym was also balancing my mental wellness. It prevented me from doing harm to myself. It prevented me from fighting back and wanting to get revenge. It’s been balancing me out since I was a teenager.”

“I used to hide in the deputy headmaster’s office during recess because I was very bullied, and I was just shy. I couldn’t talk to anybody. Life’s curly. Don’t stress too much. The greatest thing as I hurdle towards old age is that now I feel less embarrassed about everything. It just all goes away.” -People

“Act confident, even if you’re not. When I was younger, I was bullied because I was small. And that made me act small. One day, a girl who I thought was my friend actually picked me up and put me in a trash can, Literally. And then I told my mom about it, she was like, ‘What? That is unacceptable.’ That’s when I decided I wasn’t going to act small anymore. I started sticking up for myself and built up my confidence. Now that’s a superpower.” – GL

“The people that hurt me, those are my teachers. I long for a content and serene life, and it’s always darkest before the dawn.” -People

“I never let my mom know that kids called me names because I intuited that there was nothing she could do about it. Self-respect is one of the most difficult things to achieve when you’ve lived without it for years, as I did.” -People

“I didn’t always love my freckles. I got made fun of because of them as a kid, but I love my freckles now. They’re part of who I am. It took me a while to get to that place, so why would I cover up that thing that has taken me so long to embrace? I want to show them off.” -ALLURE

“All my friends made fun of me. I eventually learned that life is complicated, and you have to just be yourself.” -People

“‘Hey you made such a big difference in my life and I can be myself because of you,’ It’s really heartwarming because I was just in that seat not too long ago-I know *exactly* what they’re going through.” -GL

“All that negative energy really drove me toward my passion for acting, so, to all the people who bullied me, thank you!” -GL

“There was bullying-just girls being nasty.” -GL

“I’ve just had so many jerks in my life tell me what I should be doing. ‘This is what a pop star should do, blah blah blah.’ It really helped me signify for myself what I should be doing for me. So I kind of thank all those jerks. It helped solidify who I am.” -People

“Not everyone is going to be kind, and not everyone is going to be respectful on social media. Sometimes those comments can get into the psyche, but I am not going to go crazy because of some keyboard warrior somewhere. That doesn’t stop me wanting to be who I am or say what I think or do the things I do.  I workout and I aim for health- I don’t aim to be skinny. I’m over that sort of pressure. I just want to feel good. Yoga helps me de-stress, and meditation has helped me identify things that I need to heal from. That has made me a much happier and more confident person. I’m very proud of my journey, I’m just being myself, and that’s all I can try to do.” People Magazine

“People didn’t know I was going home at night crying my eyes out because a woman I was looking up to seemed like she was just didn’t want me to be there.”

“Having problems with my teeth, [being] very, very skinny, being bullied at school, I can go on and on.”

“Everywhere you go, kids can be mean.” “In school, classmates openly expressed their opinions about me and made fun of the ‘weird’ way I spoke. Hearing me translate Spanish into English and jumbling phrases into things like ‘house brown’ or ‘car big’ would usually provoke much laughter. After that, I became extremely self-conscious. To this day, I still check myself before I say anything, like, ‘Is this cool to say? Is this going to make me fit in?'” Isabela added, “Embracing my culture. I realized it’s what makes me unique. Embracing who we are is what leads us home.” GL

 “Don’t you just love bullies on line?  Little chickens that have their laptops at home and they hide behind. It used to make me so mad. Now I know they’re the ones that we should feel sorry for.”  The Voice

MARK should have had his HULK skills in High School 🙂

“When I was in high school I had cystic acne and was a little overweight.

People made fun of my last name all the time: Buffalo Breath, Buffalo Fart, Buffalo Lips. It was an ongoing buffalo joke.”

TAYE DIGGS – was called names?

“There was an incident where I was playing softball in gym class, and I went up to bat and the pitcher was a more popular kid in school. As he was pitching, he screamed out to the rest of the players on the field, “Nerd!” three times in a row, as loud as he could.”  Jane

“I was a mean girl. I had a gift for coming up with the meanest possible thing to say in any situation. Well, at my high school — a huge public school in a suburb of Philadelphia — there were a few girls who were kind of “famous.” Everyone knew who they were dating and what parties they went to. They weren’t the prettiest girls or the ones with money. They were just randomly anointed. I was an honor student, and I was in a ton of activities — the newspaper, drama club, the tennis team … My friends and I didn’t really date or go to cool parties, so we made jokes about those who did. To be honest, we felt kind of rejected, and when you don’t feel confident about yourself, you may look for flaws in somebody else to make you feel better. Looking back, I can see the mean-girl thing for what it is: a waste of energy. But that’s not much comfort if you’re the target. The hardest thing is to free yourself from caring what someone says about you. But it brings big freedom if you do it.”

“I meditate every morning for at least 15 or 20 minutes. I first got into it after reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. A dear friend gave it to me while I was going through a really bad breakup, and it taught me about sitting with what is uncomfortable. With meditation I find everything about my life improves: my health, my sleep, my habits, my emotional state and my energy. I have struggled with body image issues my whole life. I’ll turn 42 in December, and I’m trying to embrace that my body doesn’t do what it used to. Ultimately, whether one pair of jeans fits or not, I can still enjoy the world and the people I love.” -People

“I don’t think you need a lot of products to feel clean and beautiful. We all want to be attractive to somebody, and it doesn’t have to take so much. It’s interesting what sticks around in your head when you think about beauty. Because when you’re going on a date or out to the movies and you’re seeing your crush, you think about what you’re going to look like. It’s never as good in person, but you still feel beautiful anyway. When you love somebody, you just don’t see what they look like. You don’t pay attention.” -ALLURE

“It helps you to accept life as it presents itself and be grateful for it. Getting really connected to myself has been a great journey. Now I’m not even feeling like I have to be in a relationship, because I’m in a relationship with myself. And it’s going quite well.” -People

“Since I was a child, my self-confidence was based on what others thought of me. So the public shaming penetrated on a deep level. There was such a weight on my marriage and my friendships because I was looking to them to help me. I needed to be by myself and figure my issues out on my own. I wouldn’t trade anything I’ve been through. Every time I sink back into depression. I think, ‘What’s the lesson here?’ There is always something good, if we look for it.” -People

“Finding happiness and being at peace with yourself, it’s a long journey, but I’ve really gotten to a great place. I’m my best self in cutoffs at the farm with no makeup. All I want to do is dream, live in the moment and spend time doing things I love with my friends and family. Going through hard things obviously makes you get to know yourself better. When you get broken down pretty good, you look at the mirror and you go, ‘I have to spend some time with me, learn who I am and what I want.’ I got to a really good place with myself. Then I met my husband. Without the hard stuff the chaos, the crazy schedule, the heartbreak, the falling in love, the falling out of love. I wouldn’t be who I am. I’m thankful for the lessons, even though they hurt at the time.” -People

“After my last breakup, I thought I’d be alone forever. If you don’t know yourself fully, you can’t let anyone in.” -People

“The right person won’t make you feel like you have to change for them or try super hard for them to like you. They will support and accept you for who you are.” -GL

“Just watching a movie is kind of a cop-out. I want to talk. Genuine kindness is probably the sexiest quality anyone can have, but the ability to be vulnerable is also very desirable. When I’m embarrassing myself, that’s probably when I’m having the most fun.” -Cosmopolitan

“When I started adolescence, something in me closed down. I was so small, I had to get special dispensation from my school’s principal to play on the ninth-grade football team. I felt like a god**** freak. Girls thought I was a joke, a happy buffoon. I wasn’t a lover. I wasn’t an athlete. I measured things by what I wasn’t, not by anything I was.” -People

“Stick with love. Even when my heart feels shattered, I never give up on love. I look for the beauty in life and move toward it, always. Mom always said to me, ‘Don’t you ever let a man dim your light.’ So I’ve never defined myself through the way a man sees me, but I can define myself in the unit that we can create together. That is what mom gave to me.” -People

“One of the important things about relationships for me has been to really know and love myself more and be able to express the things that I want. I’ve evolved and gotten to that place. I communicate. I listen to what Tiffany has to say about how she feels and try to understand it instead of always having an answer. It’s about being in a relationship where you can grow, support each other’s purpose and vision, and have fun.” -People

“One of my biggest fears growing up was that I would be alone. I grew up sleeping with my sisters in bed. I got into some relationships for the wrong reasons because I didn’t like being alone. Now that fear is gone, and I’m okay on my own. That was a big journey for me. When I really figured out you don’t need anybody to complete you and you can be happy on your own, the shift happened and all of a sudden I wasn’t alone. You actually do find that person. I’m far from perfect, but I strive to do the right thing as much as I can everyday.” -People

“I self-sabotaged because I didn’t feel worthy of a loving, lasting relationship. I didn’t love myself. I am actively practicing self-love. It’s not just something you arrive at. I need to really work at it. My 20s were just about seeking approval. Now if I approve of myself, that’s all I need. That confidence really reverberates. It’s very powerful.” -People

“Having a partner who doesn’t always say yes to you, who contradicts you in a good way, and who gives you criticism to improve yourself is always better than somebody who is a yes-woman who just agrees with you for the sake of agreeing.” -Cosmopolitan 

“A woman’s relationship with her father definitely affects how she is in relationships.”  People Magazine

“I love being married [to musician Domino Kirke]- I’m so thankful to not be concerned with trying to intrigue and charm people. Our culture is enmeshed in trying to find a partner. And I think it has a lot less to do with finding the other person than with finding contentment in yourself.” Cosmopolitan Magazine

 Matt’s sage advice to us all

“It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.”  Cosmo Men

DREW BARRYMORE on happiness, body image, relationships and more

“I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven’t had anybody looking over me, and I’ve found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people.”  Elle

In an article in the February 23 issue of People magazine when asked about her life after the house fire and the demise of her marriage to Tom Green, Drew said, “…..All of a sudden I was free to be exactly who I wanted to be rather than who I thought I had to be for anyone else or anything else.”  Did you know that Drew was called “Fatso” by the boys when she was in school? Yes she was. When asked about her wild days of drinking she said, “…..I’d been suffocating myself with trying to be such a good person that I realized I was making myself miserable.” “…..I can feel beautiful on the inside-and I can tell that shows on the outside. It’s amazing to me.”

“Maybe it’s different for every person, but my personal downfall in a relationship is losing a sense of myself, getting too involved in their world and their opinions and their lifestyle. I always have to struggle to be my own person, whether it’s as stupid as what I like to eat for breakfast or as big as how to conduct myself as an individual. What’s saving me in this relationship is the fact that I feel like I’m remaining my own person.” She also said, “…..If we could just admit our faults, at least we could be human. I think what became more important to me was not how other people saw me but how I saw myself. I do run a company. I am consistent at work. My bosses think that I will show up on time, and I’m reliable to them. I can respect myself. That ended up becoming the important journey for me.  And, of course, I’ll always be a bit of a ridiculous clown, ’cause I just can’t help it.” Glamour

“I think that it is so important to believe in yourself and believe in your empowerment and not wait for someone to rescue you and do it for you. That you can go out there and create it all for yourself.”  In The Actor’s Studio

“During my teen years … I was awkward; I had braces; I was overweight. I was always teased. It’s so funny because it’s always those kids who get beaten up in school who end up triumphing. It’s almost like you need that to build character-even though it’s painful to go through it.” Teen People

JOHN can’t be with anyone who manipulates

“I couldn’t be with someone who uses manipulation to get what she wants. If you need my attention, just tell me. I’ll do the same.

And smoking. If she was trying to quit, that would be okay, but I couldn’t date someone who was oblivious to the fact that it’s a nasty habit.  Cosmopolitan

Brad gives the secret on what girls should do to attract a guy:

“It’s a misconception that a girl has to do something to catch a guy’s attention. It just happens. There are no tricks. In fact, when you have to get tricky, it’s not worth it. You know what makes a guy take notice? If you don’t let him disrespect you. If some guy makes a stupid remark and a girl doesn’t let it get to her because she knows who she is – then she’s won. “

The reporter then asked Brad …What advice would you give teens about resisting peer pressure? He replied: “I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I believe in exploration-but smart exploration, not dangerous. If you’re feeling pressured to try certain things that don’t feel right to you, go with your gut instincts. It’ll never steer you wrong.”  Teen People

 Nelly reveals how a girl can win him over

 “…..Self-conscious people tend to throw things off because when you’re around them, you become uncomfortable, too. You become scared of saying something that might affect their vibe. If someone can laugh at themselves, you know you’re going to be able to get along with them.”  Twist

Jason spills what he likes in a girl:

“A girl’s smile is always going to catch my attention. Every girl has a great smile, so if you just show it, I’ll notice it for for sure. But mostly it’s about being yourself. I don’t like it when girls try to be too funny or overly flirty.”

 “I’m not keen on girls who are too snobby or arrogant-that’s a real turnoff for me. I really like girls who are natural and down to earth.”   TWIST

When asked if he was dating anyone Bruce said, “No. I actually said these words aloud for the first time this year. I’m comfortable being alone. I’m comfortable being single. I may fall in love again, but-for those kids who are listening to Bruce Willis for love advice – any relationship that isn’t founded on friendship is just doomed.” People

“Self-acceptance frees you. Self-rejection just makes you freeze.” O magazine

She landed her first professional job at the age of 18 playing Judi Dench’s granddaughter in the London stage production of A Royal Family.

“Judi taught me to make sure the job was as joyful as possible for yourself and for everyone around you. I’m so grateful for that role. Without it I may have been handcuffed to doing period dramas. It was the most incredible platform. You can’t out Julie Julie Andrews. That would just be a ridiculous idea. I made my own version, even though my children still cry out for the Julie Andrews version in our house. I didn’t win my own children over. It’s wonderful when you see them become their own little people. I think they come out the way they’re meant to. They’re like bowling balls. They come out, and you’re the bumpers trying to make sure they don’t get too hurt. But they’re on their own path. I’m so thankful I’ve been able to have the time together with my family because I think I will probably look back on it and realize how precious it’s really been. You get to rediscover the beauty of things by seeing life through their eyes. I count my blessings.” -People

“Whenever you find yourself being critical of yourself or judgmental of yourself, it’s the same criticism and judgementalness that these parts of your personality apply to other people in different circumstances. So challenge it in yourself.” -Help Desk

“I wish I had not been so timid or afraid. I wish I had known not to worry about what other people think at all because people don’t think about you for very long…. they think about themselves.”

“I won an Oscar when I was 26, I was really young. My philosophy is that fame is not very good for us as people because everybody starts removing obstacles and I think all of your friction is actually what makes you grow and so all of a sudden I was this pretty young woman and everyone was removing my obstacles and I got to stop waiting in line etc. Whatever the case was, and I think incrementally, I started just behaving a little strangely or a little weird. And my father sat me down one day and he said in his inimitable Brooklyn way, ‘Um, you’re kind of turning into an a******.”’

“People that feel alone or outcast that hurt, kids that feel bullied or lost, remember that you have a voice and you should use that voice to survive and persevere.” -Peoples Choice Awards

“Whatever you are doing in life remember, think higher and feel deeper. Life is not the fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it into friendship.” -Oprah Interview

“I think it’s important to see a qualified trauma therapist. Treating trauma as opposed to other less serious conditions. You get hit by a car you’re not ashamed. You’re struggling mentally you feel ashamed. It’s silly, ya know something happened to me. You say something is systematic progressive and fatal, you’re talking about a number of illnesses that kill effectively. And trauma is one.” -Cracked Up Documentary

“Because I didn’t get the love I believed I deserved I ended up using the platform to try to give it to every person I encounter.”

“I definitely believe that mental health care should be prioritized just as much as physical health. There’s been such a long history of ignoring mental health problems, of saying, ‘Oh, just suck it up’ or ‘I’m a strong black woman. That doesn’t happen to me.’ All of these tropes that we’ve been taught over generations, when actually, I think given generational trauma, of course there are a lot of mental health issues with the black community. I’ve been working with a really amazing Loa Angeles based organization called BEAM, which stands for Black Emotional And Mental Health Collective. They help people find resources, therapists, and also natural care, like Reiki. I try to meditate. I can’t say that I’m the best with my track record of doing it every day, but I try to at least do some deep breathing. I noticed I literally forget to breathe, which sounds wild, but sometimes I’m like ‘Wait, I haven’t taken a real breath all day.’ and just taking 30 seconds to sit and do deep belly breathing is a game changer. Also, I think it’s so common to talk only about self-care as meditation, yoga, and working out, which are all important, but sometimes self-care is having a glass of wine with your best friend and laughing and watching s***** reality TV . Watching The Bachelor and drinking wine with my girls is awesome. Sometimes that’s the self-care that you need.

Holding emotion in is not only not good mentally but not good physically. Physical manifestations of stress are very real. I’ve had weird little skin things or backaches and it’s like, okay, what is the actual roof cause of this? Maybe it’s because I’m super stressed or upset and I’m not dealing with it?” -Cosmopolitan 

“I can’t speak more highly about reaching out to somebody if you need to. That and my girlfriends have helped me immensely.” -People

“In the midst of the chaos I still choose joy.”

“Finding the funny is my coping skill. Funny is my panacea. If I’m not laughing, then I’m screaming. Yesterday was one of those devastatingly dark days where I couldn’t get out of bed. I live in a nightmare each and every day. The misconception is that you can have ‘a little bit’ of OCD. You can’t. The thoughts are so strong that they stop your life. Not many people know that I suffer from the same issues as my dad. I just locked myself in and didn’t leave the house for a year. Before COVID, there wasn’t a waking moment of my life when the thought that ‘we could die’ wouldn’t come into my psyche. The solace that I was getting was from everybody else telling me it was okay. But the whole world was not okay. It was hell. We all need help. I don’t think anyone can function without it” -People

“In life you’re supposed to have joy, pain, loss, calm. We’re not supposed to say, ‘If I could go back, I would want everything joyful’, because it’s not going to happen. That’s life. Nobody gets off free, and you’re not supposed to. Because then you’re going to miss things.” -InSTYLE

“I’m somebody who follows my heart. I’ve always loved hosting. I’ve dealt with a lot of depression and anxiety, through my teens and especially as I became an adult. As I did therapy, I wondered what would happen if my generation had a platform to take what we talk about offline and actually let it be televised for everyone to see. I went on a great journey at the end of 2019, a journey of personal love and self-love and really understanding what that means. There was a breakup, not just romantic but friendships too. The concept of loneliness used to weigh me down. But my 26th year has been a golden year, because I’ve come to a lot of revelations about myself.” -Cosmopolitan

“I’m coming to the place now where I’m able to live more fully in my skin, my imperfections, my feelings, which are so hard to access. Because we want to protect our heart, right? That’s what we’re all doing in some way. And I think my ability to access that place has brought a deeper connection to other people. We’re only as good as our ability to connect with each other. Everything else is irrelevant.” -InSTYLE

“If you lead with all the things you got wrong and possess humility and an openness to learn, you’d be surprised by how you can fix things. You can shape-shift midstream. I think a lot of times parents are kind of hesitant to admit mistakes and apologize. We’ve been apologizing for a long time for all sorts of things with the kids, and so now we’re just like, ‘We’re trying to get it right.’ And by all means if we get it wrong, we want them to let us know loud and clear. We’re the poster parents for committing to learning. Your true power is what’s within you, and it’s up to you to unlock it. We try to lead them in a direction where they can see themselves most accurately. The good, bad and ugly. And to find their own truth. And when you find your own truth and you live it, you unlock your power.” -People

The most beautiful people to Roberts.

“People who seem truly happy.” -People

“After years of going through a lot of different things, I realized that I was bipolar. I wanted to know everything about it and it took the fear away. I have always had so many different emotions and I didn’t know how to control them quite well. It was complicated. But I think I’m happy to understand it. Once I did find out more about who I was, I was proud. I also felt comfortable knowing that I wasn’t alone, and I was going to get through it. So I will always be passionate about that. It’s something I will continue to talk about.”

To create a healthier headspace, Selena limits her media intake. She doesn’t read comments, she doesn’t post on TikTok, and she definitely does not google herself.

“Oh, God! I haven’t done that in years, I honestly can’t. I’m strong in a lot of ways, but I think I just have way too much of a sensitive heart.” -ALLURE

“My life mission is to bring light to people. The second you realize every moment is special, you can find ways to be peaceful in every corner of life.” -People

What advice would you give to your younger self? “Nothing! I only say that because if I knew then, the mistakes wouldn’t have shaped me in the way I am today. Kids need to go out and make mistakes. They need to take risks. They need to do things right. They need to do things wrong.” -People

“If you can make friends with people from all different backgrounds, you learn how uniquely special all people are.” -People

“None of us will escape life without hardships… but sometimes it makes us better.” -People

“If you don’t evolve, you dissolve. You evolve or you evaporate.” -NA

“Joy is the surest evidence of the presence of God.” -Twitter

“I just have generalized anxiety, I have social anxiety, I have performance anxiety. Therapy gave me a lot of tools that I needed to just become a little bit more self-aware. When I am having anxiety, I’m like, ‘Why?’ And I start to rationalize with myself.” -People

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” -seventeen

“Insecurity is loud; confidence is quiet. Don’t just say you’re something; be something. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.” -InSTYLE

“My mom could’ve died when I was born, and my dad could’ve gotten killed a week later. I could be moving around having no brothers or sisters. Those people in my life make me rich, and even if they hurt me sometimes, they make me grow. They did the best they could. I’ve forgiven my mom for a lot of stuff. She was sick, so I can’t really be mad. But 15-year-old, 12-year-old, 10-year-old Tiffany…. is mad.” -InSTYLE

“It’s not the violence of the few that scares me, It’s the silence of the many.” -People

“I’m happy for the times that were the hardest times of my life because I feel like that’s what makes you.” -People

“Yesterday I saw pictures of me at Julliard, and all I could think was I wasted so much time feeling like I was ugly. My husband said, ‘ V, if I’d met you back in the day, we would have been together 40-something years!'” -People

“I’ve suffered from depression erratically for years, but now it’s been kind of a persistent thing. I’ve always been able to pull myself up and out of it, but lately it seems so much more difficult. Life. I’ve learned is all about finding balance.” – People

“She kicked me out when I was 15. It took me about six years to come back to her. I needed her when I was 21. She was there for me, and we’ve been best friends ever since. We were together last week, talking about regrets that we had. She comes from a generation that’s not very good at apologizing. I’ll never forget, but I’m here to forgive. I will apologize to anybody for anything because I believe in the power of apology.” -People

“I believe we all get stronger when we talk about our challenges. If talking about it helps just one person, I’m already happy.” -People

“Another thing I remember was I was so eager to clear the negative people. Any negative people or toxic energy, I was like, ‘They gotta go!’ Between what I was actually taking into my body and what I was energetically taking into my body, I remember that it was a huge catalyst to starting to have better skin. That’s where this idea of ‘soul care’ started to dawn on me and make sense. In so many ways our confidence truly does affect how we appear to others and to ourselves and how we walk in the world what you bring with you, your spirit and your energy. We talk about skin care and hair care and nail care and body care and all the cares, but we never talk about soul care, and that’s what makes you the most beautiful. When I’m lighting a candle I always set an intention. In my head I’ll just say, Today, I’m going to feel more joy than I ever felt. If it’s in the evening, Tonight, I will relax completely and let everything go that’s worrying me. I really learned how to believe in things like that. That’s something I didn’t know for a long time because I was always trying to hold things in or protect myself or not give away too much. I didn’t realize in a lot of ways I was not being clear about what it was I needed. If I’ve had a hard day, or hard week, or I’m feeling extra judgmental or dealing with a lot, I will set the intention, Today, I’m going to have ultimate clarity about what I need. You can make an intention and ask for whatever you need to receive.”  -ALLURE

“Honesty is hard. But it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.” -People

“I remember I was playing this character who ends up getting tortured in a Chilean prison in the 1994 drama The House of Spirits. I would look at these fake bruises and cuts on my face from the shoot, and I would struggle to see myself as this little girl. ‘Would you be treating this girl like you’re treating yourself?’ I remember looking at myself and saying, ‘This is what I’m doing to myself inside.’ Because I just wasn’t taking care of myself.” – BAZAAR

“My whole life is about staying in that place of humility because you’re either in a place of humility or heading towards it.” -Vanity Fair

“I’m a big reader, and I’m really big on investigating myself, who I really am. What brings me peace is when I get very still and get in alignment with myself. In that space, I feel like everything is okay. I’m trying to not operate out of fear anymore. I spent a lot of time in fear, so I’m just trying to operate and trust. I feel more clear on who I am and what I want.” -People

“…being a loving parent to myself. My most important goal is to enjoy my life. Have fun, love yourself. Eat a delicious meal, get great sleep, hang out with people you love. It’s so much more fulfilling than trying so hard to be somewhere in your career.” -People

“If you can do things that benefit others while also benefiting yourself, you’re always going to win.” -People

“Your failures are more important than your successes because you learn more from them. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s all purposeful and perfect. So, where’s the perfection in I didn’t get what I wanted? I discovered that it wasn’t supposed to be mine, but the process that I went through led me to exactly where I needed to be.” -People

“To relax while I’m touring, I eat. Healthy and delicious food is the most important thing after concerts for me. I also take a bath and I nap. And sometimes I look up funny clips on YouTube.” -Cosmopolitan 

“Pity people that speak ill of others because while some of us are dancing, the others are too afraid.” -People

“Taking the time to find your own identity and joy. I love going on walks in the hills or on the beach. When I’m surrounded by nature, it allows me to reconnect with both myself and the world around me.” -People

“You really grow into who you are the longer you get to live. I understand mental health so much more. We all have negative conversations going on in our heads, but you have to take the wheel back, and I definitely did. I’ve faced my past and found love and compassion for myself.” -People

Addison’s response to what teen movie stereotype is a lie: “That being mean is cool or can make you cool. Kindness always wins.” -GL

“I think being peaceful and okay with not being okay is kind of the new beautiful.” -People

“Life is hard; you’ll hear a lot of noes. But keep loving yourself. It all works out in the end.” -People

“Being adopted makes me welcoming and inclusive to everyone regardless of their family structure. I don’t think anyone else gets to define what a ‘correct’ family looks like. The correct family is the one where there is love. safety, and encouragement and where you are allowed to be who you are meant to be.” -GL

“I’ve had to deal with microaggressions my whole life and it’s time more young people talked about this issue. Because of my race, I’ve had people make some uncomfortable comments. They’re not always blatantly offensive, but they just make me feel less than. I wish I’d spoken up then about how those comments made me feel, and I want to empower more people to do that today.” -GL

“In my creative process, I always start very insecure. I’m like, is this right? How is this landing? Do I feel good about this? I have to live in that insecurity for a bit, and then, as time progresses, I get more confident. And I’m like, you know what? I love this. Then I start to feel more swaggy and confident. Once your soul is cared for, you become everything you need to be. And you can spread that as far and wide as you want to.” -ALLURE

“In the moments when you’re face to face with people, you still have to be open. You’re only going to have a human experience if you’re fully in the moment. You try not to have those weird voices in your head that come from traumatic experiences.” -InSTYLE

“When I started adolescence, something in me closed down. I was so small, I had to get special dispensation from my school’s principal to play on the ninth-grade football team. I felt like a god**** freak. Girls thought I was a joke, a happy buffoon. I wasn’t a lover. I wasn’t an athlete. I measured things by what I wasn’t, not by anything I was.” -People

“I don’t know if I could be considered a role model, but I think allowing yourself to be imperfect is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. In this time of social media where people constantly present perfection, that’s really important, so I try to allow myself to be as human as possible. I want to live without fear. That really is my goal in my personal life and in my career. I think fear is crippling and dangerous. It probably creates sickness, this fear of getting in trouble or doing something wrong or not being adored or not being liked. I think, especially as a woman, there’s a lot of pressure to be adored, and that’s not what art’s about either.” -ELLE

“I was a sort of fool at home in front of my parents, but then at school very bashful. I was the kid that didn’t go out at recess. I really want my children, and I want everybody, to just live authentically as the person they are, and however hard that is, it’s absolutely better than pretending to be something other than you are. Having been through a thousand years of therapy, there’s real power in getting to know yourself… and I have so many things to be grateful for.” -People

“Life is so precious and fragile, so be grateful for everything you have.” -People

“Right now, there’s beauty in me having the time, even in this pandemic, to be still, to disconnect from the rest of the world, to journal. It’s just me getting to know myself, spending time with myself. I love being in my natural state. I have braids right now. Typically my hair would be pretty manipulated, a lot of brushing, half up, half down, extensions. But I’m in a season of being. I think I’m just discovering who I am, to be quite honest. And it’s not me in contest with anybody else; it’s me in competition with myself.” -ALLURE

“I remember seeing a magazine cover that said, ‘This Is What Beauty Looks Like’ and not seeing any minorities on it. It made me question my beauty. Janet Jackson made me feel seen. Whitney Houston made me feel seen. Because their beauty was so taken in worldwide, it made me feel like there is a space for me. I remember the first time a fan said, ‘I’m you when we play Destiney’s Child because we look the same.’ And this girl was the same complexion as me, and that made me so happy because there’s nothing like feeling seen and being heard. The hardest part of my journey was cutting negative voices off and those negative voices were mostly the ones that I was inflicting upon myself. When I did my 2002 duet ‘Dilemma’ I was super scared. That was really the first time I got a taste of solo success. It felt overwhelming for me at the time. In retrospect, I don’t remember feeling like I deserved that. Which goes back to valuing yourself and your opinion and your greatness. You have  to surround yourself with people who believe that and who believe it when you can’t see it. There’s black art all around my house. I am like, ‘There can’t be any identity crisis in this house!’ Because I remember that was a big thing for me as a kid. I didn’t see enough people around on the walls or anything that looked like me. A week ago I heard my husband giving Titan a bath, and he goes, ‘Daddy, I am black and handsome and great.’ It really means a lot to us for him to know his roots and who he is.” -People

“I’m attempting to slow down a bit. My form of self-care has been prioritizing what feels good in my life. In America it’s easy to feel if we’re not working 24/7, then we’re depriving ourselves of some type of purpose when in reality it’s the opposite. -InSTYLE

“We grew up learning that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, but words do hurt. They physically can hurt.” -People

“So many of us have a dream we have hidden, something we have kept secret. We think it will make us unlovable, that it will ruin the image of who we are. Instead, you discover that you can love yourself, and love who you are.” -People

“Anytime I start feeling anxious, I do two things; pray for others and count my blessings. It really does work.” -People

“Good parenting often requires less talking and more listening. When you’re a parent, you have the opportunity to listen to see who your children are, rather than trying to dictate who they are. Our gig is to walk with them on the journey until they learn how to speak the language. They already know why they came here, instinctively and spiritually. All you’re doing is helping them so they get the language to be able to say who they are, and they start saying it pretty early on. Whatever happened to you that you wish you had, that’s what you give to a child that you are blessed enough to get to walk with.” -People

“It’s important to be able to acknowledge the emotional and mental challenges in life because somehow, culturally, we seem, to be afraid of those kinds of things, but to move on, we have to share them. We are not our physical appearance, that the body is doing us a great service. It’s bringing us through this world, and we need to treat it with love.” -People

“Having someone who will support you regardless of what you’re going through or what you do, even if you’re trying something new, is really what distinguishes a fake friend from someone who’s real.” -GL

“I try not to think in terms of mistakes. To me, a mistake, in retrospect, always feels like it happened for a reason and therefore can’t be considered a mistake. I think that’s the healthiest way to look at things that feel like failures or errors. We feel at our most humble when we have faltered, and that forces the next thing.” -ADWEEK

“Confidence. Not so much what’s on the outside, but your sense of self. To know and love yourself and be comfortable with who we are. You can feel it when someone has it. I’m not saying I do, I hate myself, [laughs] so I fooled you all. Vulnerability and humility. I don’t like to argue, I don’t like to raise my voice or any forms of manipulation. I think declarations of love are great; I love love. I’m a bit of a sap like that. I like being sentimental, I cry pretty easily. At a good song, nice sunset, yeah, my emotions are bubbling.” -People

“As I grow older, I tend to value mental over the physical.” -People

“You make everyday a special special day just by being you, and I like you just the way you are.” -People

“I’ve learned a lot about just accepting and loving myself and being here for me. Although sometimes I might say the wrong thing or I might do the wrong thing, learning how to have my own back is one of the most important lessons.” -People

“I’m one of those people who believes in the idea of choosing to be happy. Even in those moments where my optimism wanes,  I can pull myself out of it. You don’t have to be a big star to have your voice heard. It’s important to use our platforms for people who may not feel as empowered. I’ve stayed true to who I am and what I need to be happy Sometimes that means you’re making sacrifices.” -People

“I did not grow up in a family where we talked about things. My father was 60 when he had me, and I never really felt like I got to know him, and that led me to feel more alone and misunderstood. I was looking to not feel anything. There were many times I thought I wouldn’t make it. If I can take what happened to me and share it with someone else and maybe warn them, then I want to do that, because I did not have that person. I still work to accept that something this beautiful happened to me, to feel good enough, but I don’t have time to feel bad for myself. It’s not about me anymore.” -People

“It’s hard to have scrutinizing eyes on you all the time, but I’ve learned to listen to myself. As I get older, I’m more confident because I know myself better than I ever have before. You have to remember that it’s a big, wide world of people with a lot of opinions. Just ask yourself, ‘Do I feel good today? Do I feel true to myself?’ That’s all you can do.” – InStyle

“Reading is such a great way to develop empathy because you realize we’re all similar. We all feel heartbreak. We all feel grief. I was quite shy, so acting was a chance to do things that me, myself, would be too shy to do. If you are too worried about the outcome, you won’t be able to make bold choices.” -People

“I was quite nerdy in school, or maybe innocent, in that I grew up quite slowly until I was about 15 or 16. I wasn’t part of, like, the cool mean girl’s group.” -Elle

“Words have the power to heal and the power to kill. We should choose wisely. You can’t teach yourself something that you have no inherent knowledge of. Distance breeds fear. Racism is in the atmosphere. That’s what people don’t want to admit. But we can’t fix it until we admit it’s there.” -People

“We’re at our best when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes.” – People

“I did get bullied a lot. Not feeling like I had that representation at school was very hard. I’ve always felt like the underdog in anything that I’ve ever done.” -Allure

“There were so many matches I won because something made me angry or someone counted me out. That drove me. I’ve built a career on channeling anger and negativity and turning it into something good. My sister Venus once said that when someone out there says you can’t do something, it is because they can’t do it. But I did do it. And so can you.” -Vogue

“I think crying is incredibly healthy. A couple days ago I had just finished Comic-Con, and I had this big announcement that I’m joining the Star Wars universe. My life is changing a lot because I’m going to move away to work on it. When I got back to the hotel, I called my mom. We talked for a while and cried a little but, and then guess what? I felt better.” -People

“Sometimes I think that what I do is frivolous or silly, but then I hear from people saying that they were going through a very hard time, feeling depressed, some even saying they were on the brink of suicide, and that listening to my music helped them get beyond that. That’s extremely meaningful to me.” -People

I feel like being vulnerable is one of the first steps to opening your heart to people and letting them know that they can be vulnerable too. Because being vulnerable is power, I think. –Vanity Fair

“‘Learning to REALLY truly love yourself is it, and I’ve only just realized that that is more than enough.” -People

“I focused on my work, my family, my friends. And I found myself being a lot happier. I made so many memories that week. I listened to music. In the car, instead of looking at my phone, I would look out the window. Just little things that you miss out on when you’re glued to social media.” -GL

“There was bullying-just girls being nasty.” -GL

“Kids my age like to grow up very fast, but I actually didn’t want to turn 13.” -GL

“I was really shy when  I was little. We moved around, there was a divorce. I had total abandonment issues.” -People

“A healthy amount of fear is a good thing. Let it drive you.” -Glamour

“I empower her to understand that she has to count it all as joy. Even her mistakes, her failures, her triumphs, what she looks like, all of it. That’s all a part of her loving herself, even if none of those things change. So I just tell her she’s worth it. Even if I am combing her hair, and she’s crying… she does not have to be a perfect little girl. There’s no such thing. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and there’s strength in vulnerability.” -People 

“When I was a young scrappy girl growing up, I realized we were poor. But I was making my way through it. You either hope or you don’t. And it was hope and dreams that made me put my feet to the floor every morning and just approach every day with a sense of enthusiasm. It was my fight or flight that kicked in.” -People 

“I always feel like I have to go back and heal that little girl who grew up in poverty, who was called names and ‘ugly’ all the time. Until someone told me, “Maybe you need to let the little girl heal you at 54. Maybe you need to allow the little girl to be excited at the 54-year-old she gets to become.” Because actually, she did pretty good. She was a survivor. She got out of it. And it makes me look at my past completely differently when I see that.” -People 

“I came into this world with anxiety, I used to hold my breath from anxiety when I was a baby and it would make me faint. There are times when it is debilitating, and there are times when it makes me laugh. But I actually feel like my superpower is my anxiety. It’s one of my key motivators, and it’s at the center of my ambition.” -Cosmopolitan

“I don’t like to talk about negative things unless I can bring light to it in some way,” Summer says, “Life is too short to get caught up in negativity.” GL

Cutting, she says now, provided “a physical release of all this intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.” But as she read about both science and spirituality, she says, “I was like, ‘This is pointless- my body is my temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I learned to see myself as worthy.” People Magazine

“Everything can be overcome with love.”  People Magazine

“As stars, we put ourselves out there and act like everything is good, everything is perfect, but we all have wounds in our life. I want people to know that we all go through stuff. And we all need support and help.”  People Magazine

“I won’t let anyone tell my son not to cry. I don’t want anything to interfere with his expressing what he’s feeling. As a kid I was told to shush, and as a result it’s taken me a lifetime to be able to speak. I had to hide it – you hammer it down until you can’t think anymore, you can’t speak anymore, and your inner world is in retreat. You can’t function, and you stutter, which I did as a boy. You will stutter not only vocally, but inwardly. You will hesitate, you will fumble, you will futz, and you will deny the truth because the truth is too difficult to handle. It’s hard to select which situations to run away from once you become a runner, so you hide from everything.”

“We limit ourselves the majority of the time. And where it really hit me hard is: We should never have to dim our light in order to make others feel… If anything, we should shine as bright as we can to liberate others to do the same. I live my life by that quote. For so long in my life, I felt like I was dimming my light because I felt uncomfortable. When I was at school, I was dyslexic and struggling like hell. And one of the only few black kids in my school, being put in the lowest classes and never given a chance to progress or even helped to progress. Teachers were telling me, ‘You’re never going to be nothing.’ I remember being behind the shed, in tears, like ‘I’m not going to be anything’. And believing it for a split second. The most demotivating thing to hear, especially when you witness them doing the complete opposite with your white counterparts. I don’t actually hold any grudge against those people, because they fueled me up. There’s a lot of feelings that I suppressed at the time that I didn’t even realize that I suppressed, emotions and feelings that I had when I was younger and it all came up. There was a lot of the N-word going around. Go back to your country. Even today, I remember how terrifying it was. I really, really couldn’t understand it. It was like, are they talking to me? I’m from here. What do they mean? I could never understand it. When you’re being attacked, there’s this fear, there’s fear, and there’s anger as well because you want to get them back for the pain that they’re causing you. I never spoke about it to my parents. I didn’t speak about it to my mum, I didn’t think she’d understand. And my dad, I was probably too scared to tell my dad, because I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss. You know, I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t defend myself. I just remember a lot of times just being alone, just in tears in my room.

I love music so much. I would say music saves me every single day. People say ‘Lewis Hamilton’s doing music? Oh, I’m sure that’s going to suck.’ It’s only when they hear stuff that I do, then they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re actually pretty good.'” -Vanity Fair

“Your biggest obstacles may turn into your purposes.” -Speech

“Trauma is usually about a victim trying to make amends for the perpetrator. The most important thing is to give it to yourself. As vulnerable, As scared, As angry, As frozen as you were and forgive yourself for all the ways you have tried to survive. So just take care of that. Just learn to forgive yourself from all the things you have done in order to survive. That’s a big job.” -Cracked Up Documentary

“Wellness, to me, doesn’t mean perfection or living by a standard that is unrealistic. Wellness has a lot to do with the word ‘wholeness.’ It’s sort of staying connected to self, God, and other. I’m a big fan of Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz. That model of psychotherapy very much helps me to connect with different parts of myself, some that are deemed by society as negative, challenging, dark parts, like addressing depression or anxiety. I had a panic attack yesterday. I just went, boom, right into my tool kit. Okay, what do I do here? I quickly ran a bath epsom salts, magnesium, lavender. Call in all ops! [laughs]

Personally, because I feel like sharing might be helpful in some way, I have a little life pie that I reference visually. Pretty much every journal I have, if you open the front page, it’s the pie. I just take a glance at them and immediately my eye will be pulled toward that which I have been neglecting. My life pie includes, I’m just going to draw it while I’m talking. Family and friends, body: somatic experiencing, trauma recovery. Spirit: It’s really silence. With three children under 11, I’ve been known to go into my closet on the ground in the dark. If I’m going to a television studio anywhere in the world, my first question is usually, ‘Is there a room with a door that I can close? Where I can go for a few minutes just to catch my breath, recharge my batteries.’

Then there’s being expressed. So much of my depression comes from my not expressing sadness, grief, and anger. Usually, a grief or a loneliness, or some false thought that got into my mind really, really young and I just kept believing it, even though it was never true. Feeling that I’ve processed enough is important, and that can include venting with friends, feeling expressed artistically, designing something. Marriage is a big one. It’s tough with three kids, but my husband, Souleye, and I try to sneak away as much as possible.

Being on top of my business and finances. I feel like the patriarchy just pats women on the head especially artists. I have been shamed for looking after my money and shamed for not looking after my money. You can’t win! So I just keep showing up. Brain rest: binge watching tv. Floating, wandering time. Mind wondering, As an artist and someone who loves to philosophize, I can’t get those messages, for lack of a better term, if everything is jampacked, including my mind and environment. SO just time to sit. Easier said than done last year with three kids schooling at home  my eyes are crossed.” -ALLURE

“Finding the funny is my coping skill. Funny is my panacea. If I’m not laughing, then I’m screaming. Yesterday was one of those devastatingly dark days where I couldn’t get out of bed. I live in a nightmare each and every day. The misconception is that you can have ‘a little bit’ of OCD. You can’t. The thoughts are so strong that they stop your life. Not many people know that I suffer from the same issues as my dad. I just locked myself in and didn’t leave the house for a year. Before COVID, there wasn’t a waking moment of my life when the thought that ‘we could die’ wouldn’t come into my psyche. The solace that I was getting was from everybody else telling me it was okay. But the whole world was not okay. It was hell. We all need help. I don’t think anyone can function without it” -People

“High school was where I first noticed something was off. I remember feeling sad all the time, that I didn’t belong or fit in. I had debilitating anxiety. I spoke to the in-house therapist a few times, but I didn’t really feel comfortable spilling my guts to someone who had lunch with my teachers seven days a week. I saw another counselor in college. It took him two minutes to prescribe me Paxil. I never took it and never saw him again. I was embarrassed. I didn’t feel justified in seeing a therapist or taking pills. For one thing, I didn’t know any other Asian people who saw therapists.

I showed up to a career fair and signed up to teach English in Japan. I’d come to think that my problems were in America, and I wanted to live the life of an expat. Cut to the track behind the high school in Izumi -Tottori and me running around and around and loving it. I had boundless energy. I felt invincible. At night, I read dense Russian classics. I finished War and Peace in a couple of days.

Before long I was fixating on suicide. I’d make it look like an accident or just put myself in enough cars with s***** drivers. The last thing I wanted was to burden my parents with the dishonor of having a son who killed himself. When I returned to New York from Tokyo, I started a dead-end job at a financial services company. I would ride my bike all over Manhattan, weaving in and out of traffic and blowing through stoplights. There was a New Year’s Eve party that began with valium, speed, pot, washed down with twenty drinks and ended with my falling through a giant glass table. The ER doctors said I narrowly missed an artery.”

At 22 age 22, he finally decided to become a cook.

“But six months into my tenure at Cafe Boulud, my tenacity began to fall short. I’d always known I could hack anything as long as I was ready to work and work. If I could embrace the numbing repetition of the kitchen, I could keep everything else in my life at bay. But doubt leaked into my psyche. One thought began to surface repeatedly. I still wanted to die.”

My sole breakthrough was a private one. If nothing mattered, what did I have to lose? Thoreau said, ‘I said no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.’ I took that to heart as I contemplated suicide. Work toward something. Open a restaurant. If it doesn’t pan out there always the other path. To fight mental illness you need help. Medicine, yes, but people are key. You can’t do it alone. I’m lucky to have Dr. Eliot. The mere routine of talking to him has kept me alive. He brings out my most thoughtful and considerate self. When we’re talking, I’m the version of me that’s happy to wake up and face whatever challenge lies ahead.” -People

“I was a deep thinker and was spiritual and creative when I was very little. I would posture ideas to myself and those around me. Who am I? Who are we as humankind? Then I began channeling this into music, characters in school plays, poetry. Needless to say, at some point, lots of people found me peculiar. Weird was a word I heard a lot. Thus began my journey with bullying. Once I was thrown in a trash can by a group of boys shouting, ‘That’s where you belong!’ I had depression, anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, and masochistic tendencies that included scratching or cutting my arms with knives when I was in emotional distress. I still struggle with some of these things. My trauma history is extensive. I was repeatedly r**ed when I was nineteen. I grew up around alcoholism. Finally, I have at least figured out the through line of all the things I’ve been through. In every instance, there was an absence of kindness. It’s important to pause and think about what you’re doing, in case you might hurt someone. And by someone, that includes yourself. Don’t just respond with kindness, fill the empty with it.” -People

“I know how bullying feels. I understood how the world defined me at that point in 1973, as a dark-skinned Black woman. That’s a brutal one-two punch, that not only are the bullies running after you, calling you ‘black ugly n*****’, but the world sees you like that. How you react is based on survival. The key is to survive. I did what was at my hand to do at 8 years old. I fought. And that fighting served me because I’m still on my feet. I can look back at that little girl and feel great compassion for her but also I can look back at those bullies, and I can forgive. What I understand now at 56 is the gift of my powers but also the limitation of it. The only person I can save is me. Listen, when you’ve taken your last breath, it’s about your journey. You and you alone. All of those things happened to me, but I own it. And it’s a part of who I am.” -People

“Having a speech impediment forced me to think creatively about the ways I was going to communicate onstage. It wasn’t enough to just rely on my orality. I had to siphon other instruments. So if I wasn’t pronouncing a word ‘correctly’ because of my speech impediment, people might be able to look at my hands and say, ‘Oh, she’s saying running because she’s making a motion with her index and middle fingers.” -ALLURE

“My father was violent, but he was also at every game, play, and recital. He was an alcoholic, but he was sober at every premiere of every one of my movies. He listened to every record. He visited every studio. The same intense perfectionism that terrorized his family put food on the table every night of my life. So many of my friends grew up either not knowing their fathers or not having their fathers or not having their fathers around. But Daddio had my back and never abandoned his post, not even once. And while he would cultivate in me the tools to confront my own. When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am. Within everything that I have done since then, the awards and accolades, the spotlights and attention, the characters and the laughs. There has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in the moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward. What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith’, the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction. A carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.” -People 

Harlow was bullied and tormented by classmates over her appearance.

“Growing up. I never saw anyone like me on TV. billboards or on the runways. I felt like I was the only person in the world like me.”

Things began to shift in her teens when a friend, journalist Shannon Boodram, encouraged her to pursue modeling.

“She used, to photograph me a lot, but I never took it seriously. The more I did it, the more of a following I gained on social media. I was getting a lot of love and support and people telling me that I inspired them. So I was like, ‘If doing this thing that’s just fun for me is inspiring people, then it’s a win-win.” -People

“If I do nothing else in this world, I want people to understand that they are loved, that they are worthy of love, and that they are worthy of investing in themselves. The truth is, we’re all messed up. But it doesn’t mean that we’re broken beyond repair. It just means that we all have healing that we need to do.” -People

“None of us will escape life without hardships… but sometimes it makes us better.” -People

“My mom could’ve died when I was born, and my dad could’ve gotten killed a week later. I could be moving around having no brothers or sisters. Those people in my life make me rich, and even if they hurt me sometimes, they make me grow. They did the best they could. I’ve forgiven my mom for a lot of stuff. She was sick, so I can’t really be mad. But 15-year-old, 12-year-old, 10-year-old Tiffany…. is mad.” -InSTYLE

“It’s not the violence of the few that scares me, It’s the silence of the many.” -People

“It’s important to get comfortable with the fact that we don’t get to know everything. When the boss wanted to sleep with me, all I knew is I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t compromise myself in that way. It looked like the worst decision at the time because I knew I didn’t have a way to pay rent, but it ended up freeing me. That’s the mystery. When you do the right thing and you follow your gut, you don’t know the magic that will unfold because it’s better than what your imagination would come up with.” -People

“I was actually court-ordered to go to therapy as a teenager, but I didn’t really use it. I just was quiet, sitting there coloring, putting puzzles together, but I wouldn’t talk to the therapist. But when I was 21, I had a breakdown, so I went back and really took it seriously because I felt like dying. It still makes me emotional when I think about it. I didn’t know why God put me on this planet to hurt so much? Why I had to be everybody’s punching bag. That’s where I let it sit. Right before I turned 18, I wanted to kill myself. My grandma told me I wasn’t allowed. She made me realize I was valuable. You know as a black woman, we don’t talk about certain things like being molested or raped because we’re embarrassed or we think it will bring shame to the family or whatever. But I needed to talk about certain things. I think the biggest lesson for me is learning that it’s okay to say I’m not okay.” -Cosmopolitan  

“Optimism is really rooted in gratitude. Optimism is sustainable when you keep coming back to gratitude, and what follows from that is acceptance. Accepting that this has happened, and you accept it for what it is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t endeavor to change. It doesn’t mean you have to accept it as a punishment or a penance, but just put it in its proper place. Then see how much the rest of your life you have to thrive in, and then you can move on.” -People

“Last year was the year that I finally became comfortable in my own skin. I kind of figured out what my purpose was. I think it’s important to show little black and brown girls that they can be successful in whatever they want to do. If I can do it, you can do it too. I won’t act like there isn’t a certain type of power that comes with people admiring your face. But that’s not something that gets me off. I like being Female Athlete of the year. I like getting 4.0s for a straight year. I like knowing that I create my own treatments. I like knowing that I donated $150,000 to Black Lives Matter.” -Cosmopolitan 

“I wanted to be accepted so bad; not fitting in really hurt. My defense mechanism was humor. I became the class clown, that’s a kind of perceived confidence. And I have the type of social anxiety where I get louder and funnier the more stressed I am. I know I’m not the only person who experiences extreme negativity thrown at them from the internet, there are people in high school right now who have a whole high school talking about them, and they don’t know how they’re going to get through it. So if they can see me get through it on the level and scale I’m experiencing it, maybe they’ll think they can get through it too. I literally could not afford a $5 Jimmy John sandwich, I couldn’t afford to buy $2 frozen pizza. I’d have to get quarters from strangers for gas money.” -Vanity Fair

“I remember seeing a magazine cover that said, ‘This Is What Beauty Looks Like’ and not seeing any minorities on it. It made me question my beauty. Janet Jackson made me feel seen. Whitney Houston made me feel seen. Because their beauty was so taken in worldwide, it made me feel like there is a space for me. I remember the first time a fan said, ‘I’m you when we play Destiney’s Child because we look the same.’ And this girl was the same complexion as me, and that made me so happy because there’s nothing like feeling seen and being heard. The hardest part of my journey was cutting negative voices off and those negative voices were mostly the ones that I was inflicting upon myself. When I did my 2002 duet ‘Dilemma’ I was super scared. That was really the first time I got a taste of solo success. It felt overwhelming for me at the time. In retrospect, I don’t remember feeling like I deserved that. Which goes back to valuing yourself and your opinion and your greatness. You have  to surround yourself with people who believe that and who believe it when you can’t see it. There’s black art all around my house. I am like, ‘There can’t be any identity crisis in this house!’ Because I remember that was a big thing for me as a kid. I didn’t see enough people around on the walls or anything that looked like me. A week ago I heard my husband giving Titan a bath, and he goes, ‘Daddy, I am black and handsome and great.’ It really means a lot to us for him to know his roots and who he is.” -People

” I won’t say the word, but I have been called the word R-E-T-A-R-D. And I remember looking around during tests and always being the last to finish. I wanted so badly to fit into social circles, but parties and friends were few. I loved taking things apart and studying how they worked. When I saw Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, I became hooked on acting. They’re both dyslexic and created amazing careers, not letting their disabilities stop them. That was the first exposure I had to someone with a disability in the film industry, and it just wowed me. It brings me joy to entertain people. Autism doesn’t define me. Everyone has their little quirks. I’m just human. And I’m so excited for what my future has to hold.” -People

“I pretend like everything was okay, but inside I was dying. Just because someone says something about you doesn’t make it true. I love how my story can potentially help people. Everyone has the potential to improve their quality of life even if it’s just improving the internal narrative most of us tend to struggle with.” -People

“What I didn’t lose? My passion, dreams and drive or the ability to do things I had always loved doing before my diagnosis. Determination and hard work can truly carry you far, even when something traumatic happens in your life. Whatever hurdles you face on your journey, keep believing in yourself and don’t give up. You will have your back handspring moment and it will get easier from there. I promise.” -GL

“I empower her to understand that she has to count it all as joy. Even her mistakes, her failures, her triumphs, what she looks like, all of it. That’s all a part of her loving herself, even if none of those things change. So I just tell her she’s worth it. Even if I am combing her hair, and she’s crying… she does not have to be a perfect little girl. There’s no such thing. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and there’s strength in vulnerability.” -People 

“When I was a young scrappy girl growing up, I realized we were poor. But I was making my way through it. You either hope or you don’t. And it was hope and dreams that made me put my feet to the floor every morning and just approach every day with a sense of enthusiasm. It was my fight or flight that kicked in.” -People 

“I always feel like I have to go back and heal that little girl who grew up in poverty, who was called names and ‘ugly’ all the time. Until someone told me, “Maybe you need to let the little girl heal you at 54. Maybe you need to allow the little girl to be excited at the 54-year-old she gets to become.” Because actually, she did pretty good. She was a survivor. She got out of it. And it makes me look at my past completely differently when I see that.” -People 

“I’m just a girl from a trailor park who had a dream.” 2005 Academy Awards acceptance speech

“There are things about my childhood that I regret, that my mom regrets, that my dad regrets, and I think that my brother regrets, which is that my parents were so troubled in their relationship that we were kind of neglected at times. The other side of my childhood so overshadows that, though, that it’s not something I tend to bring up. Ultimately, my parents did the best they could. A lot of people hold on to something not being the way they think it should’ve been, and they’re messed up because of it. And what’s sad about that is that life will be over for your parents one day, and you can be left with what you could have made of the relationship, but didn’t. My dad wasn’t in my life very much when I was growing up, but I decided that I didn’t want his life to be over and for me to say, “Oh, if I’d only grown up I could’ve had an adult relationship with him.” I’m so glad I have my dad in my life right now. Interview

“One of the first producers I worked with told me I had a horrible forehead and my lips were too big.”  US Weekly

“The whole thing to remember about pronouns and identities is that they’re not meant for other people. They’re meant for you to help better understand yourself.” -ALLURE

“My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and sexuality. I always hated the word ‘bisexual’ … I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or being a girl” PEOPLE

“I’m so glad I’m still here. When I was in high school, my life looked pretty perfect. By holiday break of my junior year, I was in my first serious relationship, had finished a great cross-country season, and had picked up a part-time job at a restaurant , which I really loved. I had amazing friends, and I was doing well in my classes. But I was carrying a weight I couldn’t shake. Literally, I’d gained eight pounds, and it was all I could think about. Normally confident, I became self-conscious about how I looked. I started getting jealous if my boyfriend hung out with other girls. I had a thousand bad thoughts. I’m not pretty enough… I need to be skinnier… I started to experience anxiety, especially about my boyfriend graduating and going off to college while I was still in high school. We went through a very ugly breakup. The rest of high school I didn’t feel like myself, and it continued until my first year of college. I didn’t have a label for what I was feeling it’s not like I woke up one day and suddenly knew I was depressed. I thought of it as teen angst. I felt overly sensitive, fearful, anxious, and lacked happiness. I felt like I was falling apart and then things got worse. I got sick with mono and couldn’t compete on the cross-country team. Not only was running something I loved, but it was also how I thought I’d make new friends. Instead, I spent most of my time alone in my dorm room watching Netflix. And then my suicidal thoughts I’d had a few in high school started up. I told no one. A few months later, I was at a party that I didn’t want to be at. Suddenly I felt a huge weight on my shoulders, like a boulder. It became physically impossible to smile, and I felt an urge to cry that stemmed from deep within my stomach. The girls I was with noticed and made sure I got back to my dorm. The next morning I woke up and remembered the meltdown I’d had had the night before. It involved me crying hysterically, falling to the ground, and being so out of it the girls had to put me in my pajamas. I was shamed and disguised with myself and felt like everyone would be better off without me. I saw no hope, no future, nothing. That night, I texted hearts to everyone I knew, wrote a letter to my parents in a journal, and attempted to kill myself. My friends found me and called 911. For the first couple of hours after my attempt, I hated that it hadn’t worked. But as I really came to, I began to feel like the luckiest girl on the planet. The sense of relief I experienced when I realized I’m alive was something I cannot explain. I have another chance to find my passion, go to college, and even just spend a day with my family. Therapy helped me realize I’d had lenses on that clouded my view of reality. It’s not like every day now is sunshine and rainbows, but there is nowhere I’d rather be than here. To anyone struggling. Give yourself a chance for the cloudy lenses to come off it will change your life.” -Seventeen

“Keep going… don’t seek approval from anyone around you because they don’t see your vision.” -ELLE

“Kindness heals the world. Kindness heals people. It’s what brings us together. It’s what keeps us healthy. I was ra*** when I was 19 years old, repeatedly. I have been traumatized in a variety of ways by my career over the years from many different things, but I survived, and I’ve kept going. And when I looked at that Oscar, I saw pain. I don’t know that anyone understood it when I said it in the room, but I understood it. That kid out there or even that adult out there who’s been through so much, I want them to know that they can keep going, and they can survive, and they can win their Oscar. I would also beckon to anyone to try, when they feel ready, to ask for help. And I would beckon to others that if they see someone suffering, to approach them and say, ‘Hey, I see you. I see that you’re suffering, and I’m here. Tell me your story. I was a cutter for a long time, and the only way that I was able to stop cutting and self-harming myself was to realize that what I was doing was trying to show people that I was in pain instead of telling them and asking for help. When I realized that telling someone, ‘Hey, I am having an urge to hurt myself,’ that defused it. I then had someone next to me saying, ‘You don’t have to show me. Just tell me. What are you feeling right now?’ And then I could just tell my story. I say that with a lot of humility and strength; I’m very grateful that I don’t do it anymore, and I wish to not glamorize it. One thing that I would suggest to people who struggle with trauma response or self-harm issues or suicidal ideation is actually ice. If you put your hands in a bowl of ice-cold water, it shocks the nervous system, and it brings you back to reality. I once believed there was no way back from my trauma. I really did. I was in physical, mental, and emotional pain. And medicine works, but you need medicine with the therapy for it to really work, because there’s a part that you have to do yourself.” -ELLE

“You mean if I lost weight, what would happen? Is my music and my weight so intrinsically connected that if I were to lose weight, I’d lose fans or lose validity? I don’t care! I lead a very healthy lifestyle mentally, spiritually, I try to keep everything I put in my body super clean. Health is something I prioritize, wherever that leads me physically. Like veganism, people were like, ‘You’re a vegan? What are you deep frying the lettuce?’ I’m not a vegan to lose weight, I just feel better when I eat plants. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, it changes again. I eat when I’m stressed out, sometimes to the point I didn’t realize how much I ate. Anything can be harmful, but it comforts me in a way. It sucks that we associate weight gain with the negative thing that causes it. It’s mixing this beautiful thing that is food and nourishing ourselves with it but it’s the stress that’s bad the bad thing, not the 20 pounds. I feel very lucky because I don’t feel that weight gain is bad anymore. Nor is weight loss, it’s neutral. And food is fun. I love eating, and I have a chef now, and I’m not thinking about it. I had a brownie last night.” – Vanity Fair

“I was the uglier sister. I was the brunette. I wasn’t as cool as Gigi, not as outgoing. That’s really what people said about me. And unfortunately, when you get told things so many times, you do just believe it. I always ask myself, how did a girl with incredible insecurities, anxiety, depression, body-image issues, eating issues, who hates to be touched, who has intense social anxiety. What was I doing getting into this business? But over the years I became a good actress. I put on a very smiley face, or a very strong face. I always felt like I had something to prove. People can say anything about how I look, about how I talk, about how I act. But in seven years I never missed a job, canceled a job, was late to a job. No one can ever say that I don’t work my a** off. My immediate trauma response is people-pleasing. It literally makes me sick to my stomach if I leave somewhere and someone is unhappy with me, so I always go above and beyond, but the issue with that is that I get home and I don’t have enough for myself. For so long, I didn’t know what I was crying about. I always felt so lucky, and that would get me even more down on myself. There were people online saying, you live this amazing life. So then how can I complain? I always felt that I didn’t have the right to complain, which meant that I didn’t have the right to get help, which was my first problem. When you are forced to be perfect every day, in every picture, you start to look at yourself and need to see perfection at all times, and it’s just not possible.” -Vogue

“I started by making gratitude lists. I write down, using pen and paper, 20 things I’m grateful for. I repeat many of the same things, but every time I write down those people or things (my husband Ben, my health, our children, our future grandchildren, my career, our homes, my friends, hot baths, nourishing food) my heart warms and my whole energy expands. The trick is to be honest about what I’m truly grateful for and not to force things. It’s okay if all I can muster is ‘this bed, this glass of wine, this Planet Earth series,’ as long as I’m telling my truth. After we lost the pregnancy, I started doing positive self-talk out loud to myself. I talked directly to my body. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for growing beautiful Ella.’ And as I thought of her, for the first time in days I started welling up with gratitude. ‘I trust we will do this again,’ I said as I remembered that about a fifth of all pregnancies don’t make it all the way. ‘You have a natural wisdom,’ I said, and my body does; I could feel it in my bones. Putting my hands on my head, I said, ‘I love you.’

Moving my hands to my face, I repeated, ‘I love you.’ I covered my arms, my belly, my butt, my legs, down my whole body, and ended at the tips of my toes, ‘I love you.’ And by the end of the exercise, I felt better. I felt connected to my body. I felt love for my body. I started doing this exercise every day, and my physical and mental well-being improved greatly. Then I started doing ‘the talk’ in the shower and it became a habit. You can apply this exercise to anything, whether you’re recovering from an injury or connecting with yourself after a lifetime of body-mind conflict. It’s about being in communication with yourself and appreciating what you have.” -People

How did the bullying you experienced in high school there affect you?

“I took it very personally. Deep inside, it starts gnawing at you. You don’t even notice the way you’re acting and how you’re reacting. I went into a shell. I was like, ‘Don’t look at me. I just want to be invisible.’ My confidence was stripped. I’ve always considered myself a confident person, but I was very unsure of where I stood, of who I was.”

After a year of it, you finally told your parents and moved back home. How did you rebuild your self-esteem? 

“A lot of kids go through this and don’t have the ability to get away from their tormentors. When I went back to India, I was surrounded by so much love and admiration for just who I was. My dad said, ‘Leave your baggage behind.’ And I tried to. In India I was in school, and I was onstage. I made new friends who were amazing and loving. I was doing teenage things, going to parties, having crushes, dating, the normal stuff. It just built me up.” -People

“There’s always going to be someone who hates you and someone who says something bad about you whether its true or not and you just have to in the end ignore or just learn to deal with it.” -Oprah Interview

“Say what you want to say. Be brave.”

“Deep down we all still have that kid in us and there is no reason why that kid can’t be a superhero or a Lizzo… So, if you are like 4-year-old me and you are sitting at home watching this thinking that maybe you’ll love yourself one day and that you can finally be someone here, stop doing that and start living yourself right now. It will change your life and that will change the world I guarantee that.” -MTV Awards

“I did a little show called the Fosters and over the years since I did that show I learned that external things don’t actually make you happy. They didn’t make me happy. I actually was like really really upset while doing that show. Not because of the show it was a amazing show. I just wasn’t happy with all these things outside of myself and I found that truly things that made me happy that actually fulfilled me was not having a successful career. It was doing what I loved and giving back to other people.” -MTV Awards

“I am enough.”

“I definitely believe that mental health care should be prioritized just as much as physical health. There’s been such a long history of ignoring mental health problems, of saying, ‘Oh, just suck it up’ or ‘I’m a strong black woman. That doesn’t happen to me.’ All of these tropes that we’ve been taught over generations, when actually, I think given generational trauma, of course there are a lot of mental health issues with the black community. I’ve been working with a really amazing Loa Angeles based organization called BEAM, which stands for Black Emotional And Mental Health Collective. They help people find resources, therapists, and also natural care, like Reiki. I try to meditate. I can’t say that I’m the best with my track record of doing it every day, but I try to at least do some deep breathing. I noticed I literally forget to breathe, which sounds wild, but sometimes I’m like ‘Wait, I haven’t taken a real breath all day.’ and just taking 30 seconds to sit and do deep belly breathing is a game changer. Also, I think it’s so common to talk only about self-care as meditation, yoga, and working out, which are all important, but sometimes self-care is having a glass of wine with your best friend and laughing and watching s***** reality TV . Watching The Bachelor and drinking wine with my girls is awesome. Sometimes that’s the self-care that you need.

Holding emotion in is not only not good mentally but not good physically. Physical manifestations of stress are very real. I’ve had weird little skin things or backaches and it’s like, okay, what is the actual roof cause of this? Maybe it’s because I’m super stressed or upset and I’m not dealing with it?” -Cosmopolitan 

“Wellness, to me, doesn’t mean perfection or living by a standard that is unrealistic. Wellness has a lot to do with the word ‘wholeness.’ It’s sort of staying connected to self, God, and other. I’m a big fan of Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz. That model of psychotherapy very much helps me to connect with different parts of myself, some that are deemed by society as negative, challenging, dark parts, like addressing depression or anxiety. I had a panic attack yesterday. I just went, boom, right into my tool kit. Okay, what do I do here? I quickly ran a bath epsom salts, magnesium, lavender. Call in all ops! [laughs]

Personally, because I feel like sharing might be helpful in some way, I have a little life pie that I reference visually. Pretty much every journal I have, if you open the front page, it’s the pie. I just take a glance at them and immediately my eye will be pulled toward that which I have been neglecting. My life pie includes, I’m just going to draw it while I’m talking. Family and friends, body: somatic experiencing, trauma recovery. Spirit: It’s really silence. With three children under 11, I’ve been known to go into my closet on the ground in the dark. If I’m going to a television studio anywhere in the world, my first question is usually, ‘Is there a room with a door that I can close? Where I can go for a few minutes just to catch my breath, recharge my batteries.’

Then there’s being expressed. So much of my depression comes from my not expressing sadness, grief, and anger. Usually, a grief or a loneliness, or some false thought that got into my mind really, really young and I just kept believing it, even though it was never true. Feeling that I’ve processed enough is important, and that can include venting with friends, feeling expressed artistically, designing something. Marriage is a big one. It’s tough with three kids, but my husband, Souleye, and I try to sneak away as much as possible.

Being on top of my business and finances. I feel like the patriarchy just pats women on the head especially artists. I have been shamed for looking after my money and shamed for not looking after my money. You can’t win! So I just keep showing up. Brain rest: binge watching tv. Floating, wandering time. Mind wondering, As an artist and someone who loves to philosophize, I can’t get those messages, for lack of a better term, if everything is jampacked, including my mind and environment. SO just time to sit. Easier said than done last year with three kids schooling at home  my eyes are crossed.” -ALLURE

“Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.”

“I’m somebody who follows my heart. I’ve always loved hosting. I’ve dealt with a lot of depression and anxiety, through my teens and especially as I became an adult. As I did therapy, I wondered what would happen if my generation had a platform to take what we talk about offline and actually let it be televised for everyone to see. I went on a great journey at the end of 2019, a journey of personal love and self-love and really understanding what that means. There was a breakup, not just romantic but friendships too. The concept of loneliness used to weigh me down. But my 26th year has been a golden year, because I’ve come to a lot of revelations about myself.” -Cosmopolitan

“There are societal signals all around us telling us that there is something wrong with some parts of us. I thought about what are the messages that I’m giving myself, and how do I light up for myself? So today when I’m looking at the mirror, I still see what’s wrong, but I try to push those thoughts out and say, ‘Wow, you are healthy. Look at your skin, your smile.’ I try to start my day a little more kind.” -People

“I’m no longer trying to be perfect. I was living my wildest dreams. But inside I was hurting. I was photographed and commented on constantly. I’d always been pretty confident, but it was a knock to my self-esteem. So much of my life was out of control. So I controlled my eating, my exercise everything I possibly could. I felt like I had to make myself perfect to really deserve all of this wonderful success. I didn’t realize I had depression. It was such a relief knowing it had a name; I can be helped and I can get better. I don’t really like to take pharmaceuticals, and I would go, ‘Oh my God, I’m taking antidepressants’. But there have been low times when they’ve really helped me.” -People

“I’ve changed in the way that I handle situations. I can’t choose how I feel, but I can choose how to react. I’ve learned to let people’s comments roll off my back. The only person that really has to believe in me is myself.” -People

“As a human being, I’m constantly evolving and growing, and I’m going to have insecurities. To embrace our emotions and share with other people, we all feel less alone in our struggles. What makes me most happy is being with the people that I love and just knowing that being who I am is enough. Because I know I can take that anywhere.” -People

“If someone told me 15 years ago that my body would go through so many changes and fluctuations, and that I would feel more womanly and secure with my curves, I would not have believed them. But children and maturity have taught me to value myself beyond my physical appearance and really understand that I am more than enough no matter what stage I’m at in life. Giving zero F’s is the most liberating place to be. Also knowing true beauty is something you cannot see. I wish more people focused on discovering the beauty within themselves rather than critiquing other folks’ grills.” -ELLE

“Insecurity is loud; confidence is quiet. Don’t just say you’re something; be something. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.” -InSTYLE

“Worrying about why the girls I grew up with didn’t want to be my friend anymore was zapping the energy I had to go out there and make new friends and be my best and most comfortable self. I’m finding people who genuinely like and accept me. It’s amazing. I don’t think I would feel so confident in these new relationships if I hadn’t spent all that time alone figuring out what I like about myself, my enthusiasm, my sense of humor and how much I throw my heart into everything I do.” -GL

“I have had to fight so hard just to be myself. I’m comfortable in my skin. I don’t want to dress, sing, or think like someone else. Say yes to things that challenge you and push you further as an artist.” -InSTYLE

“I got tired of trying to be who everybody wanted me to be. There’s always going to be something that people hate me for, whether it’s wanting me to not be black, or a woman, or tall, or short, or skinny, or thick. Other people might love me for it, but I don’t want to constantly change who I am for outside validation. That just sounds like hell. I was constantly hiding myself and felt shame about having acne. So instead of getting to the bottom of my acne and trying to understand it. I was covering it up. trying to be perfect. But you’re never going to get to the nitty-gritty of something when you do a lot of covering up. I feel more beautiful when I;m being kind and of service to others. I’m happy to be alone just vibing with myself. The only person you’ll always have is you, so you really have to be kind to that person. During a recent Peloton class, I went so hard that by the end I was hugging myself like, ‘Girl, you’re amazing.’ I don’t run from my past, and I’m not ashamed that I came from poverty. I want other people to know they’re beautiful not in spite of, but because of, where they come from. It’s not about changing who you are to step through the doors; it’s about being who you are when you get there.” -InSTYLE

“My big thing that I’m working on in life right now is treating myself and being good to myself because it’s a very hard thing to do. Including taking care of my health and even how I talk about myself. My husband will catch me being like, ‘I’m huge today’ or ‘I feel so ugly,’ and he’ll be like, ‘Hey, tell yourself you’re pretty. You’re beautiful, remind yourself.” – People 

“It helps you to accept life as it presents itself and be grateful for it. Getting really connected to myself has been a great journey. Now I’m not even feeling like I have to be in a relationship, because I’m in a relationship with myself. And it’s going quite well.” -People

“When I was getting started in acting, my coaches gave me some advice that’s been important in every single aspect of my life. They said all I needed was to embrace the real me. As an actress, that led me to opening up about my ASD with the world, but it’s advice that applies to everything we do. No matter who you are, or what you want to do in life, embracing the real you is the first step to making your dreams come true. When you’re true to yourself with people who really believe in your potential anything is possible. I’m proof.” -GL

“My passion for strength was out of self-defense. I used to get picked on a lot because I was different in the way I dressed and expressed myself. As you’re an adolescent, social cliques form, and I didn’t fall into any one of those. I got tired of getting beaten up. I asked my dad for a weight set, and he got me one at 13. I started working out, and I haven’t stopped. I was doing it to protect myself, but that time spent in my little home gym was also balancing my mental wellness. It prevented me from doing harm to myself. It prevented me from fighting back and wanting to get revenge. It’s been balancing me out since I was a teenager.”

“I didn’t feel beautiful, like for real, not just ‘Hey, I’m pretty’ but actually believing in it until about 2016. If you’ve been beat down mentally by someone, you’re never pretty enough. Nothing’s ever good enough. It’s not just the hairstyles and the clothing and the skin. It’s how I reinvent myself through trials and perseverance. Am I going to quit? No, I’m going to go to the next level because change is hard. But people see me come out and they think, ‘It’s just her skin or her hair.’ No, it’s her. It’s me. I’m really choosing to be a better, stronger person. During Mudbound and when I was married, I was feeling so low. I had to pay myself the highest compliments, even if I didn’t believe it, just so I could build myself up. I would do it in the morning, because that’s the time when your hair is not done and you don’t have on makeup. You’re just kind of dealing with yourself  for real. Good morning, gorgeous. I love you. I got you. I need you.” -People

“Since I was a child, my self-confidence was based on what others thought of me. So the public shaming penetrated on a deep level. There was such a weight on my marriage and my friendships because I was looking to them to help me. I needed to be by myself and figure my issues out on my own. I wouldn’t trade anything I’ve been through. Every time I sink back into depression. I think, ‘What’s the lesson here?’ There is always something good, if we look for it.” -People

“I’ve been wildly insecure throughout my life about various things, but I was never so insecure that I’m not going to try something. The fact that people didn’t believe that I was capable of something probably drove me to fully realize what I had in my head and hit goals. I think the resistance fired me up and gave me energy to prove to myself that I could do it. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t still insecure about myself physically. I was really shy in a lot of ways and a late bloomer.” -People

“Act confident, even if you’re not. When I was younger, I was bullied because I was small. And that made me act small. One day, a girl who I thought was my friend actually picked me up and put me in a trash can, Literally. And then I told my mom about it, she was like, ‘What? That is unacceptable.’ That’s when I decided I wasn’t going to act small anymore. I started sticking up for myself and built up my confidence. Now that’s a superpower.” – GL

“The fact that people don’t think what they say affects a celebrity because you’re not a person to them is crazy. I’m a human being. I want to f***ing defend myself. The fact that I’m like, ‘Should I have not worn that?’ No, I do what I want to do, and I make what I want to make, and if I’m now starting to be afraid of what other people are going to say or think, I’m no longer doing my job as an artist. I’m not experiencing the world and putting that into art. I’m walking on eggshells. F*** that. So, I needed to take a minute” – ELLE 

“I remember I was playing this character who ends up getting tortured in a Chilean prison in the 1994 drama The House of Spirits. I would look at these fake bruises and cuts on my face from the shoot, and I would struggle to see myself as this little girl. ‘Would you be treating this girl like you’re treating yourself?’ I remember looking at myself and saying, ‘This is what I’m doing to myself inside.’ Because I just wasn’t taking care of myself.” – BAZAAR

“Optimism is really rooted in gratitude. Optimism is sustainable when you keep coming back to gratitude, and what follows from that is acceptance. Accepting that this has happened, and you accept it for what it is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t endeavor to change. It doesn’t mean you have to accept it as a punishment or a penance, but just put it in its proper place. Then see how much the rest of your life you have to thrive in, and then you can move on.” -People

“I think my parents instilled in me at a very young age the ability to stick up for myself. If you don’t like something, you say it. If something makes you uncomfortable, you tell somebody. I’ve always had a good handle on that.” -InSTYLE

“They told me I’m not pretty enough, not good enough. I’ve learned if you can hold your own hand, you’re okay.” -People

“I feel more beautiful when I am content with life, grounded, grateful, and accepting of myself.” -InStyle

“Finding happiness and being at peace with yourself, it’s a long journey, but I’ve really gotten to a great place. I’m my best self in cutoffs at the farm with no makeup. All I want to do is dream, live in the moment and spend time doing things I love with my friends and family. Going through hard things obviously makes you get to know yourself better. When you get broken down pretty good, you look at the mirror and you go, ‘I have to spend some time with me, learn who I am and what I want.’ I got to a really good place with myself. Then I met my husband. Without the hard stuff the chaos, the crazy schedule, the heartbreak, the falling in love, the falling out of love. I wouldn’t be who I am. I’m thankful for the lessons, even though they hurt at the time.” -People

“When you feel bad about yourself, go and give to others, I feel really strongly that this is a big moment to say ‘Nobody is alone.’ ‘Then you anchor yourself. I felt really strange this morning. I was out of control in my head. I was tired The first thing is to be really honest: ‘How do I feel right this second?’ Once you work out how you feel, you realize you must shine light on it. Then you anchor yourself. So I went and did an hour of step-ups. Just on the staircase. I didn’t go to the gym. I didn’t put on my leotard. And I watch Little House on the Prairie for the escapism. I got my heartbeat going. Then I rang a friend. Then the next thing is to realize that everyone else has insecurities too.”  -People

“Living in a foreign country taught me as an adult to ask questions and be inquisitive about why I feel like I don’t fit in, and where should I fit in? Where do I want to be? It gave me a sense of needing to find my place and figure out who I was. I guess I learned to anchor myself in my personality and the essence of who I was, rather than attaching myself to an external structure. I was always quite shy growing up. I remember choosing clothes and then second-guessing myself, saying ‘Oh no, it’s too this or it’s too that or it’s too sexy, or you’re not giving off the right impression.’ And I realized that for a long time, I was using fashion to hide aspects of myself, and now I don’t care. I want to express myself in the way I want to express myself. I always thought you had to have one style, and I could never do that. One minute I was a tomboy, then I was super elegant, everyday was different. And now I fully embrace that I enjoy fashion much more.” -ELLE

“I had dyslexia, and it was really hard for me to read. I would always think, ‘I’m so dumb’, and I just started beating myself up and being really self-critical. Life isn’t easy. And I’m definitely not invincible. But I learned to love myself and now it’s so much easier to feel at peace.” -People

“When I was younger, the idea of being a role model made me so painfully self-aware. I couldn’t explore who I was because I was so focused on being everyone’s idea of me. But I decided to give myself permission to be human. You go through fire, and you come out different but alive. I’ve gone through so many things, but I’m so much less afraid of life because of them. I cut my hair like a boy and pretended to be a vampire while the other girls wore Juicy Couture and perfume. I was a loner. My capacity for happiness is much greater because of the traumas. I know that my time here is finite and it’s all about love.” -People

“I enjoyed being different people because I always struggled with self-identity and knowing who I was. Even as a young person, I always felt like I didn’t quite belong in every room I was in. I also struggle with loneliness a bit. I always felt quite alone in a crowded room, like I was just one of a kind, like nobody ever really understood me. So I liked playing characters that people understood and people could relate to because I felt like no one could relate to Millie. It’s really hard to be hated on when you don’t know who you are yet. So it’s like, ‘What do they hate about me? Cause I don’t know who I am.’ Young girls deserve an education. Young people everywhere deserve equal rights. You deserve to love the people that you want to love. Be the people that you want to be and achieve the dreams that you want to achieve. That’s my message.”

“Life has valleys and peaks, and so many things are always challenging. But I’m always working towards becoming a better me. As you hit puberty, people start looking at you in a different way. And people can be mean. I dealt with all of that. I said, ‘Dana you’re either going to hate yourself or you’re going to love yourself.’ And I decided at that moment I’m going to love myself.” -People 

“I was born to a dark-brown Mexican father and a white Mexican Irish American mother. There was so much xenophobia that I internalized. I thought, ‘I’m not white, and that’s bad.’ I grew up with a lot of shame, and that creates confusion around your identity and worth. I was assigned female at birth, so I grew up under these conditions to wear my hair a certain way or dress a certain way, things that felt really rigid and not right for my body. What I ended up doing was trying to constantly perform as a woman. It felt like a question of survival. Being nonbinary isn’t about being married to one hairdo or a way of dressing. It doesn’t mean I don’t ever like wearing makeup or wearing my hair long. It has more to do with understanding of your gender as being on a spectrum. A lot of times you don’t feel male or female, other times you feel like both, and other times you feel like neither. I’ve learned to befriend my feelings instead of running away from them. I’ve learned to dance with change. I can embrace all of who I am. I finally feel free.” -People

“I constantly struggle with doubts and insecurities, like any teenager. It takes practice every day to overcome those things. Practically everybody I knew as a kid all of my friends, all the adults around me had straight hair. That was difficult, having big curly hair and not wanting to be ‘different.’ I wanted to belong. Looking back now, I wish I could put my hands on young Sofia’s shoulders and tell her that her hair is such a big part of who she is and that to lose it would be so sad. Now, I love my curls. They make me unique, and I would never change them for the world. But, at the time, no one could tell me different. Eventually that confident person I was pretending to be when I was performing became the person I truly was. But it took time. It’s taken a lot of mental repetition. Telling myself that I’m enough, and to not have fear. I still have anxiety that I’m not good enough. That I’m not ready for this big life. But we’re all on our own path, and everyone is going to shine at their own pace. Knowing that I’m doing everything I can to grow and continue to live this passion of mine, that’s really what gives me confidence.” -GL

“In my creative process, I always start very insecure. I’m like, is this right? How is this landing? Do I feel good about this? I have to live in that insecurity for a bit, and then, as time progresses, I get more confident. And I’m like, you know what? I love this. Then I start to feel more swaggy and confident. Once your soul is cared for, you become everything you need to be. And you can spread that as far and wide as you want to.” -ALLURE

“I’ve learned that positive people attract positive people, and if you’re happy with yourself, you become a better person who’s able to live a truthful, authentic life. It requires a lot of patience to deal with hate online. At the end of the day, if people are going on social media to spread hate, then I don’t respect them. So why would I care what they say about me? I knew I wasn’t taking care of myself, and that would have me feeling insecure. Now I don’t have the same anxiety I used to about food and my body. And I’m not putting all my self-worth in my appearance. There’s so much more to life than that.” -InSTYLE

“My bad*** advice is to be you. Be confident in what you have to offer. It’s nice if you want to have role models, but be yourself. That has an integrity about it, an authenticity about it. That is what is necessary. Know your power, know what you can do. I was basically a shy person, believe it or not, so I didn’t really like the spotlight, but I loved the issues.” -InSTYLE 

“I’ve put less emphasis on who I’m worried about being seen by.” – InSTYLE

“I was building my life around this image of perfection, and it was really oppressive. I was clearly a woman who wanted to talk about truth and empowerment and strength, but when I really looked at myself, I realized that my whole life I’ve kind of been putting on a mask. The path to self-discovery is not a straight line. It’s zigzag. Finally in my early thirties, I moved back toward my true essence. I don’t have to fit in. None of us does. Our uniqueness isn’t a scar, but a beauty mark. I am strong and fierce and brave, no doubt. Yet I’m also someone who has found herself on the bathroom floor; boo-hooing. And I am learning to embrace all of it.” -People

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to fit a label, and don’t be afraid of where your heart is going to take you. Wherever it goes, it’s valid. Whenever I felt like my anxiety was never going to go away, my therapist always told me, ‘It’s bad now, but it’ll be better then.’ Now, whenever I’m sad or anxious, I remember all the times when I thought it was going to last forever, and then all the lovely times I’ve had since.” -GL

“Confidence is not something I was born with. When I started doing beauty pageants at 17 years old, I had such low self-esteem. For me, glamour is doing the things that make you feel like the best version of yourself. It’s one of the reasons I got involved in Obagi’s Skinclusion campaign, which aims to shift people’s biases about beauty standards and bring more inclusivity to the beauty industry.” -InSTYLE

“Young people need to know that their dreams are possible. If you squelch a young person’s creativity, you’ve done them a great disservice. I think children really just need to be told that there’s nothing wrong with them, and that they do need their creativity. Their imagination is what’s going to save them. Quite frankly, it’s what’s going to save us. So don’t let anybody tell you that your imagination is not worthy of manifesting.” -People

“Feeling like I have to please so many people made me hate myself. I can’t live my life wondering what people think of me. I hope people like me, of course. And I hope people relate to what I’m saying, but if they don’t, that’s not my problem. The way you talk to yourself is the most important thing.” People

“Nobody controls me but me. It’s up to me to empower myself and realize how incredibly worthy I am of healing.” -People

“Anytime something doesn’t work out, it’s not really healthy to say, ‘I was the reason it messed up.’ I’m still learning that. I’m learning that your happiness, you can’t put on someone else. The divine plan is always better than whatever I could ever come up with. And it always ends up working out the best. I’ve realized the things that matter to me are my happiness, my family, being around people I love and keeping my spirit clean with their positive energy. As long as I have that, no matter what happens, I am gucci, I am good.” -Cosmopolitan

“I’ve worked hard on my craft, my self-esteem, and my self-love. I’m proud of myself, and hopefully, my journey inspires other woman to chase their dreams.” -InSTYLE

“Growing up, I was self-conscious about my freckles and my body since I was teased about them in the last year, I’ve really come into my own. You don’t have to be a certain size or look a certain way to be considered beautiful.” InSTYLE

“I’m always myself. I’m in the space I’m in right now because I was just always unapologetically myself.” -InSTYLE

“With age, you figure out that life is too short to waste time thinking about what other people think about you.” -People

“You should always be yourself. You can look to things for inspiration, but you should be owning what you’re doing. It should be your own. You should never feel apologetic about it. My mother was very healthy, drinking lots of water and eating vegetables. When I got to junior high, where you could buy your lunch, I began drinking soda. I broke out, and my mother said it was from soda. I stopped drinking it and never had breakouts again until I was 30 and got adult acne.” – InSTYLE

“If you fail, you get back up knowing you will be stronger. It’s one of my favorite things about getting older. I’m realizing how powerful I can be.” -ALLURE

“One of the important things about relationships for me has been to really know and love myself more and be able to express the things that I want. I’ve evolved and gotten to that place. I communicate. I listen to what Tiffany has to say about how she feels and try to understand it instead of always having an answer. It’s about being in a relationship where you can grow, support each other’s purpose and vision, and have fun.” -People

“Being my fullest self without apology. For so long my voice was the thing I was most ashamed of, and now it is the thing I’m most proud of. It is a power no one can take away from me.” InSTYLE

“The whole thing to remember about pronouns and identities is that they’re not meant for other people. They’re meant for you to help better understand yourself.” -ALLURE

“For me, I’m more confident, and I can hold my own in a group. I’m kinder to myself so I don’t second-guess my natural instincts and that helps me perform better.” -GL

“I pretend like everything was okay, but inside I was dying. Just because someone says something about you doesn’t make it true. I love how my story can potentially help people. Everyone has the potential to improve their quality of life even if it’s just improving the internal narrative most of us tend to struggle with.” -People

“When I hit 25, I read a book by Louis Hay, You Can Heal Your Life. It taught me about self-love, about looking in the mirror, in your eyeballs. This book was saying, just look into your eyeballs and tell yourself that you love and approve of yourself. The first time I did it, I cried really hard because I don’t think I really did love or approve of myself. And as I took on this practice and did it on a regular basis, it was like my life started to slowly change into what I thought I wanted. I really started to recognize my actual beauty and slowly became confident. I had a certain level of confidence that was deniable. And now I’ve nurtured myself like I wish my mother would have all those years ago. I just turned 21 for the 19th time. One of my goals was always to walk into a room and project happiness, elevate the room within 10-foot radius of where my body is there’s joy and happiness around there. -Allure

“I’m just not someone who can be anything but who I am, letting someone else’s expectations dictate how I act or feel always leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable. It’s easier to just be me. The things that we think are our inadequacies are usually our strengths.” -People

“Your self-esteem shouldn’t be attached to being perfect or judged. What if we all just did what makes us happy. I think one of the things I’ve understood as I’ve gotten older is how little I care what other people think of me. What I’m mostly concerned about is how I feel about myself. And if I can’t love my aging body, it’s not very kind to this body that’s been working so hard to keep me in the game. If I look at my stomach where my skin is loose because I had a daughter, I think to myself, ‘Oh, the skin…’ And then I go, ‘Who are you? This is not your higher self talking. Look at that beautiful daughter that you made in your body, this human being who’s the most important thing in the world to you, that changed your life .’ Considering what my body has put up with, I just have to be grateful. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to not be great at something. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Don’t be afraid to just be whatever it is you are.” -People

“We’ve always placed great importance on the mistake. But the next move, what you do after the mistake is what really defines a person.” -People

“It’s hard to have scrutinizing eyes on you all the time, but I’ve learned to listen to myself. As I get older, I’m more confident because I know myself better than I ever have before. You have to remember that it’s a big, wide world of people with a lot of opinions. Just ask yourself, ‘Do I feel good today? Do I feel true to myself?’ That’s all you can do.” – InStyle

“If you’re not confident, pretend to be. It’s still hard for me, but it’s very important to have confidence in yourself. If you don’t, be able to present it, because people want to see people with a bit of power, and it’s hard to do that if you’re shrinking all the time. I did grow up as a very shy person, so that’s been a bit challenging.” -People

“I’ve always tried to be my authentic self. I was a little quirky growing up. I was a bit of a smart aleck, quick to joke. I never thought I was particularly pretty. I certainly have no discernible talents. It’s not like I can sing. I can dance a little bit. But I am very much my own creation. I’ve always felt that my individuality was important.” -People