Happy Friday! I just wanted to take a second to tell every single one of you THANK YOU for the enormous outpouring of love and support for this project. I can't tell you how much your enthusiasm means to me and how much I appreciate you spreading the word about the self-love revolution. You are incredible. THANK YOU!

Now on to the post. As women, we are NO stranger to negative body talk. We do it constantly to ourselves, and for some reason, when we get together with other women, it's all we seem to be able to talk about.

Why is it that we do that to ourselves? What need do we have as women to constantly bash our bodies? Would you ever say the things you say to your own body to a friend? I most certainly think not. And if you do, well, you might need to look into that because you're a horrible friend.

But seriously, though--how many times have you been hanging out with friends or with girls from work and the conversation inevitably makes a turn for the body bashing game? I refuse to believe I'm the only one that experiences this, and I refuse even more to believe I'm the only one bothered by it.

So, as part of my self-love month, I'm going to issue five weekly challenges--one challenge a week in February. This week's challenge?

Be an advocate for positive body talk.

Whether it's reminding yourself or others, just change the subject. Don't participate, don't allow others to participate in it around you, and spread the positivity revolution. You don't have to be awkward about it--just change the subject or walk away completely. It's a stupid game girls play, and you're too good for it. I guarantee it.

To help you with this week's challenge, here's a little flyer I put together last February with 20 ways to love your body. Click here to download the PDF.

Your mind is serious business, and the more you allow those negative thoughts to flounder around up there, the worse you'll feel. This week, choose one of those little ideas from that flyer, remember it, and be an advocate for yourself and others of positive body talk.

How do you remember to love your body? And do you have a go-to method for changing the negative body talk around you?

And don't forget to sign the declaration of self-hate independence!
Oh, and PS--the lucky winner of the Tumbleweeds giveaway is Taryn from Taryn it Up! I'll be emailing you later, girl!

Welcome back to self-love month. If you missed out on yesterday's post, click here to catch up on just what this is all about.

Today I have a seriously hokey but maybe awesome kickoff to our month of self-love.

The day I started at the treatment center, my therapist made me sign a "Declaration of Independence" from my eating disorder. In it, she listed all the things ED had taken from me, and had me sign it along with all of my fellow ED peers. To this day, I have that signed declcaration, and I look at it often to remind me where I've been and to never go there again.

So today, I have our own Declaration of Self-Hate Independence that we can all sign. Ignore the fact that it's cheesy and just embrace it as a pledge to devote yourself to the cause of self love. If you click the "Click here to Enter" button, you can leave your name, your blog address, and a little photo of you that will make a link party down there. I figured it would be a cool way to join together and meet new people through this self-love revolution. Signing up won't get you signed up for anything crazy! It will just add you to our link party, so no worries.

Now on to the declaration!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all womenkind are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That whenever self-hate becomes destructive of these ends, it is right to abolish self-hate and to institute self-love. When a long train of abuses evinces a design to reduce her under absolute despotism, it is her right, it is her duty, to throw off self-hate, and to provide self-love for her future security.

The history of self-hate is a history of repeated injuries, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over me. I, therefore, solemnly publish and declare that I am free and independent, that I am absolved from all allegiance to self-hate, and that as a free and independent woman, I have full power to do the following:

• Love myself completely and fully
• Refrain from negative body talk and speak kindly to myself at all times
• Actively pursue a positive body image
• Stop holding myself up to unrealistic expectations
• Embrace my genes and accept who I truly am
• Do nice things for myself because I am worth it
• Spread the word of self-love

And for the support of the declaration, I solemnly pledge myself to the cause with my fellow crusaders of self-love.

Signed,

I hinted last week that I had a big project coming up, and today's the big day. To all my dear readers, welcome to the revolution--the month of self love. Yes, I am dedicating February entirely to self love--learning to fight insecurity, love yourself, and start living in the moment.

Why dedicate an entire month to self love? Because it's a subject that is hugely near and dear to my heart. Today I'm going to be completely open with you and share a story with you that's hard to tell. I'm doing it only because I believe the blogging world needs a sense of realism. I believe that we are all getting swept up in a weird cloud of perfection where everyone is kittens and rainbows and smiles all the time. We are falling into a weird state of envy and jealousy that comes out in negative anonymous comments and harsh expectations on ourselves.

So, in an effort to bring back some realism to blogging, here's why I'm dedicating February to self love.

I am a recovering anorexic.

I have been in recovery for 6 years now. After wasting nearly my entire teenage life to the disease, I spent half of my senior year of high school in the hospital with a food tube shoved down my nose. I missed out on what should have been the most carefree years of my teenage life wasting away and fighting a disease that I wish I never would have brought into my life.

The battle continued on to college, where I was forced to drop out of my first year at Utah State. Instead of spending time with my roommates and living the stereotypical college life, I dropped all my classes, packed up my stuff, threw it into my car, and sobbed the entire 2-hour drive home. I landed in an in-patient rehab for 6 months where I was completely shaken to my core. A deeply rooted hatred for self loathing and what has become the feminine ideal was instilled in me there, and I have dedicated my entire life to fighting it.

I saw mothers taken away from their children to fight a disease that had stolen over 30 years of their lives. I saw 13-year-old girls, starving and freezing, crying in therapy thinking they would never be good enough. I saw women of all ages turn into complete monsters and liars as the disease consumed them, doing completely irrational things they never would do in their right mind. Ultimately, I saw an entire generation of young women wasting their lives fighting what seems to be a losing battle.

So, six years later out of rehab almost to the day, here I am begging you to join a cause that I have proclaimed my personal crusade.

Fight your insecurities. Embrace who you are. Commit to a life of self love and living in the moment because who you are is all you've got. Refuse to give in to what the world thinks it means to be a woman and be yourself--fully and wholeheartedly.

February is National Eating Disorder Awareness Month, and while I am too close to the disease to get more involved, I can at least dedicate a month on my blog to spreading the word of self love. I share my story with you ONLY to tell you that life is too short to spend hating yourself. I wish every single day that I could have the decade I spent with the disease back and that I could redo it all and make it better. I tell you my story so that you can learn from my mistake and not waste your life--the ONE life you have--in self pity and misery.

I tell you my story because I'm angry--because I strongly feel that eating disorders can no longer go unnoticed. It's not a joke, it's not a girl thing to hate yourself, it's NOT NORMAL. It's a disease, it's deadly, and it can't continue to steal our lives. I tell you my story because I want to raise awarness--I want the world to know that women will no longer stand for negative body image and self hatred. It's time to stand up for ourselves and start a revolution.

So, dear readers, tomorrow marks the start of my month of self love. An entire month filled with posts dedicated to positivity. I've got some great guest posts lined up  with all kinds of DIYs, tips, and overall uplifting content. It would mean the world to me to have you join me in my cause, so tomorrow, I'm going to have a "Declaration of Independence" of sorts for you to join in. I'm super excited about it, and I hope you will be, too!

In the meantime, if you'd like to spread the word of self love with me, here's a badge you can place on your blogs.

Thank you so much for letting me share my story with you. I am SO excited for this month, and I genuinely hope that it will uplift you and inspire you to love yourself. Come back tomorrow for the official big launch! Can't wait.

**PLEASE NOTE: As much as I would love to hear your personal experiences with eating disorders, I am still INCREDIBLY sensitive to the topic. 6 years of recovery doesn't mean I'm cured, so please, as a courtesy to me and others, refrain from sharing personal details about EDs, including numbers, behaviors, ANYTHING. It's so easy to say triggering things, so I would appreciate your help in advance for helping me in keeping this a positive environment for everyone. THANK YOU!**