Separate the desire to be thin from the desire to be cherished.

You don't need a scale to tell you whether you're allowed to like yourself today. You are. You belong here. No matter what you weigh, you deserve joy and happiness.

No matter how developed you are in any other area of your life, no matter what you say you believe, no matter how sophisticated or enlightened you think you are, how you eat tells all.

You are lovable, you are loving; your choices about food will reflect that, if you give yourself a chance.

Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest.

The big horrible thing isn't the plane crash or the earthquake or the diagnosis. When those things occur, we act, we know what to do. We live or we die. Hell is what we do in the meantime. It is the ways we starve our souls as we prepare for the future that never comes as planned. The true disaster is living the life in your mind and missing the one in front of you.

No matter where you go, no matter how many gifts you give and receive this holiday season, unless you are actually present, it all flies by as if in a dream. Satisfaction in anything--a meal, an interaction, a gift, a sunset--depends on your willingness to take it in. Breathe. Feel your arms and your legs. You are allowed to love every little thing about yourself and your life. You are allowed to take up space and be all that you are. Really you are.