a kind of perfect day

Jaycee and I were BEST friends when we were young, starting in the third grade. We obsessed over the backstreet boys together, choreographed dances to spice girls, wrote love notes to Jason and Jesse (our elementary school crushes), and spent a lot of time watching episodes of Saved by the Bell. (I was also in love with Zach Morris.) When she moved away a couple years later we lost contact. Just recently, she found me! After 14 years! And she just so happens to have this amazingly beautiful blog inspiring women everywhere to be healthy, beautiful and confident. I wanted to share the post that she did today. I loved it. Hope you do too! 🙂

^ yeah, thats her. She’s pretty cute. 🙂

“A while ago I did an experiment.

I asked about 30 women of all ages to make a list of things they like about themselves and when they were done, report back to me with the number of things they came up with.
To my ‘not-so-shocking’ suprise, the average number was 7.

SEVEN!

These INCREDIBLE women who are out there raising children, running households, maintaining careers, applying for grad schools, striving to be the best girlfriend, wife, daughter, cousin, sister, consistently caring about others feelings aside from themselves, waking up every single morning, putting themselves together to go out and impact the world, came up with a PITIFUL seven things that they like about themselves. These women inspire me every single day. Whether they are older, younger, taller, shorter, wiser,…etc.

Listen, I’m a woman. I get it. IT IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. 
My whole experiment, (suprise!) was simply for women to take the time to think about themselves in a positive light.
I even made a list myself.
Think of all the things that women accomplish on a regular basis, or even in a lifetime. ALOT!!
I’m not being biased, but women’s brains are intertwined with amazing abilities.
Why do we use them to beat ourselves up?
The automatic negative thoughts (ANT’s) that we have every single day that take up SO much of our energy!
Think of how much more we could accomplish if we just simply appreciated ourselves! And think of all of the joyful things that would attract themlseves to us if we were in a joyful state of mind.

You will never go after that promotion if you don’t think of yourself as worthy for success.
You will never attract the love of your life if you don’t think of yourself as worthy for love.
You will never lose weight if you don’t think of yourself as capable for the body of your dreams.
You will never change the negative situations that you feel stuck in if you don’t have the confidence to do so!

In my short 25 years of life, I have struggled with the ANT’s that come with every teen or twenty something’s mind.
However, I’ve realized that they are consistent, and really don’t change much as we get older, seeing as I speak with women of all ages and their insecurities are all similar with different circumstances.

It’s time to change the way we think ladies!
Challenge yourself to kill the ANT’s, take out the trash, silence all the crap that goes on inside our minds.
And just LOVE YOURSELF. 
My advice? Take 5 minutes every single day, whether you are riding in the car, taking a shower, putting your makeup on, brushing your teeth, whatever, and meditate on things that you like about yourself. And then? SAY THANK YOU!!
Thank Yourself.
We are incredible creatures!!
We have the ability to accomplish amazing things!!
The more we do this, the more amazing our lives will become.
Free Yourself. “

Xoxo,
Jaycee

Reblogged from www.jayceewaters.com >> check it out!