#1 Write a letter to the teacher (or coach)

Write a letter to the teacher (or coach) who made a difference in your life, asking him or her for help. What are you asking for? Why?

Dear Coach David,

I need your help. I need you to go back to the 1980s and change the conversation. When I originally thought to sit and write this letter, I thought I would write about something silly like "make me like to exercise"  -  ha! Unfortunately, I probably need help with that one, too but this letter is not about that.

What I really want is for you to teach us that our conversation and habits will eternally affect our body image. We will forever worry about what we look like in a swimsuit; worry whether our husbands, boyfriends, partners find us attractive; worry that what we wear will somehow irrevokeably change the course of our lives; worry that our parent will bring it up for the thousandth time in conversation only about how bad she looks, when it is absolutely untrue.

Please get us back to that time of innocence, when we were starting to be conscious of our bodies and change the conversation to one of health and strength and inner beauty rather than the one we were bombarded with daily. You're too fat, too ugly, too stinky, too bad... That's what we heard every day and from everywhere: parents, friends, magazines, televisions, radio. In fact, I can't recall a day in recent history where I haven't seen or heard something that tells me I'm wrong and that I need to focus on something that will make me right.

Those things are empty - no amount of plastic surgery, bariatric surgery, makeup, spray, deodorant, lotion can fill the place in us that has been assured that what we are is not enough and will never be enough. Our imperfect perfection is not good enough for the worldly standard that our society has set. Some people spend a whole life trying to find the perfection and miss out on so much.

So Coach David, take us back to those formative years and tell us...well tell us that we are enough. Change he conversation from what is imperfect to one that we can control. I can control how strong I feel. Tell me that my inner strength is my greatest asset and it will see me through everything else. Nothing external matters as much as the inner core of me and how I feel about me.

Your friend,

Tara