Struggling to be Picture Perfect

If you were ever a teenage girl, which I’m assuming the majority of my readers were, then you likely struggled with your body image. Perhaps you still do struggle. Many times the wisdom of aging just doesn’t help you grow out of your own insecurities. Maybe you never had a mentor to help you grow past the false fears about your body. Maybe you still struggle with comparing yourself to the Photoshopped covergirls and celebrities. If this is true then you certainly know that you don’t want your own daughter or close teenage girl dealing with these same insecurities! You know the pain, you understand the hopelessness of trying to become picture perfect.

In her book, “Picture Perfect“, Jill S. Zimmerman Rutledge , M.S.W., LCSW steps forward to give teenage girls the tools to learn to feel better about their bodies. Jill works to address the issue that our culture tells girls they must be “picture perfect” to be considered successful. She encourages each girl to learn to be “perfectly you” since there is no other like her. Jill states, “We can try to be healthier, kinder, smarter, more creative, and so on. But if we don’t appreciate our specialness and uniqueness, we can’t really achieve the goal of being the best- including the most attractive- we can be.”

(Read more and find out how to win a copy after the jump!)

In the chapters, which include titles such as: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: When You Don’t See the Beauty in You (CH 1); The Catwalk in the Halls: When School’s a Big Fashion Show (CH 3); and 2 Hard 2 Be 2 Good: Dealing with Perfectionism (CH 5), Jill really reaches the teenage crowd with issues they deal with in their daily life. Within each chapter Jill addresses a problem that is common to teenage girls. Then three girls tell the reader about how they have learned to deal with the problem, as well as a “Special Statement”, which is a positive message pertaining to the problem. The Special Statements are meant to help the girls address the problem and boost body-image thoughts.

What Jill teaches about the Special Statement holds true for all of us, not just those under 20. Jill talks about reframing your thoughts and feelings about your body. She says, “Like framing a picture, you also put your thoughts and feelings about your body in a certain framework. If your frame is drab and negative, you’ll see yourself as too fat or too thin or too tall or too short- never quite right. And when you see that picture 24/7, you automatically feel bad about your body.

But you can reframe your thoughts and feeling about your body. Instead of seeing it surrounded by negativity, you can put yourself in a brighter, more self-accepting frame. And when you look at your body in this positive frame, you get a glimpse of yourself as beautiful and picture perfect just the way you are.”

In addition to the stories and Special Statements, the chapters include an Action Plan, which is so important for making a life change. It’s one thing to know what to do, it’s another to carry out the plan. If you, or your daughter, needs to make a change in mind-frame, then write down a plan and take action! Jill’s book offers recommendations for taking action.

Picture Perfect is written for the teenage audience with it’s stories and concepts but it really holds a lot of valuable information for all of us in learning how to view our body differently.

If you’d like to own an autographed copy of Picture Perfect for yourself or a teenage girl that you know, please leave a comment below. One book will be given to a winner drawn at random. Deadline to Comment is June 20 at midnight PST.

For more on this book and Jill’s other book, “Dealing With The Stuff That Makes Life Tough”, visit her website.

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