Dear Kathleen, As a teenage girl, I feel too much pressure to be beautiful, skinny, and fashionable. First of all, I know it is pretty normal to find faults with my body. The thing that bugs me about it is how much people look into it. Most of the time, the people who are being affected by the “size two” plague, as I call it, are not overweight. I am a little overweight, but not to the point that a good exercise program won’t get rid of it. Yet, I see girls and women who are thinner than me going through extremes to be even thinner. I see them severely dieting, using weight-loss pills, going into treatment centers for slimming and trimming products, even becoming anorexic and bulimic. It is not only harmful for them mentally, but it is very harmful to them physically. Fashion is also becoming too essential. [...]

With Halloween just around the corner, it got me thinking about masks – not in the costume sense, but rather in the way we hide our true selves from others. When we were little, wearing masks was all about playing make believe and pretending to be someone else just for fun. But as we get older and the pressure to fit in gets bigger, we may wear a mask to try and get others to like us or accept us into the group. Before long, we get so good at fooling others that eventually we wind up deceiving ourselves because even we don’t know who we really are. We all have our roles in life; student, son, daughter, mother, father, teacher, friend. But there may be roles that we play and masks we wear that we may not even be aware of and that may be keeping us trapped in [...]

Remember that lame assignment they always gave you at the start of every school year? “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” tolled the official end of summer and started every year off heading in the wrong direction. Just like you can’t drive forward while looking in the rear-view mirror, you can’t get ready for a brand new year by starting it off looking backwards. Summer is over – it’s time to look ahead. Spend some time thinking about how you want this school year to be. Just by shifting your thoughts, you will be creating your future and unleashing the power of intention. An intention is something that you plan to do or achieve. With focused attention and concentrated energy, anything you can dream you can achieve – as long as you believe. A belief is just a thought you’ve replayed over and over again and accepted it as fact. [...]

The Only Thing You Can’t Get at the Mall is the Most Important Thing of All The words back to school conjure up so many mixed emotions for parents and teens. The office supply superstore commercial portrays parents skipping up and down the aisles filling their baskets with pens and notebooks while “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” blares through store. But for teens, those words can often evoke a sense of fear and insecurity as they scurry to make sure they have the right stuff in order to be all that. The world-wide credit card company ad might go something like this… Abercrombie & Fitch jeans; $89.50, Nike Air Max sneakers; $150.00, the new LG Chocolate slide phone; $149.98, Coach Signature Soho bag; $218.00… Feeling as good on the inside as you’re trying to look on the outside? Priceless! Advertisers spend billions of dollars marketing to teens [...]