Be nice to the girl with the stars on her head!

This is how The Running Green Girl interrupted me when I started complaining about some randomly offensive body part while trying on clothes this last weekend.

You may remember this picture from a recent TBT post. Trophies in the background notwithstanding, the key piece here is the little girl (me) and the headband with bobbly stars on the ends.

During our Ladies’ Night on Friday, RGG, LS, and I talked about how sometimes women say things to ourselves that we would never, not in a million years, say out loud to someone.

RGG asked me, “Would you say those mean things to the girl with the stars on her head?”

It made me want to cry.

Imagining someone saying the things to that kid that I say to myself on a sometimes daily basis, when she was that young and vulnerable, made me want to punch the person saying those things (me) straight in the mouth.

Complicated. But I’ll assume you get what I’m saying.

I think  it’s so easy – habitual, almost – to say things to ourselves in the privacy of our own minds. Interior monologues, self-talk, mantras, whatever you want to call it, we all do it. What’s sad is that sometimes, what we say just isn’t nice at all.

You’re so stupid.

You’re so fat.

Oh my God, why are you wearing that?

Did you seriously just say that out loud?

How dumb can you be?

Or, my personal favorite:

Ugh.

I look at these things, and then I look at the picture of the girl with the stars on her head, and I feel absolutely terrible about saying things like that to her. I’m glad RGG was there to pull me out of my head and remind me of our conversation.

I promised RGG and LS that next time I started down that road I would remember the girl with the stars on her head, and say something nice instead.

Because…look at that face. How can you not be nice to that?