Amy Poehler’s advice on loving your body

We’re big fans of Amy Poehler around here. Understandably. Why wouldn’t we love a smart, funny, politically active woman who clearly has great relationships with the women she works with? Here’s the latest Ask Amy, in which she answers a body image question with empathy and wisdom, and gets right to the heart of the problem.

Transcript below the jump.

Hello, welcome to another episode of Ask Amy. The question this week is: “Dear Amy, what advice would you give to a young woman with body with body issues? I’ve never been happy with my body, and I feel like it’s preventing me from loving myself. Love always, Mary Kate.” Oh boy, Mary Kate. I feel what you’re feeling. And I think most women do. The advice that I would give you would be, when things get dark, when you feel really crappy about yourself, or your body, or how you look, sometimes a good way to help yourself get out of that is to have some gratitude. What I mean by that is go around your body and kind of thank it for what it gives you and thank yourself for your great eyesight, or your thick hair, or nice legs, or strong teeth or whatever it is that you have, that you were given, and make friends with those parts of your body, and not try to focus on the parts that will never change. Because, look, we’re all different, everybody’s different, every body is different. There’s only, like, five perfectly symmetrical people in the world, and they’re all movie stars, and they should be, because their faces are very pleasing to look at, but the rest of us are just a jangle of stuff, and the earlier you learn that you should focus on what you have and not obsess about what you don’t have, the happier you will be. You really will be happier in life if you let go of the things that you will never have. And the other thing that I would say is that when you do talk about yourself, or talk to yourself, or you have that tape running in your head, about yourself, try to picture you talking to your own daughter. Or your younger sister. Because you would tell your younger sister or your daughter that she is beautiful, and you wouldn’t be lying. Because she is. And so are you.  So, don’t worry about finding love. You will always find love. Every pot has a lid. There’s a lid for every pot, that’s what my grandma used to say. And you deserve love, and you’ll get it. Thanks for watching Ask Amy, and see you soon.