I have a friend who dreads summer because of what she calls the unveiling of her body. Peeling off her clothes, she says, reveals "the horror of it all." The back fat. The cellulite. All the new cellulite that mysteriously appeared over the winter. The belly bulge that makes people ask, "Hey, are you pregnant?"

Do you share my friend's dread of summer? If so, I am here to tell you something: What you say to yourself about the shape of your body shapes your feelings about yourself. Be careful what you tell yourself, because you will believe it. Be sure you're telling the whole truth. Be sure you're letting yourself see the whole truth.

Let me explain.

During one particularly crazy year of my 20s, I decided that I was going to be cliff-hanger thin. I'd had it with being fat. Had it with the multiple folds in my thighs, and the upper-arm fat that almost reached the muffin-top above my waist. Had it with hating myself for being overweight. So I followed the program in a book someone gave me. On what I called the Breatharian Diet, I ate 150 calories a day (raw vegetables only), jogged four miles every evening, and fasted on water for three weeks at the turn of each season. The ultimate goal was to detoxify and purify my body to the point where it would no longer need food. Instead, I would be able to eat sunlight, drink silence, and metabolize air. (I told you I was crazy that year. You probably thought I was exaggerating.) Truthfully, I wasn't so interested in the clear or pure part. I figured that anyone who ate sunlight and drank silence was going to be thin. Very, very thin.

I was right. I lost a lot of weight — quickly. I got down to 80 pounds, wore a size zero, and was finally as thin as anyone could dream of. At least, that's what my friends said. But here's the catch: When I looked at myself, I saw the same body I'd always seen: the thunder thighs, the sagging arms, the moon face. Whether my body weighed 80 pounds or 180, to me, it always seemed fat.

If you look at the world through shattered glasses, the world looks shattered. If you look at your body through "fat eyes," you see fat everywhere. To change how you see yourself, you must change the eyes with which you see.

You're probably thinking, Yeah, right, now what about all my cellulite? Well, what about it? It's there. You're not perfect — so what?

Being well is different from being perfect. It's important to take care of yourself, to eat in a way that gives you the energy to live your life exactly as you want to live it. But being well isn't the same as being thin. This is important: You can be well — yes, you can be happy — even if, in short sleeves, your arms don't look anything like Beyonce's.

If you agree, then think about how you talk to yourself. Imagine what it would be like to be with a friend who always criticized your body. "Oh, my God," she'd say, "have you actually taken a good look at yourself recently? Next thing you know, you'll need two seats on an airplane.

"Oh, and I just noticed the eyelid droop. Can't you fix that? Get some work done...in Brazil, maybe.

"Is that a french fry in your hand? Do yourself a favor and stop eating for a year or two."

If a friend spoke this way, what do you think you would do? Ask her to lunch? Thank her for being so honest? Or kick her out of your life? And yet we talk to ourselves in exactly this way, and it hurts.

This kind of talk makes us feel small and hopeless and ugly. It doesn't take into account the things about us that cannot be weighed or measured — and yet these are the most important things, the things that matter most.

Talking to yourself like this doesn't lead to change; it leads to feeling so awful that you have to eat a pint of ice cream to feel better.

Talking to yourself like this needs to stop. Today. Right now. Because all you ever know of any experience, including looking at your body, is how you talk to yourself, how you treat yourself, what you say to yourself.

How do you stop? Sometimes, when I'm teaching a small workshop, I ask each person to come up to a mirror, look at herself, and tell the group what she sees. The responses are always similar: fat face, mountainous thighs, stringy hair, saggy boobs, thick fingers. Nary a positive thing is said. Then I ask the person who is speaking to turn away from the mirror and notice how it feels to say those things to herself. When she stands back for even a moment, she is shocked at the level of cruelty she directs at her body.

I ask if she would ever let anyone talk to her like this. She says no.

I ask if being cruel to herself ever helped her lose weight. She says no.

Then I ask her to turn to the mirror again and tell me what she sees when she looks at herself with her heart instead of her "fat eyes."

Most often, she says something like this: "I see a mother, a wife, a person who is trying hard to do her best. I see clean hair. I see a fleshy belly left over from having kids. I see wonder in my eyes. I see what I saw in myself as a child. I see possibility, even after all these years."

And to that I say, "Wow.... Yes!"

This summer, try looking at yourself in a new way. See your real self. And when you no longer listen to that voice in the head, when you realize it's the past talking not you, you will feel more and more alive. More and more happy. That's such good news.

*******

You can learn a whole new way to relate to food – and explore the foundation upon which you build your life and your relationships – at my next retreat, November 14-17. Four days of immersion in constant support, endless kindness and ever present awareness. Such a blessing. Once you know those things are possible for you, you can never go back to believing that they're not. To find out more, click here.