Ily (I Love You): One Teen Girl's Guide to a Bully-Proof Adolescence

By Julia Weber

OK - so picture this. Youre at home in front of the mirror. Telling yourself exactly what you think of yourself.
Too fat. Too pasty. Too little.
And thats just your little finger youre looking at. You dont even think of paying yourself one single compliment. Are you your own worst enemy?

Enter the bully - she can pick you in a moment. She knows she can take a shot at you and youll fall down in a heap, and you know why? Because shes actually on your side, shes picking you to pieces in the same way that you treat yourself.
Theres really only one lasting solution to the bullying nightmare. Youve gotta learn to ILY yourself and understand that its not your problem.

ILY is short for I LOVE YOU, and this self-help book for teen girls teaches the importance of loving yourself and others so you can be happy in the teenage years.
14 year-old Australian teenager Julia Weber knows only too well what its like to be bullied, both in person and via cyberspace.
She has become an anti-bullying campaigner and now fills the pages of ILY with heart-warming, witty and practical advice for teen girls about everything from bullying and low self esteem to gratitude and forgiveness.
Julia uses affirmations from the worlds most famous self help author Louise L Hay, writing teen translations of her words which are fresh and relevant.
She speaks at conferences, participates in research and is part of a youth advisory panel which advises on counselling services for young people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Jul 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452502298

Julia Weber

Julia Weber (Dr. phil.) ist Leiterin der Emmy Noether-Nachwuchsgruppe »Bauformen der Imagination. Literatur und Architektur in der Moderne« am Peter Szondi-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin.

Book preview

ILY - Table of Contents

Introduction

I LOVE ME,

WHO DO YOU LOVE?……..self belief

IF THEY JUMPED OFF A CLIFF ………..belonging

THERE’S ALWAYS ONE…… bullying

THAT’S AWKWARD…..self-consciousness

TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT! WHO DO WE APPRECIATE?……gratitude

I’M GONNA MAKE YOU PAY……forgiveness

IT’S NOT THAT HARD…..happiness

Introduction

If there’s one thing I know about, it’s teenagers. I am 14 years old so obviously that gives me some firsthand experience. But I am also the youngest in a very modern family. My parents divorced when I was three and my mother remarried when I was five. I have two half brothers, one natural brother, one stepbrother and two stepsisters. If you need help with the math, I am the youngest of seven kids, and I’ve had to put up with more teenage stuff than your average sibling.

So that means I get away with like, zero. My parents know every trick in the book which makes me cranky to say the least. You know those times when you really want to go somewhere but you know your parents won’t let you? So you make up this whole story as to why you should be able to go. Sometimes your parents are convinced, sometimes not. Well for me, it’s usually the ‘not’ option because they’ve heard the story six times before. Great for me!

Then when I put my own puberty on top of that, life’s just a barrel of laughs around here!

I am lucky to have a Mum who is very switched-on and she’s taught me a lot about looking within myself to find the answers to my problems and to seek happiness rather than fights.

She’s also taught me to take positive ideas from little cards called affirmation cards, and I have them tacked up all over my bedroom. It was those cards that gave me the idea for this book. I have really found that they help me to turn my mood around when I’m feeling miserable. I read them and the words soon become part of my feelings about things - they overtake the sadness or the anger I was engulfed by earlier.

Affirmations and a good laugh are the two cures for my teenage woes.

I would like to thank Leon Nacson who encouraged me to write this book. He mentioned that some of the world’s leading recording artists use affirmations as lyrics in their songs and this sparked a thought for me.

And of course I would like to thank my Mum who has helped me all the way.

I don’t think there would be a single teenage girl in the world who wouldn’t benefit from using affirmations, so I am sharing my experience in the hope that others may get some benefit as well. I go to an all girls school in Australia but when I was in Grade Six I spent a year in Canada at a co-ed school and I found the situation there to be much the same. Girls at this age are MEAN, that is all there is to it, k? Believe me when I say I’ve