sincerelyanonblog - Tumblr blog

[sincerelyanonblog]

Dear oh-my-ouat,

My Tumblr is dedicated to sending letters and asks to other users who deserve some appreciation or reassurance. This week, you posted that you need some cheering up. I guess this can be for anyone who needs it, but I made you a big list of things that will hopefully bring you comfort and cheer <3

TO DO:

Fill up on hugs here

Nab yourself some emergency compliments

Surf through some pictures of the everyday life of a wookie

Treat yourself to pictures and videos of the cutest animals ever

Search 'Disneyland POV rides' on Youtube

Play 2048

Download a Nancy Drew mystery game for around $5

Joke generator

Snuggle up in front of these live cams of Disneyland. Nothing like waiting around for the fireworks to start :)

Lots of comfort food recipes

Quick snacks and treats

101 ways to cheer yourself up

Play the Westward Trail game

Let this puppy lick your screen

Make it rain cats

Play this game

Paint, Pollock-style

Spin around 3D space, drawing a line. Looks like you're building a rollercoaster while you're riding it

Draw a stickman and send it on adventures

TO LISTEN TO:

Songs to make you feel better

Lovely background noises, like rainstorms and campfires and the hum of a train

Old radio shows

A virtual haircut, just for fun (also, it reminds me of an old part of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln)

Audio books in the public domain

TO WATCH:

The Mindy Project (seriously, if you check out any of these, this is the one - you'll be laughing forever)

Whose Line is It Anyway? (when you finish the ten seasons, there's a whole nother round of British episodes)

Swoozie's vlogs (good stuff in general, but I really like his stories about Disney)

Hilarious parodies of Harry Potter, Lady Gaga, Vampire Diaries, Twilight, Warm Bodies, etc.

A whole treasure trove of videos of Disneyland

Even more videos of Disneyland (so, so good and comforting)

Vlogs by Andrew Ducote

A feel-good, hysterical series about self-aware Barbie dolls

Fun vlogs by a fun guy

Search YouTube for 'movie trailers recut.' This is one of my favorites: Mrs. Doubtfire recut as a horror film.

A video of a walkthrough of Disneyland

Old Nickelodeon shows

Blooper reels from your favorite shows on YouTube

Google Translate trying to sing popular songs

TO READ:

Super funny comics about the artist's dog, a fish, and her childhood

An adventure, war, romance web comic

A list of feel-good facts

Good news

Popular Wattpad stories

Handwritten letters, spanning across many decades

A digital archive of old letters and manuscripts

Creepy stories of paranormal encounters

Stories about different times Disney employees have made magic for guests

Quotes to make the day a little easier

I hope you treat yourself to a lot of comfort and cheer this weekend. Feel free to message me if you need!

Sincerely,

Anonymous

[sincerelyanonblog]

Dear practicallydisney

My Tumblr is dedicated to sending letters and asks to other users who deserve some appreciation or reassurance. This week, one of your posts caught my eye and I wrote you this letter.

Recently, you posted:

I am a bit chubby, not overweight by any means. And if I did NOT want to be actor, I would be completely happy and comfortable with my body. But, the problem is I DO want to be an actor. And realistically, I have to lose weight in order to give myself the best chance possible. And it kinda fucking sucks. (source)

This post struck such a chord with me. I want to start by sending you a massive hug. And I want to tell you that I know, very well, where you are coming from. So while I have a lot to tell you in this letter, I don't want you to feel like I'm telling you you're wrong for what you think. I have felt and thought that too. What I am telling you, though, is that you are already completely, entirely, perpetually worthy and deserving of your dream, from this moment forward and backward. You have always deserved every opportunity and chance based only on the fact that acting is one of your dreams and I mean it.

The beauty industry's job is to make its customers dependent on the services they provide. If they don't, then there's no beauty industry. That's basically how every industry works, right? But here is the tricky part: in this case, they tend to achieve this by embedding insecurities in us or perpetuating the ones we already carry. Its efficient. Its smart on their part. But it is so detrimental for everyone on the receiving end. After considering this for a long time, I wasn't surprised that I grew up with body image issues. I'm not surprised that you don't like how you look. I'm not really surprised if anyone doesn't like their bodies these days. Because that is what they are raising us up to believe about ourselves; that is what they are training us to think and practice and pass on to everyone else around us.

But really, who ever decided that how we appear matters anyway?? Maybe consider that for a little while. Do we even know whose beauty standards we're trying to meet anymore?? Even if we did, why are we supposed to take their word for it?? Push back.

Have you ever heard of a panopticon? It's a building design where there's one inspection house and jail cells, classrooms, offices, whatever is being watched encircling it. The whole point was that, in this type of building, the people being held there will never know whether or not they're being watched by guards in the inspection house. That created an interesting effect: The guards can't really watch all the inmates, all at the same time, all the time. But if the inmates don't know whether they are being watched, they probably still act like they are (as a just-in-case sort of thing). It really grooms people to be paranoid, to a certain extent; to self-govern. And while that can be useful in some cases...

I've started thinking lately that we live in a panopticon society and that, I really believe, is NOT helpful.

In your case, the watch tower in the middle is the beauty industry's ideals. They govern a lot of us. And when they aren't watching, telling us how to dress, how to wear our make-up, what body type we should have, we're doing it for them: we self-govern according to the rules they set up and tell ourselves we are or aren't doing well enough, like you just did in your post. In a sense, that watch tower guards us so much for so long that we learn what they do and don't want from us. Then we start to deliver. Even Hollywood delivers to the beauty ideals.

Well, there's a reason why the panopticons didn't really work out and are met with a lot of resistance.

You don't need to listen to what they tell you to think about your body. Please. You really, really don't.

If you're anything like me, then your reaction to that just now was: But I want to be an actress. Maybe you think that if you don't subscribe to what they're saying, you won't be able to make it. This makes me incredibly sad, but, I realize: maybe you won't. I realize that there are people who are strict like this; who believe what the watch tower says so much that they won't let you get a foot in the door. But there are people on the other end of the spectrum, too, who will help you get where you want to go.

The other day, I was having the same internal conversation with myself as I'm having now with you. I have been scrutinizing my own dreams a lot lately - mainly, thinking about how I could achieve them all so much quicker and more easily if I just did it the way that everyone said; traveled the road that had already been paved by someone else. But the system never changes if no one ever changes it. And that's the thought that I keep clinging to, every time I want to take the easy or pre-existing route. If you think what they're telling you sucks, help change it. Don't just follow something that you think is a "sucky" idea.

Malone, what if boys and girls and men and women didn't have to feel like you feel right now? Someone has to tell them that they don't. Someone has to show them that they can be a success and achieve their dreams their own way; being themselves. Again, if you're anything like me, then I immediately draw back and go, Well, of course that's not ME. But what if it is? Maybe you're supposed to be an actress. But maybe you're supposed to help reset those standards. Maybe you're supposed to pave a better path for people to follow. Somebody helped establish our current belief system about beauty at some point. That system changes all the time. Someone has to be involved in that process of change. Why shouldn't it be you? Or someone like you, who recognizes the detriment?

Right now, you're hearing what Hollywood is telling you to think. But what do you think? If you could, what would you pick - to have to change yourself to get anywhere or be enough, be successful, as you already are? And would you ever really tell another person that they have to change their body - literally just what their body grew up to look like, which is literally one of the most natural and beautiful processes in this world?? Would you feel good telling them that? Then don't tell yourself that.

I know this is a lot. I know thoughts and body image and things like that don't change in the time it takes a person to read a letter. I still have issues with things like this myself sometimes. But if you take anything away from this, I hope it is this: It is OK to try to meet certain standards or expectations. But it is not OK when they start changing how you think about yourself. For example you can dress-up for an interview to be a specific (formal) version of yourself. But you shouldn't become that version. You shouldn't let yourself buy into the lie that if you aren't that formal person all the time, in the heels and pantsuit, then you aren't good enough. Because you are. You always are. What you are right this second is good. Not "good enough." GOOD. Right this second.

People fight people all the time about much smaller things. But this is you. This is your body. I'm sure you've pushed back against someone else's ideas or standards or rules before. Push back and stand up for yourself - you are the first thing you should always defend! 

You don't have to literally stand up at fight the ideals. Like I said I believe in being versions of ourselves according to the situations and demands. But I don't believe that those "job descriptions" should turn into what you believe about yourself. It's okay if you down that pre-paved road. Just know and believe and remember that you are so good enough and that you are headed for great things along the way.

I look forward to seeing you in the movies.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

[sincerelyanonblog]

Dear tumbleupondisney

My Tumblr is dedicated to sending letters and asks to other users who deserve some appreciation or reassurance. This week, one of your posts caught my eye and I wrote you this letter.

Recently, you posted that your self esteem hasn't been doing so hot and that you're sorry "for not being beautiful inside and out." You asked, "How do I love myself?"

First things first, everyone I've ever talked to, heard of, even looked at across the street goes through the same exact rough patch with their self esteem. Literally everyone. I think it has to do with how, as children, we're not very self aware. Our world isn't very big. Then we start growing up; we start realizing a lot about the world around us. Part of that involves realizing a lot about ourselves. As a kid, I never really thought about whether I liked who I was. But when I got older, I automatically started liking and disliking things about myself. It's okay if you don't like parts about yourself. But that does not EVER mean you shouldn't love yourself.

The best advice I've ever found to help me love myself comes from a woman named Joyce Meyer. She once wrote on the topic, saying: "Rejection starts as a seed that is planted in our lives through different things that happen to us... it will develop into a root that will go way down and have other little rootlets attached to it. Eventually these roots and rootlets will become a tree." She also writes: "People who reject themselves do so because they cannot see themselves as proper or right. They only see their flaws and weaknesses, not their beauty and strength. This is an unbalanced attitude probably instilled by authority figures in the past who majored on what was weak and wrong rather than what was strong and right."

So what is proper and right and beautiful and strong in you, Hitomi?  We all have that voice in the back of our minds that tells us that list is empty; that we shouldn't love ourselves because we are too flawed or damaged to deserve our own acceptance. Sometimes, it feels like I would be doing something wrong by condoning and loving parts of who I am; things I've done. Those kinds of thoughts are wrong. Those are the ones that will help build that tree and break you down. It is okay to love and approve of yourself.

Think of all the things you do and all that you've accomplished. You run an incredible blog. You are a lovely person. I have followed you from a different account for quite some time and I look up to you so much. And guess what? You deserve it. You are worth loving yourself.

We have high standards for ourselves. I'm willing to bet you see some of your "flaws" in other people. But I'm also willing to bet that's never stopped you from loving that person. You are the first and most important person that you should love. Stop letting insecurities intercept that message, when it's running from your heart to your head. Don't be afraid. There is so much power in embracing who you are and shutting out that voice in your head. Let love take charge. HUGS.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

[sincerelyanonblog]

Dear iheartrussiansantaclause

My Tumblr is dedicated to sending letters and asks to other users who deserve some appreciation or reassurance. This week, one of your posts caught my eye and I wrote you this letter.

Recently, you asked someone, “Have you ever made a simple mistake but you just felt so awful about yourself and just wanted to cry because you felt like such a failure?”

You are not a failure, my friend. You made a mistake. Those are two very different things.

But you aren’t alone in feeling like this. It happens to a lot of people, a lot of times, and it’s perfectly fine that we get upset over mistakes. Being super strict with yourself and getting upset over the fact that you’re upset won’t help you feel any better. (Even though I’m guilty of this a lot.) It is okay to be upset with yourself. But it's important that you don't let this kind of thing seep into what you really think about yourself. Give yourself the time and room to react. Cry about the mistake you made and what it made you feel. Or burrito yourself in a blanket and distract yourself by going into movies or books or radio shows.

And then, a little ways down the road, after you’ve comforted yourself some, comes a harder part: building yourself back up. You wrote that it was “a simple mistake.” So why are you kicking yourself so hard for it? Really think about that. Why are you punishing yourself?

I am sorry that this experience made you feel so awful. I am rooting for you. I really hope that you are able to burrito yourself in a blanket for a sufficient amount of time and that you reemerge able to realize how awesome and successful you really are. Strengthen that voice in your head that remembers that. And fight that negative mess of hatred and frustration… even when it’s spilling out inside of you, friend. HUGS.

Sincerely, Anonymous