free downloads

5 Best Apps for Beating Comparison on Social Media

Journaling Prompts Workbook for Higher Self-Esteem

Gratitude Workbook to Cultivate More Joy

Checklist To Reduce Your Time Spent On Your Phone

OUR FAVOURITE BOOKS

Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are

Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us

iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough"

Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women

Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

THOUGHT PROVOKING DOCUMENTARIES

The Realists is an innovative documentary project exploring how technology and social media are impacting people’s self esteem and self-image - and advocating for a mindful use of these tools. Currently being filmed.

Learn more at www.therealists.org

Sex sells. What sells even more? Insecurity. Here are the first four minutes of the feature-length documentary The Illusionists, which explores commercial culture and the marketing of unattainable beauty ideals around the world.

For more info, visit: www.theillusionists.org

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays was the first person (1920’s) to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

talks on body image

Why is it so hard to like your body? Asap Science produced a great scientific video exactly about this AND provided tips about how to start feeling good now.

From Cassey Ho of Blogilates. When you look in the mirror, are you happy with what you see? Or do you stare at yourself, pinching your fat away, lifting up your butt, pushing in your boobs, wishing you looked like a VS supermodel? It's hard to be content with the shape of your body when people are constantly telling you how fat you are.

Using a mix of poetry and narrative, Rupi Kaur weaves together a powerful and cathartic story - which in spite of great trauma, ends where it begins - by restoring the feeling of home within your body. warning: this talk contains descriptions of sexual violence which may be triggering to survivors.

Girls grow up hearing both implicit and explicit messages suggesting that the most important attribute they can strive for is beauty. The chronic focus on beauty directs cognitive, financial, and emotional resources away from other more important goals.

Cameron Russell admits she won "a genetic lottery": she's tall, pretty and an underwear model. But don't judge her by her looks. In this fearless talk, she takes a wry look at the industry that had her looking highly seductive at barely 16-years-old. (Filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic.)

On this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty sits down with Supermodel, designer, and barrier-breaking body activist Ashley Graham. Ashley opens up about how she went from hating her body to loving it and making it her purpose to encourage others to do the same.

Pioneering activist and cultural theorist Jean Kilbourne has been studying the image of women in advertising for over 40 years. In this rapid-fire, passionate, and highly entertaining talk, she discusses the experiences that inspired her to create this new field and vividly illustrates how these images affect us all. You'll never look at an ad in the same way again.

"You are fat"... "You are ugly"... "You are disgusting". That's what millions of women around the world say to themselves in the mirror every day. That's what Taryn said to herself every day before she realised that her body is not an ornament; it's the vehicle to her dreams. This talk explores the global issue of body loathing and what we can do to change our own perspective and the unrealistic standards that surround us.

How quickly do female beauty standards and the 'perfect' woman's body change? Let's look at the trends that have dominated the media in the last 100 years and see if we can work out where we're going...

talks on technology & social media

A 37-year old mom goes undercover as an 11-year old girl to expose the dangers facing kids on social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Kik. Left unsupervised, young children can be exposed to online predators, grooming, and psychological abuse within minutes.

A handful of people working at a handful of tech companies steer the thoughts of billions of people every day, says design thinker Tristan Harris. From Facebook notifications to Snapstreaks to YouTube autoplays, they're all competing for one thing: your attention.

We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says technosociologist Zeynep Tufecki. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information.

“WHEN YOU ARE 2 years old, your mother knows more about you than you know yourself. As you get older, you begin to understand things about your mind that even she doesn’t know. But then, says Yuval Noah Harari, another competitor joins the race: "Yo… — “WHEN YOU ARE 2 years old, your mother knows more about you than you know yourself. As you get older, you begin to understand things about your mind that even she doesn’t know. But then, says Yuval Noah Harari, another competitor joins the race: "You have this corporation or government running after you, and they are way past your mother, and they are at your back." Amazon will soon know when you need lightbulbs right before they burn out. YouTube knows how to keep you staring at the screen long past when it’s in your interest to stop. An advertiser in the future might know your sexual preferences before they are clear to you. (And they’ll certainly know them before you’ve told your mother.).” - Nicholas Thompson
Watch Nicholas Thompson’s interview with Tristan Harris and Yuval Noah Harari on Wired here.