Within the last year, our house has welcomed a baby and a puppy. As wonderful and magical as that is, it comes with its fair share of messes. From diapers, vomit, and puppy accidents, it’s enough to run you ragged.

And if you believe your floor is pretty clean, you’ll find out real fast that it isn’t. June and Scout have been picking things up off the ground and trying to eat everything in sight. Dots that you couldn’t see with the naked eye end up in your little one’s fingers and mouth. Then, it’s a mad dash to grab it out before they ingest it. I find myself running over while yelling, “Don’t eat that! Don’t eat that! Don’t eat that!” in the hope it’ll make them stop trying to swallow the object they shouldn’t have.

While June was napping and Scout was playing with our older dogs, that statement got me thinking: We get older and as far as junk on the floor goes, we avoid eating it at all costs. Funny enough though, we never grow out of the habit of ingesting stuff we shouldn’t. Now, you can take that in the food context if you’d like, our nation has become a hub for everything fast food and fried, but my mind went to something else.

RELATED: Hey Moms, Lose the Weight

We might not be eating crud off the floor, but we are taking in crud through our eyes every single day. Our phones, computers, and televisions flood us with every kind of information—some good, and well, an awful lot of crud. We’re ingesting negativity, self-loathing, selfishness, hatred, and for some, even worse.

It doesn’t show physically like it does with a toddler choking on a piece of plastic, but over time, it begins to choke us out mentally and emotionally, and then it turns into the physical. We swallow others’ words about us by trolling our posts and their feeds telling us we’re not good enough or that we’re doing everything wrong. Others’ success causes us to swallow shame and guilt for not being where we thought we’d be in life by now. The make-up queens and models make us hate ourselves for not looking like we should or not being as fit as we’d like.

The internet has given us access to so much that can be used for good, but equally, has caused us to eat so much crud that we break ourselves over it each and every day. It’s heartbreaking and it happens all too much. So, in case you need to hear it:

Don’t eat that guilt you’re feeling over not being a size two. You’re amazing and beautiful.

Don’t eat that shame you feel for not being married or having kids or not being in the financial spot you hoped you’d be in. You’re doing the hard work each and every day and that’s something to be proud of.

RELATED: I Live Loud and Love Big—And I’m Not Sorry

Don’t eat that hate you get when you post a cute video of your kid and all the trolls come out to play with their hurtful comments about how you’re the worst parent ever. You’re amazing and those people have way too much free time to complain about everyone.

Don’t eat that . . . insert whatever you’d like here, but the point is you don’t need to ingest everything you come in contact with. If it helps, picture a dog eating its own vomit (I know a bit extreme but it gets the point across!), and remember you’re better than that. We all are, we just need to start acting like it.

Take in the good—the fruits, veggies, and healthy options of the world—and throw out the crud. You’ll feel a lot better for it.

Originally published on the author’s blog