Your Zipper's Up and You're Booger Free

About the Book

Surviving being a teenager is getting harder and harder every year as teens are bombarded and exposed to adult centered media and information.

Just as Louise Hay in her book, "You Can Heal Your Life" has helped us become happier, healthier adults, "Your Zipper's Up and You're Booger Free" acts as an edgy self-help book to help teens realize they are okay just as they are and that they deserve to feel comfortable in their own skin.

Through sharing personal stories about growing up as well as conversations with clients regarding their struggles and ultimate growth, readers can explore their own thoughts and feelings about their lives and life situations and have the opportunity to relate to others. The end of each chapter provides room for the reader to write and reflect on his or her own life and self talk. This book allows the reader to do his or her own work and gain insight and understanding about his or herself. The book wraps up by encouraging the reader to change his or her negative messages to positive ones and encourages the reader to imagine a future full of success and happiness. There are examples of how to begin this process and make it part of a daily routine no matter what the reader's life situation is.

High school is the rite of passage we all go through on our way to adulthood. Doesn't every teen deserve the opportunity to normalize and enhance this experience and their life story in order to move toward adulthood feeling confident and authentic? Our future and theirs depends on it.

About the Author

Becky Tomaszewski is a master's level therapist licensed in the state of Arizona. While working on her master's degree in counseling at Arizona State University, she worked at ASU in the Women in Science and Engineering Department and had the opportunity to work with high school as well as college age women interested in the math and sciences. That work provided a strong reminder of the peer pressure that goes along with being in high school.

All throughout her career she has watched her nieces and nephews grow up at a distance (they are in Michigan). Becky would talk with her older sister about her oldest nephew entering high school and his routine of always checking his zipper and his nose before getting out of the car to head in to school. Hence the name of the book. This book had been developing in Becky's head for several years. When her oldest nephew was diagnosed with cancer in 2005, her outlook on life changed and she decided it was time to take a chance and put this book on paper.

Becky continues to counsel people of all ages with all kinds of issues. She has found over the last few years of working in an employee assistance program setting that she really enjoys working with teens. Seeing them gain a better sense of self and some relief in being able to talk about life and peer pressure and just open up and have their world normalized, that is a big part of her joy and passion.