The American Sweetheart, Valerie Bertinelli, turns 65 today, and the forever star celebrated the occasion with a makeup-free selfie and some well-deserved apple fritters cake for breakfast.
An open book on love, relationships and body image, as Bertinelli shared with us in a personal and revealing essay in 2022, even after the heyday of One Day at a Time, a long-standing acting career, and the cult-following cookbooks, it can sometimes be hard for her to “believe the good.”
“It’s so strange to hear people say nice things about me, mainly because I’m not used to those positive words rolling around in my head,” she said at the time. “I know I don’t tell myself kind things enough, but how great would it be if we all focused on the kind things that are said about us and the kind people that we really, truly are. We are all born with a good heart and kindness in us. Yet, somehow it gets wiped away by the hardships we go through during our childhood, our lives and all of the traumas we are forced to work through along the way. But we must start listening to the good. I want to start believing the good feedback. I need to start believing the good feedback! If it’s so easy for me to believe the bad things, why isn’t it easy for me to believe the good things?”
The reflective Bertinelli was quick to say she knows many of us share the same sentiment: “I know that goes for all of us. Maybe it’s simply a matter of just switching our minds over to say, ‘I’m worthy of the good things as well. And I’ll fix the things that I find uncomfortable and probably aren’t doing me any service, and I’ll go back to the good. Because that’s the way I can live in joy, and that’s the way I can spread joy when I already feel good about myself.’”
The birthday girl also admitted that something that “holds her back” is her own feelings surrounding her weight. “For me, the big thing is my weight—it’s the thing that holds me back. But I want to start feeling the same about myself—no matter what weight I am. I don’t have to wait until I’ve lost weight to be kind to myself and to be kind to others. It shouldn’t matter what I look like. I’m trying to make that a reality in my life, and then, hopefully, my body will follow.”
One thing she did say she had learned at the time was letting the feelings flow. “I’ve learned this past year is that, sometimes, you just have to let yourself feel the feeling. I’ve spent most of my life trying to push down feelings that were uncomfortable…and that, for me, includes food, and I used food in a way that wasn’t healthy. I know I still do it. Even recently, I noticed myself grabbing some crackers after I finished an intense interview, and I said, ‘Oh, I know what I’m doing right now, I’m eating because eating makes me feel good, and I’m doing it because I’m uncomfortable because I just shared a lot of feelings.’”
The bottom line, Bertinelli poignantly penned, “Being aware of why we do what we do is very helpful. It sounds so simple, but I think it’s something none of us learned in school…and it would be wonderful if we could all start.”
