Radical Self-Love for Everybody and Every Body
It can seem overwhelming and pointless to fight the bombardment of negative body image information we receive all day in the media and the people around us. Yet, there are ways to deal with the parts of our bodies that still cause us discomfort without succumbing to damaging body shame.
I needed an outlet, and Pokemon had always been one of those escapes into which I could fall.
While I firmly believe these utterances are always said with good intentions, they usually do more harm than good.
Time away from romantic relationship broke the spell of my belief that I was incomplete and unworthy and on the brink of disaster if I am “alone.”
When I see someone teaching kids to hate their bodies, I’m mad.Helping kids feel good about their bodies in this fat-phobic culture isn’t easy, and we need to be able to talk about body size in an open and non-judgmental way. Not only will they be exposed to messages in the media and on the playground, as members of this weight shaming culture, parents often their own attitudes toward weight that are passed down – often unintentionally – to their children. While we can’t control all of the messages our children will receive, we can do our best to make sure we aren’t contributing to the negative ones.
Cuando sea que haya empezado, siento que ya tengo la experiencia suficiente luego de tantos años de sufrir ansiedad para saber que lo que las personas le dicen a quienes sufrimos de ansiedad puede afectar profundamente su estado de ánimo y su bienestar.
As I have watched the national dialogue unfold around sexual harassment and sexual violence, I can’t help but take notice of the lack of tie in to a much larger picture: namely, how men have abused their power to dominate and inflict violence upon not only women (and women of color in particular), but our Mother Earth.
Even when the ideas and terms I was using to describe myself were new and unfamiliar to them, my loved ones never doubted that what I was experiencing was real and important to me. They never challenged the validity of my gender. Instead, they let me know they trusted my perception of myself.
Many disabilities come with stigma, and family members try to hide certain disabilities from one another or from people outside of the family. If you talk about accepting differences, but don’t actually live that out in your own family, your child will learn to see disabilities as something bad that need to be hidden. I have always been honest with my son that I have an invisible disability, mental illness.
Through the process of reviewing all these records, I was able to understand what I had previously only understood more intellectually: it’s thanks to white supremacy that I exist on this continent in this millennium. If not for white supremacy, my very being would never exist.
This version of cruelty is different than previous versions and we do have a responsibility, as a world to expect better from one another.
You are not alone. We are all too fabulous to be held hostage to celebrations that don’t celebrate us. Be well. And remember the most important part of HALT – you deserve to be cared for and to save some of your energy to care for yourself.
One of my favorite axioms in progressive circles is, “The very fact that you can read/hear/access these words in this moment shows that you carry a certain amount of privilege.” If anyone can tell me where this line originated, I will personally buy you an inexpensive beverage. It’s an astute assessment and, no matter how much we may want to play the hero and deny whatever privilege we may have, doing so is only to deny reality.
My children will never see a man raise his hand to me, or feel the fear within their hearts when I am struck to the ground. They will not have to see me stumbling around in a drunken stupor, destroying things out of rage, and they will not be hit by me.
As we roll ever closer to the U.S. presidential election, along with waking up to more news of police violence against people of color, self-care is likely going to be high on all of our to-do lists.
