Everything is a balancing act. On good days, it’s easier to maintain a routine, but it’s different for everyone, and even good days these days can be hard to manage. Now, we’re trying to balance the daily intricacies of work and leisure, relationships with self and others, against a backdrop of fairly constant terror, sadness, and rage. This isn’t the beginning, but … [Read more...]
10 Toxic Things I’m Leaving in 2017
This New Year what if you resolved to deepen your radical self love journey? When you become a #NoBodiesInvisible subscriber at the $19.99/mo Radical Investor level you will receive our 10 Tools to Radical Self-Love 4-week e-course. You don’t need a new you. You need a YOU you love more! Visit www.tbinaa.com/subscriber to find out more … [Read more...]
What Happened When I Broke Our Hearts: Lessons on Love and Care in 2017
I Kept Offering My Heart to Beautiful Boys Who I Knew Didn’t Want It Michel Foucault once said he became smart for the attention of beautiful boys. I had an argument with a friend about it once. I related to this sentiment, as I now realize I had built my personality around compensating for my fat body, and hadn’t yet achieved the results I yearned for. I thought this tactic … [Read more...]
“It Doesn’t Have To Be All or Nothing:” 5 Lessons 2017 Taught Me To Make Self-Love More Tangible & Less Catch Phrase
To be real, my people and I were lacking in a lot of faith moving into 2017. There was a lot of love lost and it felt like all of our vanguards of light and hope were peacing out (Prince, Carrie Fisher, Afeni Shakur, etc etc) so as not to deal with huger unforeseen collective trash fires to come. Suffice it to say, the advent of a new year felt like an imperative time to focus … [Read more...]
Loving My Body For What It Is And Not For What It Produces
I’ve hit this paradox where I can imagine my life in 20 years but I can’t really imagine me living the next four. I can imagine myself in the future, graduated with two degrees, perhaps working as a full-time social scientist, researcher, or maybe a lawyer, living as an activist, archivist, writer, or maybe all three. I can dream up stability, I can dream up security, I can … [Read more...]
All Bodies Are Holy: Why Selfies Empower My Genderqueer Self
A long time ago, some time in the early to mid-'90s, I was sitting in the back seat of my parents' shitty Ford sedan. In my working-class family’s economy car, there was very little room in the back seat, and my little brother's sweaty head lay heavy against my side. We traveled along the Shoreway with the meager Cleveland skyline to the right and the vast marine nothingness of … [Read more...]
Practicing Radical Self-Love: Why You Need Self Care The Most When It Seems Impossible
Last week, for the first time in my life, my skin erupted with red, swollen hives. Every inch of my skin felt like it was on fire. At first, I thought I was experiencing an extreme allergic reaction to something new, although I’ve never before been this allergic to anything. But then I learned I was experiencing an anxiety attack. Rattled by this experience, I wept from sheer … [Read more...]
The Evolution of Femininity: Does Radical Self Love Mean I Have to Give Up My Lipstick?
On the journey of loving yourself well, it can be difficult to discern which conventions of society are helpful and which ones are harmful. There are many questions I’ve asked myself—especially as a feminist and as a woman. What are the true origins of my modesty? Can I be strong and still like the color pink? Am I offended when someone refers to me as a girl? How do I feel … [Read more...]
I’m a Lover & a Fighter: Why I’m Choosing to Value Tenderness While Trying to Fight Oppression
Coming from a spoken word community, my writing has always been in the bones of my activism. I don’t know for sure how I feel about something until it’s been translated by my keyboard. So, for years I wrote the poems I felt an activist was obligated to write. My professional life was one of anger and revolution even when my personal life was something else entirely. … [Read more...]
Coming Into My Gender: 5 Reasons Identifying as a Demiguy Brings Me Both Fear & Freedom
I identify as demiguy, and I use they/them pronouns. What does that mean, you ask? Demigender is defined as the gender identity one holds when they identify with one aspect of the gender spectrum, but not completely. This identity is related to other nonbinary identities in that they both inherently reject the idea that gender is restricted simply to man and woman. Being … [Read more...]
Why I Took Off My Hijab
This article first appeared in Magdalene.co, an Indonesia-based feminist web magazine, and is reposted with permission. An increasing number of women have approached me to talk about their hijab-wearing decision. One person told me she has been having thoughts about taking off her hijab because she felt she has grown increasingly "naughty" and “bad.” Her reason for this was … [Read more...]
7 Radical Self Love Strategies That Positively Impact Your Pockets
In order to love yourself well, that love must permeate every aspect of your life. There are many forces in the world that either subtly or overtly encourage the denial or destruction of self—or that foster self-dissatisfaction. One must be vigilant. Loving yourself is important, but it isn’t always easy. It can be a struggle when so much of our culture is entrenched in … [Read more...]
7 Ways the Body Positive Community Can Do Better
Body positivity is a word that only entered into the mainstream lexicon within the past year or so. While some media outlets would like you to believe this concept starts and ends with white cis models and celebrities size 14 and under, there are advocates who have been working and fighting for the fair and equal treatment of fat sizes since the 1960s. The amount of times … [Read more...]
#UnpackingPretty: Why the Word “Pretty” Made Me Cringe
One afternoon in late August of last year, my mom gathered the young girls, ages 9-14, in the den. She wanted to speak to them about how to “carry yourself” as a young lady. Recognize your presence. “Walk with your head high. Remember that you are smart, loved, and pretty.” I cringed slightly at the last word “pretty” when I heard it and became curious as to why I … [Read more...]
4 Common Phrases That Demonstrate Internalized Misogyny
This article was originally published at EverydayFeminism.com and republished with permission. When the entire world tells you that you’re inferior, it’s hard not to start believing it – even at some subconscious level. This is especially true for people from marginalized groups. Often, the media, the government, legal systems, and our communities treat us as inferior, … [Read more...]
Good Grief: Balancing Radical Self Love & Mourning
In wake of the police murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile,we are publishing this piece to remind you it is okay and necessary to grieve in whatever way that looks like for you. Black death by white officers takes a communal toll and we must allow ourselves to process and create safe space to do so. “I will not say, “Do not weep,” for not all tears are an evil.” ~ … [Read more...]
The Body Is Not an Apology
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