Body Image and Self Love
Are you around on Tuesday night?
8PM EST / 5PM PST?
Join me, @tiffanyima, @missalexlarosa, and @tessholliday when we chat about all things body image and self-love with the fabulous humans @moxxiemade.
This event is FREE interactive forum hosted on Zoom, accepting donations for @thelovelandfoundation - an organization supporting the therapeutic needs of Black women and girls. This is an organization that I support independently, and I’m over the moon that this event will further that support.
Head to @moxxiemade to sign up! Or check out the link in my stories.
Can’t wait to see you there!
xoxo,
a
Your Body Knows How to Handle Food
It is expected that you’ll eat past comfortable fullness if you haven’t eaten enough. If you haven’t eaten in too many hours. If you’ve not been able to meet your energetic need. If you’re avoiding foods that satisfy for the sake of the foods you might feel you ‘should’ eat and enjoy.
This is expected. This is not a moral issue.
And if this happens, know that you won’t always be full.
Wait.
Then eat again.
Especially if you’re not a fan of the uncomfortable fullness that follows not getting enough, regularly incorporated food. Or the less happy digestive process that follows irregular energy intake.
Empty isn’t good. Full isn’t bad.
Your body knows how to handle food.
Respect Your Earthsuit
SWIPE THROUGH
Perhaps your body experience is like that of so many others.
Always wishing for the updated version, & often wishing that the updated version was a past version of you. I hear this all the time. From folks who look at photographs of their younger selves, adoringly. Wondering why they didn’t see what they can see so clearly, now. From folks who went through normal developmental stages & were made to feel shame for the ways their bodies completed these processes.
Perhaps the humans who raised you, the people who witnessed your development & aging, never normalized the process. Perhaps they never spoke about their own experiences, or, made you feel as though you & your body we’re going through a stage incorrectly.
Perhaps you are substantially influenced by what you see reflected in the media. And you remain perplexed because you never see you.
You take that on as though it is a YOU problem.
How many of us have spent time wishing for our younger bodies? Elevating them in our minds as though if we could re-experience life in them, we would do it so very differently. I appreciate the human call for a do-over.
Because that is not how life or bodies work, I wonder what it might be like to look at your body, right now, today, & welcome it, in whatever stage it is in.
Your body is good. It is resilient, it has been shaped by your experiences, it has brought you to today. I am grateful for your body. Because that Earthsuit? That’s your carrying case.
That is what brought you here, today, to read this. I have endless respect for you & your Earthsuit.
Writing prompts:
1. What are the factors that influenced the way I experienced my body as it went through life stages? If I could do it again, what would I like more of? Less of?
2. What would it be like to practice accepting the body I live in today? Not loving it or hating it, but accepting it in the same way that we accept gravity as the reason that we are not floating.
3. How might my experience of being in this body change if I were to have compassion for its history, and curiosity about its future?
4. Make a list of five things that make your body uniquely yours.
Exhaustion is Not a Badge of Honor
Zero points awarded for being the first person to hit the wall.
The fatigue that we are feeling right now is a new and very different kind of fatigue. The new normal that is happening around us is exhausting. And because we don’t know when this new normal is going to shift, we need to stay for the long-haul.
Please rest.
Body Size is Not a Diagnostic Tool
Reminders:
Body size is not a diagnostic tool.
Weight stigma is deadly.
You deserve to be taken seriously.
You deserve respectful care.
I see you.
Really, It's Okay
Really, it’s okay.
It’s okay if you have a memory of an earlier version of your body that felt easier to live in. It’s okay if part of you believes that your life would be happier and sunnier and brighter if your body were different. It’s okay if part of that is true.
This is what diet and wellness culture screams from the sidelines. “Encouraging“ us to do the next extreme thing. To follow the next diet trend, or exercise craze, for the sake of finding body peace.
Body peace is not found in endlessly pushing to change a body.
It’s okay if you wish that living in your skin were easier. I wish that for you, too.
And if being in your body does not feel comfortable today, know that you can still take care of it just the same. And that self-care, alone, can improve the experience of being in your body.
Disability Pride Month Final Requests
Okay so now that we are making eye contact, and respecting my wishes for assistance or not, it’s time to talk about ableism.
If you live in an able body, this is likely something that you’ve never been made to contend with. But the world is designed for people who walk and people who stand. It’s also designed for people who have the ability to reach or bend down without risk. (again, I am not speaking for all disabled humans, I am only speaking about my experience here…)
If you know or care about someone who is disabled, there are a few specific thoughts that I would like to offer.
1. Be up for changing plans. In the not so distant past, and in unfamiliar territory, I had to try to gain access to THREE restaurants before finding one that I could actually enter comfortably. Fortunately, I was with friends who were willing to accompany me on this journey and made the issue about access NOT my body. At one time, I might’ve made this entirely about me, but I’m now able to see that it is about accessibility. And right now, inclusive design and accessibility aren’t always considered. I have to be willing to change my plans. Please be willing to change yours with me.
2. Let me know what I’m getting myself into. Are we meeting in a place that has a ramp? Does it have stairs and will it require a little bit of walking? Will I need to stand for a long period of time? Are there chairs widely available? Is this place crowded? Is there room for me and my mobility aids? Do I need to have fully functional arms and legs to enjoy where we are meeting? Or what we’re doing?
It’s not your job to decide for me whether or not I join you in a social setting, but it is greatly appreciated when I feel supported in doing the more difficult, braver thing and put myself into the world.
3. Identify and recognize ableism as you see it. Join me in my frustration. I recently stayed in a hotel that was labeled “accessible,” and it had a step to access the bathroom. I can take a step right now, but on no planet is that accessible. That is total BS.
Being a disabled person can sometimes feel isolating, and support & solidarity from those around me matters.
You Are Allowed
SHAME (noun)
a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
GUILT (noun)
Feeling responsible or regretful for a perceived offense, real or imaginary.
We’ve all likely felt guilty and shameful in the context of being human. They are real experiences. But they have NO place in your experiences with food.
It is never morally wrong or foolish to eat.
What you eat is not offensive. Period.
When I hear the words guilt and shame related to food, I get very curious. I’d encourage you to be similarly inquisitive.
Is the feeling of guilt/shame your own? Or based on someone else’s story?
Is it coming from a diet culture message that places moral judgement on food choices?
How does the feeding of guilt or shame effect your eating experience? (It does. and only negatively.) this is not up for debate.
How would giving yourself permission to eat change your experiences of shame? Of guilt?
Would you suggest that someone else feel shame/guilt for eating in the same way?
You are allowed to eat.
You are allowed to enjoy.
You are allowed to celebrate with food.
You are allowed to use food to support you in coping.
You are allowed.
Thanks for Learning With Me
It’s still disability pride month! I so appreciate you joining me on this journey!
Because we are already making eye contact, and I so appreciate that we are, there might be a time that you see a human with a disability (me) appear to be struggling. As mentioned in a previous post, I move differently than most people do. There will be some days in which I am happy to accept your offering of assistance. There will be others in which I don’t want your help.
Something that I appreciate greatly is when another human asks me whether or not I need help. Whether or not they can hold the door for me, or open the door for me, or lift something for me, etc. I love that question and I’m so grateful to have people ask it of me.
What I don’t love is what happens when I decline assistance and someone continues to provide the assistance anyway. This happens to me a lot in the context of door holding. If you stand at the door holding it open for me, please know that I am going to work harder to get to the door faster. I have no more interest in inconveniencing you than you have interest in inconveniencing me. While I greatly appreciate the gesture as I know it is coming from a nice place, trust that I know my body better than you do.
One responsibility that I am newly and keenly aware of is that I must ask for assistance on occasion.
It is my job to ask for help when I need it.
It is my job to accept help when it is offered and I would benefit from it.
It is your job to back up if I decline.
Thank you for learning with me.
I didn’t know this stuff, either.
This May Feel Like A Lot
This may feel like a lot, so please hang with me.
I grew up with the knowledge that my mother developed skin cancer related to tanning her body, with baby oil, on Virginia Beach.
I grew up in safe communities where it was possible for me to lay in the sun, with or without sunscreen, with the desire of acquiring a tan.
For many years, I visited tanning booths.
I felt better, bronzed. I never considered the fact that I was looking to acquire the hue of a human who lived a more challenging experience than I did, based simply on the color of my skin.
I am not telling you that you are wrong for liking your skin when it is bronzed. I too, prefer a sun kissed glow. I admit that not because it’s right or wrong, but because I’m human.
AND
As a grown person, I wear sunscreen when I go outside, because I don’t wish to follow in my mom‘s footsteps. At least in a dermatological sense.
This is a responsibility that I take seriously, because it is one way that I can stack the health odds in my favor.
Sunscreen has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of skin cancer. So, because I don’t want skin cancer, I will wear it.
I know that it is summertime. And I know that beaches are open. And pools are open. And folks want to have backyard parties as though this were a regular year. I want that, too.
But this is not a regular year. We are living through a pandemic. And making a choice to gather in groups, without masks, is a dangerous one. Even if you get COVID-19, and are fine afterward, humans at higher risk, around you, may not experience your positive outcome.
We also do not know about the long-term ramifications of acquisition of this disease. You could be fine now, and very not fine later. Please be thoughtful.
This is like wearing sunscreen.
And at the end of the day, the humans who were the most vulnerable at the beginning of this pandemic, the ones whose skin tones are desirable right now, will be the ones that will suffer most significantly as this pandemic continues.
Masks have been demonstrated to reduce rates of transmission of COVID-19. So because I don’t want to spread it, I wear one.
I love you and want you to be safe.
We all need to care right now.