Thank you for your beautiful honesty. I think we can all relate to your words in some way. Wishing you the ease and comfort and serenity we all deserve 💛
May you find ease, pleasure, and contentment in the body you have, the body that makes you possible, the body that is the way you get to exist in the world.
For better and worse, it is not true that life's pains, difficulties, and dissatisfactions stem from our bodies. The body is only the vehicle through which we experience them. That's because we don't have any other way to do it.
A wise person named Glenn Marla once wrote "There is no wrong way to have a body." I have been repeating that phrase to myself (and other people) for decades now.
So powerful! And something that I’ve struggled with since I can remember — “why can’t I just look different!” There’s been many years of pain and recovery. Things are not perfect now but I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been. I wish that for everyone 🤍
Women are eternally and irrationally hard on themselves. When I was 28 I thought I was fat because of the endless messages from the cosmetic-industrial complex urging me to channel my unwarranted shame into their wallets in the form of ready cash. But when I look at pictures of that time, I realize I looked fabulous, and I bet you do too. We must parse these messages and weed out the bullshit for our own sanity. I'm a mother too, and I say, whatever gown you want, dammit.
I never realized how incredibly destructive these messages are until I had a conversation with my friend Karen last year, who had a lethal form of cancer. She was always a bit heavy, but came from a family of models, some of whom looked upon her with pity because she did not share their thin, fashionable physiques. So one day Karen said she was really excited about how she looked for the first time in her adult life. She was 110 pounds and thought she looked great. She was proud. Almost giddy. I wanted to say, "But Karen, honey, you look that way because you are DYING OF CANCER." I did not, of course, say this, and sadly, she died 6 weeks later.
But this is what our society does to women - that being thin equals self worth and somehow intelligence, persistence, insight, humor, kindness and grace mean nothing unless they come from someone with a firm ass and a thin waist. That, my friend, is insanity, and I urge you, and all young women who find their self esteem slipping unnecessarily in the face of these sexist, destructive messages, to stop the madness.
Thank you for your beautiful honesty. I think we can all relate to your words in some way. Wishing you the ease and comfort and serenity we all deserve 💛
May you find ease, pleasure, and contentment in the body you have, the body that makes you possible, the body that is the way you get to exist in the world.
For better and worse, it is not true that life's pains, difficulties, and dissatisfactions stem from our bodies. The body is only the vehicle through which we experience them. That's because we don't have any other way to do it.
A wise person named Glenn Marla once wrote "There is no wrong way to have a body." I have been repeating that phrase to myself (and other people) for decades now.
You are a gorgeous writer.
Beautiful and honest. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for this x
So powerful! And something that I’ve struggled with since I can remember — “why can’t I just look different!” There’s been many years of pain and recovery. Things are not perfect now but I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been. I wish that for everyone 🤍
So honest.
Women are eternally and irrationally hard on themselves. When I was 28 I thought I was fat because of the endless messages from the cosmetic-industrial complex urging me to channel my unwarranted shame into their wallets in the form of ready cash. But when I look at pictures of that time, I realize I looked fabulous, and I bet you do too. We must parse these messages and weed out the bullshit for our own sanity. I'm a mother too, and I say, whatever gown you want, dammit.
I never realized how incredibly destructive these messages are until I had a conversation with my friend Karen last year, who had a lethal form of cancer. She was always a bit heavy, but came from a family of models, some of whom looked upon her with pity because she did not share their thin, fashionable physiques. So one day Karen said she was really excited about how she looked for the first time in her adult life. She was 110 pounds and thought she looked great. She was proud. Almost giddy. I wanted to say, "But Karen, honey, you look that way because you are DYING OF CANCER." I did not, of course, say this, and sadly, she died 6 weeks later.
But this is what our society does to women - that being thin equals self worth and somehow intelligence, persistence, insight, humor, kindness and grace mean nothing unless they come from someone with a firm ass and a thin waist. That, my friend, is insanity, and I urge you, and all young women who find their self esteem slipping unnecessarily in the face of these sexist, destructive messages, to stop the madness.