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January 1 - January 4, 2021
A reel of memories scrolled through my mind of all the ways I told the world I was sorry for having this wrong, bad body.
Natural intelligence intends that every living thing become the highest form of itself and designs us accordingly.”
make peace with our bodies, make peace with the bodies of others, and ultimately change the world
At this very second, a trembling acorn is plummeting from a branch, clueless as to why. It doesn’t need to know why to fulfill its calling; it just needs us to get out of its way. Radical self-love is an engine inside you driving you to make your calling manifest. It is the exhaustion you feel every time the whispers of self-loathing, body shame, and doubt skulk through your brain. It is the contrary impulse that made you open this book, an action driven by a force so much larger than the voice of doubt and yet sometimes so much more difficult to hear. Radical self-love is not a destination
...more
the answer has always been love.
self-acceptance is the mixed-veggie pot pie of radical self-love. It will keep you alive when the options are sparse, but what if there is a life beyond frozen pot pies?
Concepts like self-acceptance and body neutrality are not without value. When you have spent your entire life at war with your body, these models offer a truce. But you can have more than a cease-fire. You can have radical self-love because you are already radical self-love.
A radical self-love world is a world that works for every body. Creating such a world is an inside-out job. How we value and honor our own bodies impacts how we value and honor the bodies of others.
we must build in us what we want to see built in the world.
How we construct language is an enormous part of how we understand and judge bodies.
Radical self-love demands that we see ourselves and others in the fullness of our complexities and intersections and that we work to create space for those intersections.
Creating a world of justice for all bodies demands that we be radical and intersectional.
Unapologetic Inquiry #1
Woman, fat, mother, worker, straight, white...mostly I dont feel impacted by more than being a fat woman in my forties, which I consider to be a tremendous amount of privilege.
When we are saddled with body shame, we see other bodies as things to covet or judge. Body shame makes us view bodies in narrow terms like “good” or “bad,” or “better” or “worse” than our own. Radical self-love invites us to love our bodies in a way that transforms how we understand and accept the bodies of others.
Unapologetic Inquiry #2
There are probably too many to count, but as a fat woman and a thick teen, compatison has yruly been the theif of many joys. It creates deep resentment, enhances self-criticism, and encourages unkindness toward the other person.
By refusing to accept body shame as some natural consequence of being in a body, we can stop apologizing for our bodies and erase the distance between ourselves and radical self-love. When we do that we are instantly returned to the radically self-loving stars we always were.
For so many of us, sorry has become how we translate the word body.
In this I realize I've overlooked some aspects of my identity...older, tattooed, large-chested, assaulted, curvy, early to develop...
Unapologetic Inquiry #3
I have been judged for the space I take up, made to minimize assault, made to feel shame for my sexual interest, felt I didn't deserve respect or love or attraction...constantly told by diet culture that there is too much of me.
We were told there is a right way to have a body, and our apologies reflected our indoctrination into that belief. We believed there was indeed a way in which our bodies were wrong.
However, not only are we constantly atoning; we have demanded our fair share of apologies from others as well. We, too, have snickered at the fat body at the beach, shamed the transgender body at the grocery store, pitied the disabled body while clothes shopping, maligned the aging body. We have demanded the apology from other bodies. We have ranked our bodies against the bodies of others, deciding they are greater or lesser than our own based on the prejudices and biases we inherited.
Unapologetic Inquiry #4
The space I take up, the things that make me happy, the things I need from others, taking time for myself, being careful about COVID.
the Three Peaces. They are: 1. Make peace with not understanding. 2. Make peace with difference. 3. Make peace with your body.
Understanding is not a prerequisite for honor, love, or respect.
When we liberate ourselves from the expectation that we must have all things figured out, we enter a sanctuary of empathy.
Contrary to common opinion, freeing ourselves from the need to understand everything can bring about a tremendous amount of peace.
Unapologetic Inquiry #5
What the "right" body is, how attraction works for some, why and how people can posess and expel so much hate, why no one is taking this damned COVID situation seriously
Health is not a state we owe the world. We are not less valuable, worthy, or loveable because we are not healthy. Lastly, there is no standard of health that is achievable for all bodies.
Unapologetic Inquiry #6
I used to "not see" color. I still struggle with holding other people to my privileged educational standards. By doing this, I erase their intrinsic value and unique perspective, I silence their voices.
Unapologetic Inquiry #7
My husband, who likely has less sex than he would like, and my daughter, who may grow up with body hangups of her own
Radical Reflection
Damn. I highlighted most of chapter one. This is an intense ride and bringing up alot of my body insecurities. The timing couldn't be better either, as I stare down the barrel of loaded New Years diet ads around every corner.
Unapologetic Inquiry #8
When I was in middle school a little boy told me that my nose was too big to ever be attractive. That message stuck with me for a long time.
Children’s bodies are not public property. Teaching children bodily autonomy, privacy, and consent are the cornerstones of raising radical self-love humans.
Unapologetic Inquiry #9
The first time was probably when I was three or four and asked the woman in the gas station if her baby was made of chocolate. although, I was so young that I'm not sure that it carried any particular meaning for me at the time. It was definitely a statement of othering and said something about my exposure to Black people around me.
When we say we don’t see color, what we are truly saying is, “I don’t want to see the things about you that are different because society has told me they are dangerous or undesirable.”
Unapologetic Inquiry #10
I definitely used to claim color blindness. I believed that it was a statement against racism, but did not understand the harm that it did. now instead I think and speak about the importance of equal access to resources and equality of value of all people.
Unapologetic Inquiry #11
This is an interesting exercise. I assumed that the mother was white as well as the child, and that the child was female. I did assume that the mother and child were able-bodied. Beyond that I'm not aware of any active assumptions around race, age, or size.
Cultural and familial messages that reduce masculinity to a bland soup of physical strength and stoic emotional response limit the full range of human expression needed for boys to develop a healthy sense of radical self-love.
Unapologetic Inquiry #12
I don't like bathing suits in public. I don't wear shorts.
All our body rules are made up!
Unapologetic Inquiry #13
Slimfast, Alli, Atkins, Weight Watchers, hair dye, wrinkle creams, firming lotions, cellulite cream, anti-aging products, Camp Gladiator, Golds Gym, Mediterranean Women Don't Get Fat...
Consider that the female body type portrayed in advertising as the “ideal” is possessed naturally by only 5 percent of American women.
Our relationship with our money often mirrors our relationships with our bodies.
Fear, mistrust, lack of control...
Unapologetic Inquiry #14
Probably very recently, shopping is my go-to when things feel out of control. I feel better for a few minutes, then guilty, then better when it artiveys, then guilty again.
Best-interest buying is a model that asks us to allow our economic investments, whether they be lattes, lipsticks, neckties, or stock portfolios, to reflect our commitment to radical self-love for our own lives and for the lives of others. Best-interest buying furthers our radical self-love journey by connecting how we spend our resources with what we truly want for our lives, not simply in the short term to avoid feelings of not being “enough.” In this model, we ask ourselves if what we are buying is a desire rooted in radical self-love.
Although our actions are important, we learn more about ourselves when we examine our motives.
Unapologetic Inquiry #15
Prioritize purchases from Black, Indigenous and other people or color; be mindful not to spend money at places that promote or support (including financially) anti-equality messages and platforms; purchase from fair trade, sustainable businesses. Shop small and local.
A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in history. A quietly mad population is a tractable one.
Unapologetic Inquiry #16
Body shame impacts political power by marginalizing, othering, and silencing the voices of any bodies not deemed the right ones. Shame has impacted my own power at work and in my sex life.
Unapologetic Inquiry #17
You are beautiful and perfect when you are your true self, and no others' opinions of what you "should" be matter in the least. You are loved; you are enough.
Unapologetic Inquiry #18
Assault left me feeling terror at the though of being intimate with anyone, and only years of therapy and the patience of a loving partner have undone this.
