Greetings from the lovely University of Illinois at Ubana-Champaign, I’ve been doing a series of talks here and I’ve been asked a common question a number of ways: “Where do I start?” Sometimes it’s “where do I start to stop hating my body?” Sometimes it’s “How do I, as a thin person, start support fat activism?” To me the answer is the same: Stop negative body talk, including about your own body. I think that’s actually the start of a revolution.
Start by making a decision – I’m going to stop negative body talk, including about my own body.
You can start by interrupting yourself when you think something negative about someone else’s body. You can just stop yourself, you can find something about them that you find beautiful, you can remind yourself that you’ve been conditioned to do this by people looking for profit, privilege and/or control and that you can opt out. You can do this within your own mind, or go public about it and let people know you’ve taken a pledge to stop negative body talk. You can interrupt other people’s body talk. You can stop sharing anything on social media that has elements of negative body talk. It will take time for this to become second nature, so have compassion for yourself while you work on it!
When it comes to your own body, I recommend that you take ten minutes, right now, and make a list of things that your body does for you (breathing, blinking, heartbeat, waste management, smiling, rolling your wheelchair, hugging, texting whatever etc.) Include everything that you can think of. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Ok so you have your list, now become conscious of the way that you think about your body and start interrupting negative thoughts and replacing them with gratitude for something on the list. It doesn’t have to be an “even exchange” so if you start to think about how you don’t like part of your body, you can interrupt that thought by thanking your body for breathing or anything else. If there are things about your body that frustrate you or make you angry, it’s ok to feel that frustration and anger, and it’s also ok to still have gratitude for your body for all of the amazing things that it does do. It takes practice and commitment, and it takes choosing to remove yourself from the the body hatred that comes standard with life in this culture, so be patient with yourself. I know for sure that, for me, it was totally worth it.
Think about how different the world would be without body snarking, body hatred, negative body talk, body comparison, and a constant stream of articles criticizing women’s bodies. How different would our thoughts be if they weren’t clouded with constant negative thoughts about our bodies and negative body comparisons? How would the world be different if women refused to hate our bodies, or trash each others’ bodies? I want to find out, what about you? I think that one place to start is with ourselves, by deciding to stop being part of the system that holds us down. Will you pledge to stop negative body talk?
Updates:
My class about becoming your own medical advocate is full. If you wanted to take the class and didn’t get in, just shoot me and e-mail at ragen at danceswithfat dot org and I’ll get you on the list to be first to hear about the next class.
Meanwhile, the awesome Golda Poretsky is doing a 30 day “HAES for the Holidays” e-course. I’ve done workshops with Golda and she is awesome, you can find out about it here (Full disclosure – Golda offers an affiliate program so if you register for the class you support yourself, Golda, and me!)
Like my blog? Here’s more of my stuff!
The Book: Fat: The Owner’s Manual The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details
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Interviews with Amazing Activists!! Help Activists tell our movement’s history in their own words. Support In Our Own Words: A Fat Activist History Project!
Dance Classes: Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details
If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen
