It breaks my heart every time I hear a woman call herself fat.
It breaks my heart every time I hear someone call someone else fat…or even refer to someone’s fat.
It especially breaks my heart when I hear a little girl, teenager, or young lady call herself fat.
Nowadays fat has become a feeling.
It breaks my heart when that ‘fat feeling’ causes any woman to feel ugly, undesirable, or unlovable.
It breaks my heart when that ‘fat feeling’ causes any woman to get pissed off at her body, disconnect from her body, feel constant pain in her body, or give up altogether on her body.
It breaks my heart when that ‘fat feeling’ causes any woman to disregard her body, stop caring for it, stop feeding it, stop moving it, and verbally (or subconsciously) berate it.
And it especially breaks my heart because I KNOW that this ‘fat feeling’ doesn’t go away and you don’t grow out of just because time marches on –whether you are 17 or 71 (sure you might stop caring as much, but it doesn’t go away).
And I know that you cannot diet it away or exercise it away. Because even if diet and exercise does melt the fat away, that ‘fat feeling’ will still be there if you’ve been practicing it for a long time (at least that’s what I’ve experienced with myself and 100s of other women.)
So I stand for the possibility that women who feel fat can eliminate the shame, blame, guilt, comparison, and perfectionism that’s keeping them from feeling beautiful, successful, confident, powerful, and gifted.
And I also stand for the possibility that future women of the world (the ones that are now children, teens, and young ladies) never have to feel that way in the first place.
And if it does get to that, I stand for the possibility that every woman will know how to take a stand for her own body. For making it possible for her to seek the acceptance, connection, and care she requires and desires so she can lay down the weapons of restriction, control, punishment and persuasion that she has around food and her body… and finally go ‘get right’ with her body… become one with, and embody her body as her partner in crime and a player on the same team where SHE is the pilot, and SHE is the one calling the shots in her life and SHE is the one that can ‘save’ herself.
But she needs help.
She needs to learn how to live with freedom and permission and choice.
Because somewhere along the line her body became an obstacle, an excuse, a barrier, or something that needed to be constantly judged, micromanaged, or controlled…
And I stand for the possibility that it can become the most powerful tool, ‘the way’, and the golden opportunity to go find and feel that acceptance, connection, and care that she truly desires deep down inside.
- I dream of a world where a woman does not categorize herself by the size of her jeans or the number on the scale.
- I dream of a world where fat is not a color or a feeling or a state of being.
- I dream of a world where every woman walks comfortably in her own skin, gives herself permission to dance like nobody's watching, and smiles for no reason at all.
- I dream of a world where connecting to yourself or tickling your senses was the most common 'gateway drug' on the market.
- I dream of a world where we keep teaching daughters how to care for their body, their brain, and their beautiful heart.
- I dream of a world where women serve others better by first getting the acceptance connection and care that she herself needs.
Because fat is not a feeling, self care is not selfish, and beautiful truly is an inside job.
