Evening, January 31, 2012

Today I feel deep sadness for the young ones who are in pain over the size and shape of their bodies. Some days I can handle it and other days, like today, I am overwhelmed by the amount of needless suffering. I am unable, obviously, to speak to them all. I am frustrated with the obstacles that block so many from hearing words that offer them freedom to live their beauty, words that give hope so they can resist the pressures of a society focused so intently on image that it is nearly impossible to see one’s true reflection.

While walking up staircase after staircase in the Berkeley hills as the sun went down (my favorite way to work out my frustrations), I thought of a poem I wrote in 2001 after one particular girls group I co-facilitated with three amazing women. Thinking of those girls  allowed me a modicum of peace, as I remembered that even reaching a small number of girls can make a difference, and that all of the girls who have been part of The Body Positive since that time—and before—are out in the world as shining role models for others. Some days that is enough. Their numbers are not the millions I wish for, but they have now passed over the thousand mark.

I have added the story of the girls from that group into a chapter of the book I am writing about The Body Positive’s Intuitive Health™ Model. It is in a section about the importance of grieving the precious moments of our lives we lose to body hatred and obsession with image, and includes pieces of the poem mentioned above. I decided I couldn’t wait for the book to be completed to share this part of it, as the story of those little girls who are now young women needs to be heard today. Here is their story, with the poem included in its entirety.

In 2001, I co-facilitated a group of middle school girls from Berkeley and Oakland, California. We named our group the Girls Empowerment Movement because the acronym GEM perfectly defined each and every girl, just as she was, even with her adolescent awkwardness and struggle. During one of our evenings together, the first girl to speak shared her story of the shame she carried because she believed her body was not beautiful. As she talked, tears began to flow down her cheeks. The next girl to speak unloaded the particular burden of adolescent self-loathing she was carrying, and she, too, started to cry. Suddenly every single girl in the room was crying as she revealed her story of suffering. I will never forget the experience of being with these beauties, these just-forming women, as they offered into the safe space the pain and tears that stemmed from their difficulties as developing females.

In honor of the millions of New Year’s Resolutions being made in this moment by people who vow to lose weight, and to do my own small part to combat the onslaught of weight loss messages we are about to see and hear everywhere, I decided to publish an essay I wrote in 2004 about the most dangerous “compliment” a person can receive.

You look great! Have you lost weight?

Words to live for: “You look great! Have you lost weight?” These seven words make up the most commonly desired “compliment” in the English language. It is the comment people long to hear as they pursue the Holy Grail of weight loss.

I’ve heard this “compliment” many times throughout my life, and never has it had a positive effect on me. When I was at the height of my eating disorder it was a remark I heard regularly, and the effect was to make me more obsessive in my quest to lose weight, even though my body was wasting away.

“See Connie! People did think you were ugly before you lost weight!”

“Please God, never again let me gain a pound!”

These phrases spun endlessly around in my head when I was sick. I have heard these fears repeated frequently by people I know who have lost weight and been told how great they look. Words to die for.

An acquaintance of mine died many years ago from cancer. We saw each other twice a year only, but my memories of her are alive and well. When I close my eyes I can see her beautiful smile and hear her infectious laugh. Unfortunately, one memory that remains in my head is a conversation we had about weight loss at a party we both attended roughly one year before she died. I had gotten braces on my teeth several months previously, and had lost weight due to my inability to chew because my orthodontist had created a contraption in my mouth that made the grinding of food impossible. I was depressed and angry because I struggled to partake in one of my greatest pleasures—eating food!

A woman whom I know casually came up to me at the party and said, “Wow, Connie, you look great! Have you lost weight?” I sighed, as I despise having my body be the subject of cocktail party small talk. “Yes,” I responded, “And I feel horrible. I’m dizzy and weak and grouchy because I can’t eat. It’s awful!”

At this moment, my friend came up when she heard the conversation and said, “Maybe I should get braces, then I wouldn’t be able to eat.” She laughed her beautiful laugh, but I knew she was serious. Here was yet another woman who thought that she must forever strive to lose weight. I told her I thought she looked beautiful just as she was, and plunged into my spiel about The Body Positive’s philosophy on weight, ending with:

This is not my natural body size and weight loss isn’t always a good thing. And primarily, I’m miserable because I’m hungry all the time. I love to eat food and with these braces, I can’t!

“Well anyway, Connie, you look great.” This said by the woman who had made the original comment, as she turned and walked away. I felt deflated, and distressed for these women’s psyches. Now that my friend is gone, I am doubly sad because I know she spent part of her way-too-short life not liking her body.

My father-in-law died from prostate cancer in 2002. His death came nearly one year after receiving the diagnosis. During his last year alive, the cancer caused him to lose weight. Before the cancer, he was a typical older man with a round belly and a love for candy. As he lost weight, he started getting comments about his weight from people at his church. They knew he had cancer, yet they still “complimented” him on losing weight. I was astonished by what he told me, and tried to explain to this dear man, without being offensive towards his community, that sometimes people are clueless about the things they say. Cancer was eating away his body, yet to the people around him, he “looked great.” It reminded me of how often I hear people say they want to be anorexic for a short period of time so they can lose weight, having no idea of the true pain and suffering of an anorexic life, and the extreme risk of death.

A final story to hammer home the point that saying “You look great! Have you lost weight?” can cause great harm. A girl I worked with many years ago suffered from severe body dissatisfaction. When our girls group broke for the summer, this young teenager went away with her family to a country where she didn’t like the food. You guessed correctly: she lost weight and came home to everyone making comments about how great she looked. That was all it took for her to become anorexic, and she nearly died. She went down so fast that her heart all but gave up. Fortunately, our group work had given her some resistance, because when I visited her at the hospital, she told me she wanted to heal, and that her desire was to live. She also told me about one of the nurses who came into the eating disorder ward every day and discussed her diet. The nurse was eating very few calories a day and proud of it. When my friend questioned her psychologist about the inappropriateness of a nurse talking to anorexic teenagers about her starvation diet, his reply was, “You can’t expect everyone around you to change their lives just to make you happy. Not everything is about you.” I confirmed my young friend’s sane response to the nurse’s behavior, and explained that the adult world is seriously messed up! I read her life-affirming poetry I had been inspired to write by her story, gave her a beautiful crimson glass heart, and told her all the reasons why life, though it can be painful at times, is worth living.

The next time you hear someone say, “You look great! Have you lost weight?” perhaps you can share my stories with them. Weight loss is not a virtue, and is often associated with illness. And the phrase is so powerful it can send a vulnerable person rapidly into a full-blown eating disorder.

We all want to feel good about who we are, and real compliments are wonderful to receive. If we could just refrain from commenting about weight, and let other people’s bodies be their own business, then I do believe body dissatisfaction and eating disorder rates would drop.

If at a loss for compliments to pay to your friends besides, “You look great! Have you lost weight?” I leave you with the following alternatives:

“You’re radiant!”

“You look really happy today.”

Or, as a street person on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley said to me one day as I passed by, “Look at you. Man, you are really filled with life. You’ve got energy!” It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. It had nothing to do with the size or shape of my physical body and everything to do with me as a whole human being—body, mind, and spirit. My response to this man was, “I know. I’m really happy to be alive!”

If someone makes the comment to you, and you don’t know what to say, here’s a perfect response I read in the book Fat Poets Speak:

Questioner: “You look great! Have you lost weight?”

You: “No. Did you find some?”

I woke up this morning thinking about the struggles people go through with their bodies as winter sets in. I’ve heard many comments over the past week from people  about feelings of discomfort with their bodies—tight, achy, tired, sluggish, and physically low. They are noticing their desire for foods that are high in sugar and fat, and feel badly about getting away from their usual routine with food and exercise.

As my mind slowly came to consciousness this cold, dark morning, out popped the perfect title for an essay: ‘Tis the Season to be Squishy! From there my sluggish brain remembered years gone by when I really thought something was wrong with me each winter because my relationship with my body changed so drastically as the darkness set in. I felt out of touch with my physical self, and thought I’d never be happy again. I felt squishy!

Let’s be like the squirrels, my human friends! Since we still need to semi-function in the cold winter months and can’t go into full hibernation like the bears, let’s at least recognize that our bodies physiologically behave, as do our brains, like other creatures on this planet, and allow ourselves to winterize. Let’s be okay with the softening of body and mind, so we can focus our gaze internally and process the lessons of the year. Let’s be kind to ourselves and enjoy the delicious foods and beverages of the holidays. And remember, if you feel guilt for eating those cookies or shame for indulging in holiday spirits more than usual, you will end up consuming more of what you think you should limit in the first place!

This blog was written in response to the article, Loving My Body Almost Killed Me, by Jess Weiner

Dear Jess,

We at The Body Positive congratulate you on your recent improvements to your health. There are points in your article, and in your messages over the years, that can help both women and girls in their pursuit of size acceptance and health. In a world that diminishes a woman's confidence and sense of self in so many ways, women need more support to get back in touch with their innate intuition. Women need to believe they have the tools within them to practice excellent self-care. Women need help to begin the journey of self-love, which means learning to trust themselves again, and to understand the messages their bodies send them.

What we can't get past is the dangerous title of your article, and the mixed messages it contains. Let's be honest. Loving your body did NOT almost kill you. We will agree with your doctor's assessment that your self-neglect caused you to be out of touch with food quality and quantity, and that your lack of movement was not great for your health. However, there is an important distinction between loving your body and an ‘anything goes' attitude. Loving our bodies does not mean indulging our every whim. Real self-love means listening deeply, and being fierce and protective of our physical and mental selves. That means taking care of your pancreas, too! 

The Body Positive message is that loving yourself will motivate you to find health. This health won't be determined by a number on the scale. As your doctor explained, "Jess, you're focusing on the wrong numbers..." Ultimately - and I believe you actually know this - the dieter's mentality (your desire to lose 30 more pounds even when your metabolic fitness is good) is impossible to sustain. Exercising past exhaustion, or always depriving yourself of dessert is not sustainable.

Loving your body means listening on the deepest level possible to what your body needs in order to be healthy in the very best possible sense of the word. It means honoring when you get out of balance, which it sounds like you were, and why your metabolic fitness levels were not so good. Loving your body means forgiving yourself for your lack of self-care and choosing in the moment to change your eating and exercise behaviors to be more life-sustaining.

Jess, being a spokesperson for any cause is challenging, much less a revolutionary one. We hope your journey of loving your body is a life-long pursuit. After all, we do agree, listening to your body's physical and internal needs IS, as you said, "a crucial part of loving yourself completely." Please just remember that health is improved by adopting positive self-care behaviors, even if your weight remains unchanged.

. . .

Diets don't work. Why? Because they are not sustainable. The Body Positive offers Be Body Positive workshops to develop skills to help you on the road to discovering what is your best individual self-care.

Other excellent resources that offer valuable help in deciphering the confusing messages about health and weight include:

• Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
• Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
• Association for Size Diversity and Health
• National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance

We wish everyone a compassionate journey towards confident, joyful self-care.

I have been through this before…periods in my life when I wasn't dancing, at least not formally. I dance in my room, in my kitchen, in the shower (no singing but dancing!), in my car, but it is in a dance class is where I really appreciate my body. As you can tell, I dance everywhere, but the feeling of being in a class and working on something specific allows me to focus all of my energy and surge it through my body, in every extension, isolation, kick, hip roll, and hit. The whole world falls away and I am there, tunnel vision, just me and my body. I look into my own gaze and flirt with my reflection, I dance in the very first row, I am not shy, I am strong, I am powerful, I am grace, I am me.

Again, I am in a period of life with less dancing. With graduate school and very limited income, I can't fill my plate with all that I used to, and this has caused a grieving process for me. I have learned to do movement in other ways, by going on hikes to the beach, for walks by the marshlands by my house, yoga at the local community center, and then the dancing in the kitchen, the shower, my car...

Well, I was very lucky this week because my professor cancelled class and I got to go to a Samba class at the community center. As we women waited for the teacher to arrive, I became aware of my body in the mirror, in the front of the class, I was unsure of myself. I was unsure of the camaraderie of my peers because the women were using the minutes before class to do crunches and leg lifts, and chat about spin classes. What an unfamiliar setting, what a strange feeling to feel like an outsider in my own element.

The teacher said nothing to the class as she started the music. We stretched and moved and undulated our hips. Then we moved to floor and did an intense cycle of crunches and our bodies contorted in various positions. I was aware of my belly, how it sat touching my thighs as I drew my legs in close. I noticed how my breathing was more audible than the woman next to me. I started to feel embarrassment creep in as the teacher eyed me and encouraged me to straighten my legs, which were in a fury of shaking because they were working so hard. As fit as I am, crunches are not my strength.

After calisthenics, we stood up and the teacher changed the song to a loud, primal drumming beat. The sound of the ancestors, ancestors that I claim, that I make my own, that I give every cell of my body to as I dance. As we danced across the floor, I pushed at the air harder, I moved my hips wider, I stomped and jumped and swung my black curls to the rhythm of the dance. My teacher rushed over to me, put her hands out and held mine and said, “Where did you come from?” I told her that I dance Samba. She told me that I was a beautiful dancer and looked at me with eyes full of love and adoration. My next step threw me off--I was dizzy. There was something that shifted in me because I knew I was coming back into myself and that step, right after she noticed me was a step moving me in the direction of myself. She gushed over me at each transition, wanting to know more about me and the type of dance I did, asking if I would come to her other classes for advanced dancers. I let her words wash over me like a warm bath of crystals, adorning my body and giving it thanks.

This is what I know...I was the biggest woman in the dance class that day and the other women probably thought I was different and maybe that I was out of shape because I couldn't contort as they did...but what I know is that I danced that day. I danced for every day that I haven't since I started grad school, I danced for every cell in my body that feels love and gratitude and passion and for a body that people cast off as big or overweight or not good enough. It made me feel so good that my body had not forgotten to allow me the movement that it always had. This body, right now, is enough for me to express my joy. I cannot wait to have that feeling of freedom again.

Hello Body Positive Community!!

I am coming off of an amazing weekend at our Be Body Positive workshop at the College of Marin. I am full of energy and have renewed commitment to the work of self-love. There is something amazing that happens during these weekend workshops. By the end of two days, the love in the room seems to burst at the seams! Women and men are reclaiming their beauty, proclaiming their truth, and sharing their wisdom about LOVE!

I wanted to share with you something that came up this weekend: the idea of radical self-love. Radical means, departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme, excellent, wonderful. You might wonder, “How do I get there? What would radical self-love look like in my life?”

You already possess the tools to unlock the love inside.

Start with what you know:

What do you know about yourself (your relationship with food, your body, relationship to others)?

What experiences have you had that have uplifted your spirit?

What obstacles have you overcome?

What we find is that when we start from what we already know about ourselves, we can follow a progression from what we know to what we like, and then to what we love. It is about giving yourself permission to discover what it is about yourself that you love. It is about opening yourself up to the possibility of loving your body, right now.

Ask yourself:

What would it feel like to love my body?

What would change for me in terms of my relationship to myself and others?

How would my life be different?

Something that I committed to this weekend was that I want the love for myself to swim in the world’s deepest oceans, to climb the highest peaks, to rest on the smiles of children and elders, to hold hands with my brothers and sisters around the globe, to warm my heart and feed my soul. I want my love for my body to rest upon my hips, to sit between my toes like sand on a beach, to cradle my belly and to crown my head. I want it to surround every inch and curve in a warm and enveloping embrace. There is an infinite amount of love in the world! There is enough for us all to have some. There is enough for us to cultivate it and share with others.

The idea that love for your body can transform your life is radical. This is The Body Positive work. We believe that love for your body changes your life because you learn that you are enough, you are beautiful and worthy of living your life now. Loving your body gives you the wisdom to love yourself in every moment.  Start with what you know. Go towards what you desire, and hold a frame that says that in this moment you are beautiful, and you are worthy of love, just as you are right now.

Happy New Year from The Body Positive!

The new year is here, and with it comes the expectation to better your life, change what you didn't like about yourself last year, and create an "all new you." I am happy to share my New Year's resolutions with you, and I hope you'll do the same in the comments section of my blog (resolutions that are not about weight loss). 

I will love my body this year!

I will work to quiet the critical voice that creeps into my head that says I am not supposed to be exactly as I am!

I dedicate this year to loving ALL OF ME!

I welcome you to join me in resisting the commercials, the buzz of the chaotic messages,  the pressure to change your body for cosmetic reasons. You are beautiful right here, right now, and this year (if not ever before) is when you get to learn to truly love yourself.

Here are my suggestions for 2011:

Tell yourself that you are beautiful as often as possible. Admire yourself, and remember you're not conceited if you do! Clothe your body in what makes you feel good, what makes you feel beautiful, in the body you have right now. Ignore size tags in clothing, and don't weigh yourself! How do you feel?

2. Enjoy your food!

Try going to the grocery store or market and walk around and see how you are drawn to different foods. Experiment with different recipes for the food you choose. Taste and try new things, and find what foods delight your senses. Enjoy food with others! Feed and nurture your body.

3. Play!

Explore movement based on what you want to do, not what you "should" do to lose weight or burn calories. Try going for a walk in a beautiful place and let your mind wander. Find a beautiful setting and sit in wonder. Dance in your kitchen while you cook, or dance with your friends. Laugh and play with your children. Wrestle with someone you love. Go outside, seek the type of movement that renews your energy and spirit, and makes you feel strong. Play!

What if you could give yourself everything you need-support, praise, adoration, kindness. How would your life be different? Face your struggles and think about what it would be like to live differently, what it would be like to not blame your body for your problems. Leave the pain behind and choose love for yourself.

5. Resist all messages that suggest you should look any different than you do now!

Challenge the status quo! Dare to live differently! Speak your mind and speak up for yourself! Change the channel on your television if what you see makes you feel badly about your body! Join together with other people who are seeking to live with more joy by being kind and loving towards their bodies. Appreciate your body exactly as it is in this very moment. Take a moment to give thanks to your body for all it does for you every day of your life. Cultivate the life that you want right now, at this weight, and with your body exactly as it is.

2011 is the year to love your body and live your life!

The revolution starts with you!

I recently found the book, The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, and from the opening quote, “Make your choice.  Are you ready to be strong?” (quoting Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favorite TV shows of all time), I thought this is the next book that will reaffirm everything I do, everything that I am, and support me in how I love myself AND my body! Well I was wrong. I guess even the girls who take back the word fat and “accept” their bodies still don’t do enough to love them. What’s the difference between acceptance and love? Acceptance doesn’t prompt any action; it feels like, I’ve accepted that this is the way my life is. It isn’t engaged! Love is about connecting to, appreciating, doting upon, finding affection for, and sitting in awe of something, and more importantly someone. So I say, I’m proud that there are fellow fat girls out there, but if all we’re going to do is accept our bodies, I say I have better things to do. I’m here in this world LOVING every inch of me, and that, to me, is a more Body Positive thing to do.

I have always had this sense of wanting to become a woman. To me, a woman was power, grace, a 'juicy mama', a goddess, a warrior. My childhood was full of examples of these women. Either in books of faraway lands and the magical and fruitful women who inhabited them, or in my mother, my teachers and my community. When I was younger, I thought that becoming a woman was the greatest feat and challenge that a young girl could undertake. I admired women's strength and resilience. Women are connected to the earth, we make bonds between each other, and we create new life. I thought that one day I would wake up and be a woman. Or perhaps that it would happen after my cycle or once I graduated high school. When I became a woman was when I fully stepped into my power and when I started using it.

When I found love for myself and my womanly body, I stepped into my power and made the conscious decision to never lose sight of it. This is what invoked the goddess and the sense of this divine gift of a body we are all given. This is what invoked the warrior that would stand up for myself and others who are mistreated. This is what invoked the juicy mama and the playful spirit that basks in her own beauty. What I realized, was that coming into womanhood was everything about accepting and loving myself absolutely for who I was and also for what I looked like.

Some cultural messages insist that we deny the physical body and what it represents as a way to be modest, to fit into a group, to behave or be good. This was made clear to me during The Body Positive’s recent workshop, which I participated in as a facilitator. The first activity we did was to introduce ourselves with the following: our name, what community we were coming from (i.e., school, hometown, workplace, creative community, etc.), what brought us to the workshop, and what we could say about our beauty. For all the women, the first two questions were the easiest. Most people strongly identify with their names as well as where we're from. Our communities are also strong identifiers. When it came to saying what brought us to the workshop, and making a statement about our beauty, some felt stuck. What about their beauty? Had they forgotten it had even existed? Had they ever talked about their beauty in a group before? What about being self-righteous? Conceited?

Most women shared about their beauty being tied to how they interact with others; being a good friend and confidant; being empathetic or emotional, being a good student or helping others.

When it came to my turn, I said, "I am enjoying my physical body! I have had treasured moments recently when I have caught myself in the mirror and really enjoyed what I see. I find myself doing a little dance or giving myself a genuine smile when I cross paths with my physical self. Its really fun!"

I think I pretty much shocked half the room. Of course my point wasn't to do that, but for them to realize that women can love their physical selves! We don't have to be wise or strong or emotional to be beautiful, we can risk being conceited, risk sounding confident, and proudly say that we love our bodies and therefore we love ourselves!

Being a woman is so much about the physical. It amazes me that in this society we try to shame ourselves into denying our womanly parts and our own natural flesh. We learn to lose the parts that make us women and add to parts that make us more 'desirable' to some people. I say that being a woman and encouraging our flesh connects us to the earth, honors our heritage and the ancient wisdom and lineage that created us.

We can be dynamic leaders, amazing friends, empathetic, and conscious humanitarians and also celebrate our flesh. We can be mothers and friends and co-workers and sisters and citizens and agents of change and love our bodies. We can all step into our power and find gratitude for our womanly bodies! We can have it all.

I am happy to say that my absolute love and compassion for myself and for my body have made me proud to be a woman.

When I founded The Body Positive, I was motivated by a desire to protect my daughter from the suffering I experienced as a teenager due to my eating disorder. I am grateful that because of this work, Carmen has grown up with a healthy relationship to her body.

In August, Carmen will be attending her first year of college. I’m thrilled to know that Carmen’s experience growing up with The Body Positive will not only keep her from suffering over her body as many college students do, but will also allow her to be a positive role model to her new friends. Did you know that 25 percent of women use harmful measures to reduce their weight, and men’s dissatisfaction with their bodies has spiked in the last decade?

The primary initiative of The Body Positive’s mission is to support these young people by implementing educational programs that transform individual and cultural beliefs about weight, body image, and identity. The result of this work is a growing national movement of healthy, confident individuals contributing to positive change in the world.

Please join us on Sunday, August 1^st as we launch our first Be Body Positive Day.

We are asking you, as our long time supporters and new friends, to join our day of action by doing something that makes you feel great about your body.

Please sign the Be Body Positive petition!

To learn more about The Body Positive and Be Body Positive Day, take a few minutes to watch our Be Body Positive video. We invite you to share your Be Body Positive stories on Facebook and Twitter. If you are inspired by our work, please support the movement by making your donation today.

Thank you for your support! I look forward to keeping in touch.

Warm regards,

Connie Sobczak

Co-Founder, The Body Positive