I have to say, one thing I hadn't anticipated was how emotional of an experience it was going to be for me. Just being there, knowing how long it'd been since I'd heard of it, all the time spent being excited for it, learning more and more about body love in the meantime... it was just overwhelming I guess to finally be there, knowing how much body love has come to mean to me. I had a hard time not bawling my eyes out several times.
In her opening talk, Jes mentioned that the event was not about warm fuzzies. That, sometimes when we are trying to move on beyond the difficulties we have experienced because of body hate and fat shaming, we have to face those experiences and feelings head on. This was definitely true. I think somehow I've been tucking those experiences away while working on my own body acceptance. Not necessarily denying them or ignoring them, but since I choose to focus on positivity in my life, they have been filed in the back of my brain.
Something else that happened - I realized I'm not quite as self-assured about my body as I thought I was. I love my own body, but I still have a long way to go in allowing -others- to love my body. And as much as I claim to not care what other people think, I must have some sort of hangup with that. It might not be so much caring about what they -do- think (like if someone makes a stupid comment), but I tend to assume I know what others are thinking, and this is what I put so much stock in. For example, "That guy wouldn't be interested in me, guys don't like girls who are fat." "I'm not going to get that part, because I'm too short." I mean.. really? How do I know that? And so, through this conference, this and a few other things were brought to my attention. And I'm totally cool with that. We need to be aware of problems if we want to work on them, right?
I heard some great speakers and met some great women. Sonya Renee Taylor is the founder of The Body Is Not An Apology, which focuses on radical self love and body empowerment. She had some wonderful things to say on facing the things in our lives that are causing us to have shame or doubts about our bodies. Her website also has some other great ways to live and love ourselves radically.
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I came across an organization called Be Nourished that focuses on health and weight loss from a holistic approach. It's not about numbers or a certain size to attain. It's about connecting with your body and mind rather than dieting. They had a session about our relationship with food and eating, and how to get away from viewing this as a thing of morality. Like, "I was super bad today because I ate half a pizza." You were "bad?" No... you made a choice to eat half a pizza. That does not make you a bad person. I didn't attend their session because I feel like I'm in an okay place with this topic, but I look forward to learning more about their approach as a whole and what they have to say.
Tess Munster gave an brave and heart-felt keynote about her experiences in life, how she came to be a plus size model at 5'4", and how she's spreading the message about body positivity. This woman has gone through so much, including attending high school in a Walmart after her school had been destroyed by a tornado. She faced a lot of harassment from being poor, fat, and having a disabled mother. And really, her life growing up was just kind of crazy. But she was able to come away from all that and be this totally successful and inspiring person. She has this cool campaign going on, called #effyourbeautystandards. Definitely check it out. It's to promote the fact that women can be beautiful at any size. And it's snarky, so even better.
Jes encouraged us to not isolate during the conference. I'm soooo glad she said this, since I went by myself. I probably wouldn't have thought anything about that during lunch. But because she mentioned it, and I agreed that it was a good idea, I found a few other women to eat lunch with. They were three very different women, in life and in body type. It was wonderful hearing their stories and experiences, what they had learned so far, etc. That was way better than sitting alone looking at emails and facebook.
There were so many other great things I was able to hear about and women I learned from, I just can't include it all. Here are some things I jotted notes on:
- Self-rejection/hatred/loathing is the most universal and least recognized problem in our lives; it is the source of all our difficulties in giving and receiving love.
- Think of what the worse thing that could happen would be. Try to experience it, and see what the result is. It's probably not as bad as you think.
- You become secure by doing. It's growing from the vulnerability.
- That's my issue, not theirs. (on assuming others' thoughts and opinions)
- People who are all up in your shit just don't want to be in their shit. (on others shaming you)
- Body shame assumes there is some "should" about our bodies.
- Move beyond acceptance and into radical love.
- People see me looking like that in real life and still like me. (On allowing people to see "bad" pictures of ourselves)
- Don't assume everyone cares about "pretty."
- After the flash reaction in first 3 seconds when you meet someone, others have moved on to being concerned about their interactions with you, not those initial reactions.
- Each time I make a choice for self-love, I am creating new neural pathways.
- Connect with that part of you that you have a hard time accepting; be present; validate your feelings; sooth yourself; notice moving towards acceptance.
- You can be fat and happy, and stay fat. You can be thin and happy, and stay thin. You can be fat and want to lose weight and still love your body.
All in all, this event was just wonderful. There were about 400 people there from all over the country, and even one woman from Vienna, Austria (I met her too, she was a delight!). This was just the very first conference of its kind, so I think there's going to be a great future for the body love, positivity, and acceptance movement coming up here. And I'm so privileged and lucky to be a part of it.
