I’ve Been Going Live on Facebook Everyday for Five Months and Here’s What’s Up!
It has been a fabulous record of my life, a great way to share information I have learned in service to making the world safe for people to love themselves, and a wonderful training ground for my true career goal—a self love talk show. In many ways, it already is my self love talk show. It’s like a lab where I get to work on my on camera skills, develop my verbal storytelling, and learn what engages my audience the most.
REALITY Storytellers: International Travel and Sheepherding
It was pretty bananas trying to herd animals with a bunch of people you only just met. Our strategy was to create a semi-circle and move the herd that way. It kind of worked, we were ultimately successful. I only got hit by a ram in my leg a couple of times and only got scratched up by Biblical thorny plants a little bit, but I barely noticed because it was so thrilling to get to hang out with animals.
Why All Bodies are Good Bodies: Body Liberation Activism in Five Minutes
On that trip of a lifetime earlier this month, (I’ve been home a week/can’t believe it’s already been a week!) the first group go around we said our name and something people could talk with us about. I have been in a lot of facilitated groups; this was the simplest and most effective go around for sparking individual conversations! Some people picked silly stuff and some people went more serious. I chose strategically because I knew the folks with whom I would engage with were global influencers, it was a rad opportunity to get to talk to them about body liberation activism!
What I did not expect was how sharp and quick my 2-5 minute spiel about body liberation activism would get when I delivered it 20 times! Sometimes it was one-on-one sitting next to each other on the bus, sometimes it was at dinner to a few folks, and then that time Jenna asked me about it I gave a full five minute workshop about it with a tiny cluster of curious Storytellers. Jenna and I continued a lengthy conversation about it for almost a whole day.
Half the Self Hate: Denise Jolly “Self Love is my Life’s Work”
Inspired to create a series about self love by the People Magazine series “Half Their Size,” the Half The Self Hate series is about how artists and activists have put into practice the radical act of loving oneself in a society that commodifies self hatred. This is a series about self love triumphing over self hate, and valuing yourself as a radical act of resistance.
Spoken word artist and body activist Denise Jolly joins the conversation about learning to let go of self-hate:
“Truthfully I hated myself most days until I did the Be Beautiful project. That was not even two years ago and I am currently 35 years old. I fear saying this but in the spirit of honoring vulnerability there are still so many days self-hatred creeps in like a destructive lover. The hatred no longer wins but it sure does work hard to hold its place in my life. ”
Half the Self Hate: Kate Bornstein Wriggling Towards Fun
Inspired to create a series about self love by the People Magazine series “Half Their Size,” the Half The Self Hate series is about how artists and activists have put into practice the radical act of loving oneself in a society that commodifies self hatred. This is a series about self love triumphing over self hate, and valuing yourself as a radical act of resistance.
Gender Outlaw and legend Kate Bornstein joins the conversation about learning to let go of self-hate:
“I don’t have to follow anyone else’s rules about gender and sexuality—rather, I can explore the non-binaries of me. The struggle? I’m a double Pisces. I don’t struggle so much as I wriggle. I’m wriggling toward being the most fun me I can be. The challenges all seem to come down to someone else’s respectable rules, regulations, standards, and values. I’m wriggling away from all that, as best I can. ”
Half the Self Hate: Kama La Mackerel is Deconstructing Embodied Colonialism through Self Love and QTPOC Community
Inspired to create a series about self love by the People Magazine series “Half Their Size,” the Half The Self Hate series is about how artists and activists have put into practice the radical act of loving oneself in a society that commodifies self hatred. This is a series about self love triumphing over self hate, and valuing yourself as a radical act of resistance.
Kama La Mackerel kicks off this interview series. In their words:
“As I like to say, the revolution will not happen in the streets. It will first happen around dinner tables, park benches and comfy couches where we will intentionally spend time together, talk about the generations of trauma that we carry in our bodies, and slowly work through our pain and heal collectively. Once we do that, we can go and burn the streets for all I know. But first, we need to create the spaces for us to love each other and care for each other, and heal.”
Queer and Body Positive Calendars for 2015
What better way to set goals and mark time than with a calendar that acknowledges queer bodies and lots of different bodies! I think it is incredibly powerful self-love to surround yourself with images of hot queer and fat folks who have diverse bodies. Sensitizing yourself to queer and fat bodies that look like yours and the people you love is an important part of loving yourself and/or being a good fat/queer ally.
Six Strategies to Not Care When People Stare at You
A lot of folks do the long look to try to decide what’s going on with someone when they look unusual. And that’s way more noticeable when you’re not used to it. It feels weird. And when Dara started to notice it, she felt uncomfortable and insecure about it.
I surprised myself by rattling off a bunch of strategies she could use to get more comfortable with being conspicuous. So here, dear readers, is a cheat sheet for how to stop caring about what strangers think about you.
Click here to read the whole article.
Five Ways to Begin to Love Your Body Right Now
You don’t have to wait to have a good relationship with your body. Not after you lose weight or start going back to the gym or get a lover. Whatever space you’re in with it, you can start making peace right now.
Cupcake Cabaret, a Performance Celebrating Self Love at Stonewall, 7PM on Thursday, April 18th
My mission in life is to make the world safe for people to love themselves. One of the ongoing projects I keep is very dear to my heart, which is a performance art series celebrating the radical act of self love. It is definitely very radical to love yourself in a society that tells you that you aren’t worthy of any love or appreciation, or conditional love and appreciation (like, if you lose 20 pounds, etc…). One of the things I love most is to hear how artists have used their differences to become empowered. That’s what I curate in this series.
I’m super excited to have Ivan Coyote, the dreamy professional storyteller, author and multi-award winning bad ass, in NYC from Canada and featured performer at the upcoming Cupcake Cabaret.
Sleep is my Party Drug
I notice how well a good night’s sleep treats me the next day. How much self care there is in turning off the internet at a “reasonable hour”, whatever that means. For me that means setting myself up to sleep for 7-8 hours. Feels like a luxury given how much I need/want to accomplish in a given day and how much play time I want to squeeze in there. But accepting my human limitations is one of my great spiritual lessons and, unfortunately, I know that means prioritizing sleep.
Video Post: The World Famous *BOB* on Freak Magnets
Listening to *BOB* tell her story about freak magnets and how freaks are drawn to each other was very soothing… I have already turned back to this video many times over the last couple of weeks for solace.