Dear You, Volume 3

Dear You,

Yes, you.  I know you’re reading all of this fat positive stuff, all this self esteem stuff and the general concept seems really wise and kind.  It makes sense to you on the surface, after all, generally speaking, that’s how you approach the world right?  You see everyone has value and is important in the world, and you don’t care about the size or shape of people in the world around you.  What matters is their mind, their heart.  How they treat people and how they behave right?

The problem is, I think you’re struggling with feeling that way about yourself.  You feel the need to be perfect, to be beautiful, to be confident and awesome and amazing right?  But you just don’t feel that way.  You’re feeling things like scared, lonely, unworthy, stupid, ugly, not good enough.  You just can’t seem to get those old recordings in your head to stop playing, all the times that you’ve screwed up, or someone has told you you’re not good enough, or that they think you’re ugly, stupid, worthless.  No matter how much you “get” self esteem on paper, you just can’t seem to grow your own.

Am I right?

Let me tell you a little secret.  All those confident people you see around you that you admire but think you could never be like them?  You are already like them.  Not only because you are taking that step out into the great world of self acceptance and positive self esteem (which is awesome!) but because they feel just the same way as you do.    They feel scared, they feel like screw ups, they feel like imposters, they feel ugly, stupid, not good enough.  The difference is, they know that those feelings are normal to have, and that they’re not always accurate depictions of themselves.  They acknowledge those feelings first, and then they examine why they are feeling them.  They realise they’re usually because of stress, because of carrying around other people’s behaviour and attitudes, because of tiredness, because of worry.  Sometimes they’re chemical – lots of us suffer depression and anxiety.

There are lots of things that you can do to help work through these feelings of inadequacy.  Surround yourself with positive people who value you for who you are in your heart and mind.  Engage in self care – be it a good night’s sleep, a swim or some yoga, a night out with friends, or a long hot bath.  Whatever it is that makes you feel good.  Fill your life with the things that inflate you, not those that crush you down.  Throw away those magazines.  Stop watching TV shows and movies that engage in fat hate or criticism of women over their appearance.  Don’t give media that engages in bullying your time and attention.  There are plenty of other fantastic things out there you can read, watch and do that build you up, rather than tear you down.

But most of all, you need to know this: You don’t need to be perfect.  Or beautiful.  Or pretty.  Or even confident.  You are valuable right now, as you are, with all your flaws and imperfections.  Because we ALL have flaws and imperfections.  Every single one of us.  Perfection isn’t compulsory, nor is it possible.

Start to see yourself as other people see you.  When they tell you they love you, for whatever reason they love you, there is your evidence of your value. Turn off those old recordings from the past.  They are just that – the past.  They no longer matter.  What matters is who you are here and now.  Learn from and fix those mistakes as best you can, and value who you are now.  It’s never too late – whether you are 16 or 96.

Something starts to happen when you do this.  It takes a long time, but you start to see those qualities in yourself.  You may not recognise it when it starts to happen, but you will feel it.  You’ll feel brighter and lighter.  You start to see yourself as the amazing human being that you are.

And you are an amazing human being.  I can see it already.

Lots of Love

Kath

Your Body is not Voldemort

One of the lovely, but slightly scary, things about blogging and having your blog audience grow to a fair size is that people start asking your advice about all kinds of things.  It’s lovely and awesome, to be seen as some kind of fairy fat-mother, but in the same time, it’s kind of scary.  I mean, I’m not an expert on anything by any stretch of the imagination, and in my day job, I’m an IT librarian.  I want to get things right for you guys when you ask my advice, I want to help.  But I am a human being and I can only give my own thoughts/opinions and hopefully that helps.

I get a lot of questions from people who hate their bodies.  Or they hate something about their body or appearance.  I get a lot of questions about people (usually young cis-women) who are ashamed of something about their bodies/appearance, and don’t know how to change that.  Or want to know how to hide the thing they’re ashamed of, or who to talk to about that shame.  Sometimes it’s about being too embarrassed or ashamed to go to the doctor to talk about something that worries them.

Mostly, it’s a whole lot of shame and fear about their appearance.

Every time I get a question like this, there are two things I want to do.  Firstly, I want to hug that person and tell them that they’re perfectly ok as they are.  But I also want to give them something to set them free of that shame and fear.  I don’t quite know what that is yet though!

One thing I do know, is that fear and shame often make the issue seem a whole lot bigger than it is.  That’s the nature of fear and shame – it festers away in our heads growing bigger and bigger and bigger by feeding off itself and each other.  Think about when you were a kid, and someone told you a scary story, or you watched a scary movie.  It was terrifying, wasn’t it?  But then when you go back and watch it as an adult, often it looks silly and cheesy, rather than scary.

Source unknown*

Well it’s the same with our bodies and our appearance.  That scar we obsess over, those stretchmarks, the wobbly arms we hide away, the round bellies, the hairy legs… whatever it is we attach shame and fear to.  We stare at them in the mirror, or poke and prod at them as we get dressed or bathe… and we look at them in every minute detail.  You’ll never know a body as intimately as you know your own.  We practically go over ourselves with a magnifying glass, looking so closely at our supposed flaws that we are afraid other people will see, that we usually fear those flaws far bigger, far uglier and far more dramatic than they actually are.

Sometimes douchey people pick up on those things, and they use our fears and shame against us.  They are perceptive of our vulnerabilities, so they will hone in on that and ridicule or point out those things because they know they can hurt us with  it.  Thus the person who has that ridiculous habit of bellowing “You’re so fat!” or something else about our appearance, or in my case, posting troll comments about how I’m fat, hairy or ugly.

I do understand those fears and the shame though.  I lived with them my whole life until just a few years ago.  I’m fat and hairy.  I’m kind of a tall hobbit really.  I tried EVERYTHING to hide my fat, hairy self.  I avoided those topics in conversation.  I wore clothes that I thought disguised me.  And worst of all, for many years I let so many people hurt me so deeply by pointing out how fat and hairy I am.  Sometimes the barbs still sting for a second, but not like they used to, and it’s rare that it does actually sting any more.  Because it’s a pretty sad person that has to highlight other people’s supposed faults or belittle someone because of their appearance to make themselves feel better.  Seriously… it’s a bit hard to give them any power to hurt you when you stop and think just how pathetic that is!

What we do, is turn our flaws into Voldemort.  Yes, I am a Potterfile, stick with me here.  Through most of the Harry Potter series, everyone is SO afraid to even think about “The Dark Lord”, they can’t even name him.  He is You-Know-Who and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  Even the name Lord Voldemort isn’t really his name, it’s the name he’s given himself to appear even more frightening, because he knows that not speaking the real name of something you fear, keeps the fear growing.

J.K. Rowling actually said it in the first Harry Potter book:

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 1997.

We do that.  We speak of fatness in hushed tones.  We don’t mention being hairy, or having acne, or stretchmarks, or skin problems, for fear of uttering those names will conjure them up in front of us, or put a huge neon sign over those “flaws” we have.

When really, most of the time these things aren’t Lord Voldemort, they’re just boring old Tom Riddle, and can be defeated, or at least reduced to something so much easier to deal with, simply by not fearing them any more.

Letting go of that fear and shame is not easy.  But that’s the hardest bit – letting go.  Taking that first step.  Opening the door.  Once you take that step, and set off, it really does get a whole lot easier.  That doesn’t mean you never stumble, or you never have the overwhelming urge to run back in and slam the door shut behind you.  That still happens.  But I think once you’ve taken that first big step, you can often recognise the fear and shame for what it is.  You’ve given it it’s real name, rather than hiding away and never mentioning it.

So… how do you feel about fear and shame in the context of your body and/or appearance?  Is there something you think you could let go of to make the wolf look smaller?  To lessen the grip that fear and shame have on you?

Or have you been able to give something it’s real name and chase that fear and shame away?

*I’m unable to find a source/credit for this awesome grafitti/photo – if you can provide one please let me know and I’ll update with full credit.

Dear You, Volume 2.

Dear You,

Hello again.  It’s a little while since I wrote to you last, isn’t it?  I was just thinking about you.  Yes, you!  And you.  You too, over there in the corner.  I’ve been thinking about you a lot.

I want you to know something.  You’re ok, you are.  Oh I know, you’re not perfect and sometimes you feel fraudulent, like you’re only pretending to be ok, but the truth is, imperfection and “faking it” are ok too.

I want you to know, you don’t have to feel invincible all the time to be ok.  You don’t have to be permanently fabulous to make a difference to the world.  Nor do you have to be completely loving of yourself, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to be ok.  It’s ok to feel afraid, to have doubts, to be a little less than your shiny self from time to time.  It happens to all of us, and that’s ok.  The key thing is to acknowledge it, feel it and allow it to pass.  Or if you need it, it’s totally ok to ask for help.  You don’t have to change the world all on your own.

Also, don’t feel you have to perform all the time either.  There will be times where you just need to step back and BE without worrying about what you have to DO.  Anyone who expects you to be perfectly “on” all the time doesn’t really care about you – they’re caring more about themselves and their own expectations than your needs or feelings.

The thing is, self love is about so much more than just declaring “I am awesome!” and believing it.  You are awesome.  But you are also human, and part of caring for yourself is acknowledging that all humans are flawed, and cutting yourself some slack.  Forgiving yourself.  You will make mistakes, and you will be flawed, but that’s fine.  We are all flawed, we all make mistakes.  What matters is how you work through those mistakes and flaws.  The most perfect thing you can do is acknowledge them and learn from them.  But most importantly, be responsible for your mistakes.  That’s the thing that will make a difference.

Because really, it’s all about doing the best you can within whatever circumstances you’ve got in your life at any given time.  So what if someone else is able to do more, give more, be more.  That’s them, in their lives.  You have yourself, in your life, so that’s what you’ve got to work with.

But there is something I REALLY want you to know.  You are a perfectly acceptable human being right now, this minute.  You are just as valid as any other human being, without changing a single thing about yourself.  That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to want to grow, evolve or improve yourself, or you can’t do better sometimes, it just means right now this instant, you are worthy of your own self love.  Even if it is hard to love yourself sometimes (and boy, is it!), or you’re struggling with some really difficult stuff in your life, you still deserve it.

So dearest you, be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and give the best version of you that you can give, but know that even in the tough times, you are still valid, worthy and deserving of your own self love.

I love you.

Kath

Going Bare

I decided to hold a little bit of a personal experiment over March.  As you might know, I had a month’s leave from work across January and February, and as I spent most of the time just relaxing, I didn’t wear make-up for most of the month.  My skin seemed to really, really like it, and when I went back to work and started wearing make-up each day again, my skin really wasn’t happy.  I broke out lots, the moisture levels changed and I had a flare up of psoriasis across my nose.

Now, I have been wearing a full face of make-up to work now for easily 25 years.  I started in my first job just before my 13th birthday, and as it was in a hairdresser’s salon, it was kind of the thing to wear make-up.  For many years, probably until I was in my early 30′s, I never left the house without at least some make-up on.  I felt that I couldn’t be seen au naturel.  For many years, it was a kind of armour, a mask I wore to present to the world.  Even once I started to work through the self esteem issues I had in my life, make-up was still, to me, required for work to be “presentable”.

So it’s a pretty big step for me to decide to go without make-up at all for a whole month.

And I did it.  The world didn’t end.  Nobody screamed “Look at your hideous face!  Hide the children!”  My skin was far more happy than it normally is.  Nobody pulled me aside at work and told me that my appearance was “inappropriate”.  I saved a bunch of money (I normally go through a bottle of foundation per month).  But most of all, I accepted my face as it is, bare and natural, without feeling the need to hide or disguise it.   I even left it uncovered a week ago when I had a terrible allergic reaction to something.  In fact, I’m even going to share this rather unflattering photograph here:

I look kind of pissed, don’t I?   My poor blotchy nose, cheeks and forehead!  My skin was so fragile and tender, and I still haven’t worked out for sure what I was reacting to.  I think it might be a tree in flower at the back of my house.

I went out that day, to a social event, with a bunch of people I don’t know also attending, and do you know what?  Nobody made fun of my blotchy face.  Nobody asked what was wrong with me.  And the salty ocean air on my bare skin was a wonderful treatment for the tender, itchy, blotchy skin.

It has been really liberating to just let go of that feeling of needing to cover my face and disguise my skin somehow.  I think I’ll even enjoy playing with make-up more now that I know I don’t HAVE to wear it to be seen in public.  I’m actually quite looking forward to playing around with the new MAC make-up I bought a couple of weeks ago, and having fun with colour.

But also, I’ve been able to look at the positive things about myself without spending time using make-up to hide the negative things.  I am 38 years old and I barely have a wrinkle on me.  My skin (when not being all allergic angry or the occasional hormonal zit) is usually good and smooth.  Even though my eyes/eyebrows are lopsided, I have long, dark eyelashes that really don’t need mascara.  I have some hormonal pigmentation, but I usually have good colour and when I smile, my cheeks are rosy apples.  Without make-up, my skin evens out and is not oily or dry.

But even if somebody had carried on about my bare face, and made some negative comment, I’d have been ok.  Because I know people’s value is more than just their physical appearance.  I know what is important is intellect, humour, kindness, honesty, respect, talent etc.

Do you wear make-up?  Do you feel comfortable appearing in public bare-faced?  Or do you feel the need to have your “face on” before leaving the house?  What does wearing make-up mean to you?

Dear You

Yes, you.  Yeah… the person reading this.  I need you to know something.

There is nothing wrong with how you look.

There isn’t.  Not a single thing.  No, there’s nothing wrong with your butt.  Or your belly.  Your hair is fine, seriously.  Who cares if you’ve got tuckshop lady arms, or skinny arms, or any other kind of arms, they’re fine too.  That body hair you’re hating on so much?  It’s alright too – nothing wrong with that.  What did you say?  Your thighs rub and are dimply?  So?  Mine do too, lot’s of people’s do.  You’ve got zits?  Well, skin does that sometimes.  Double chins?  Perfectly acceptable, I would even say cute.  Come on, everything that you think is terribly wrong with you… it’s not.

Your toes, your feet, your ankles, your calves, your knees, your thighs, your genitals, your hips, your butt, your belly, your boobs, your back, your shoulders, your arms, your elbows, your hands, your fingers, your neck, your chin, your mouth, your nose, your eyes, your ears, your cheeks, your head, your  hair… all perfectly fine to look at.

Yes they are.

When I see you, yes, I’m talking to YOU, in a photo, on the street, at work, on the internet, at a friend’s house, in a shop, at a school, wherever I see you, I don’t see those things that you think are hideous.  I see you, a human being.  Nothing about you makes me recoil in horror at the mere sight of you.  No, not even you there, hiding in the corner.

All those things that magazines and advertising and TV and music videos etc tell you aren’t good enough about you, that’s bullshit.  They are designed to make you feel bad about yourself so that you’ll buy more stuff.  They lie to you on purpose.  They make lots of money by lying to you.

Oh I know, there have been people who have pointed out things about you and carried on like they’re hideous, disgusting, gross.  They do it to me too.  But guess what?  There’s something wrong with THEM, not you.  There’s something wrong with people who need to humiliate other people because they look different.  There is something wrong with people who feel the need to point out other’s “flaws”, as if they themselves don’t have any.  They are the flawed ones, the broken ones, not you.  They are the ones that need to change themselves, not you.

You hold your head high.  Wear what you want, when you want.  Live your life how you want, and what works for you and those you care about, not how anyone else thinks you “should” live it.  Don’t hold back.  Don’t wait until something changes about you.  Do it right now.

If you want to change something, then change it for YOU, and only YOU.  Nobody else has the right to tell you that something about you doesn’t look good, or right, or enough.  Only you have that power, and only if you are doing it for what you think, not what other people think.  Do you want to change something about your appearance?  Ask yourself, “Why do I want to change this?”  If it’s because other people say it’s not good enough, or even what you think other people might say or think, then ask yourself “Why does what someone else’s opinion of me get to dictate what I do to myself?”  Remember, if someone is criticising you for how you look, the problem is with THEM, not with you.

Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good enough.  You ARE good enough, every one of you.  As you are, right now, this minute.

But most of all, remember that no matter who you are comparing yourself to, not a single person on this earth is more perfect than you are.

Love,

Kath

P.S.  Here’s a song for you:

(Just a heads up, it has swear words and images in the clip, probably not safe for work or kiddies)

Fat in a Swimsuit

Well, whaddya know.  Guess who fell into a big pile of self loathing in the past 24 hours.  Yup, you’re looking at her. (Ok smart arses, you’re READING her!)

Yes, it still happens.  As positive and as confident as I get, sometimes it just happens and there’s no rhyme or reason for it.  Yesterday, I wrote my previous post for the New Year’s Revolution, was feeling good, and spent considerable time posting body positive messages to my Tumblr until midnight rolled around and it was 2011.  I was feeling good.

But then, in preparation for going to the beach with my friend Kerri today, before I went to bed I decided to pull out my swimmers and pack my stuff up ready to go again.  I got a pair of new swimmers on sale the other day, so I planned to wear those.  I tried them on (I knew they’d fit, but I wanted to make sure the straps on the shoulders were the right length) and looked in my full length mirror… and it hit.

In hindsight, it’s because the top half of the swimsuit had NO bust support.  Which meant that my magnificent rack of doom had nowhere to go but down.  And it was uncomfortable, no – PAINFUL.  But instead of doing what I should have done, which is cursed out the manufacturers of a size 26 swimsuit, it became a spiral of self loathing.  I hated my breasts.  I hated my belly.  I hated my thighs.  I hated my back.  I hated my chin.

I agonised over that damn swimsuit and my body for a good hour.  Eventually I decided to put it away and wear my old swimsuit (which I only bought last year) which also doesn’t have adequate bust support in it, but I can wear a bra under that one and it isn’t visible.  I can at least know my back and chest aren’t going to hurt because I’m properly supported by a bra.

Just an aside, who the hell makes a size 26 swimsuit without adequate bust support and thinks that’s ok?  Who do they think is going to wear this?  Ok not every size 26 woman has big breasts, but wouldn’t it be better to have too much bust support than none at all?

Swimsuit designers, manufacturers and retailers, here is what I want.  I want a two piece swimsuit, the bottom half doesn’t matter that much, briefs, skirt, shorts… whatever, I prefer the shorts but will wear the others.  But the top half, I want a HALTER necked tankini style top, with fucking UNDERWIRE and proper adjustable halter-neck so that I can fit the damn thing properly, and not have my boobs dragging my back and shoulders and chest down.  I want one that has REAL support, like a proper bra, but is made of decent swimsuit fabric, in cute colours and prints, and I want you to put a reasonable price tag on it.  Not $300, but under $100.  If my size 12 friend with B cup tits can get this, why the fuck wouldn’t you be making it for people with bigger breasts?  SERIOUSLY.

Anyhoo..

Off to bed I went last night, feeling crappy.  I woke up feeling crappy.  Yes, in the midst of all the body positivity of the New Years Revolution campaign, all my talk about giving up dieting and self loathing and so on, it hit me.

Because it does.  It doesn’t just go away overnight.  It doesn’t go away at all really.  And no matter how immersed you are in fat acceptance, body positivity and surrounding activism, it still whomps you on the arse unexpectedly at times.  Some days you just can’t avoid it.

However, now that I’ve got through today, I think it’s a good thing that it happened to me when it did.  Because then I can share with all of you that it still happens, it still sucks… yet we survive.  We go on.  We keep going with this body positivity and fat acceptance stuff… because it really, truly does make it better.

Because of being part of fat acceptance, I was able to take a moment this morning, acknowledge that I felt crappy, and then consciously ask myself what I could do to try to make myself feel better.  The first thing for me is music.  I made sure I was armed with a couple of songs on my iPod that I know just lift my mood.  The second thing was to pop online and go through my Tumblr stream.  Sometimes, I need to hear those body positivity messages too.

Most importantly, I knew that the best thing I could do was put my damn swimsuit on (with bra on underneath), grab my stuff and get my arse out the door.

Kerri picked me up, I put my happy song on in her car, and I spent the day with my friend who makes me feel good about myself.  I went to the beach as planned, chucked off my sarong and went and got in the water.  I swam and fell over and laughed and got sand in places where sand should just not be, I swallowed great gobs of salt water, I talked with my amazing friend about life, the universe and everything, I let the power of the ocean take over and spent a good hour and a half being hammered about in warm salty water.  Then we went and got changed into comfy maxi dresses (I wore this one), headed up to Australia Fair, got a decent feed and wandered around the shops together.  I saw a dude who was so smoking hot that he took my breath away, our eyes met and we had a flirty moment.  Kez and I talked some more, laughed some more, shopped some more and then had a ridiculously flavoured coffee before heading home, salty, sandy, sunburnt and sleepy… but feeling great for having spent the day hanging out together.

When I hit the shower as soon as I got home, I realised I didn’t hate my body any more.  I was angry at the damn swimsuit manufacturers/designers/retailers for not providing me with adequately made swimsuits.

This is how it works my lovelies.  Through giving up the dieting and trying to change your body to something it is not, and focusing on caring for yourself, building up your self esteem, working through the tough bits, immersing yourself in positivity, surrounding yourself with people who build you up, not tear you down and living your life to it’s absolute fullest, you get through the bad times.  You learn to be able to put in place the strategies you need to get back on track.

But most importantly, you don’t miss out on all the good stuff, like spending the day at the beach with a dear friend, because you’re too filled with shame and self loathing to put on a damn swimsuit.

Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go shake more sand out of uncomfortable places.

A Letter to My Body

Dear Body,

I owe you an apology.  I’ve not been very kind or accepting to you in our relationship.  In fact, I’ve downright hated you for most of our life.  I realise now that the hatred I had for you was very unfair, and that you were undeserving of it.  You deserve more respect than that.

I am sorry that I did so many things to hurt you over the years.  I’m sorry that I starved you, exercised you into the ground until you simply failed to function in several ways, and that I punished you for just being yourself.  I’m sorry that I cut you, filled you full of pills and other substances that affected you in so many damaging ways.  I’m sorry that I didn’t give you what you needed, that I forced you to ingest things that you hated, or that made you feel bad, simply because I hated you so much.  I’m sorry that I picked you, tore your hair out, chewed your fingertips, and didn’t listen to what you were trying to tell me.

You’ve given so much to me through all the hard times.  You kept me going when depression really, really tried to stop us in our tracks.

You didn’t deserve to be hated so much.  You’ve looked after me for over 38 years now, mostly uncomplaining in the scheme of things, and how have I repaid you?  By hating you and trying to force you to change, by picking you apart as if you’re not a whole being, by desperately trying to reduce you and starve you away, and at times, I tried to kill you.

But you kept on going.  You kept on doing your job, and doing it very well, for all these years.  Even when I wore you down to exhaustion and pain, you still kept going.  You patched yourself together as best you could, even though you tried to tell me you were exhausted and in pain, I wouldn’t listen, so you just did the best you could.

You’ve done so much for me.  You’ve allowed me to do every single thing in my life that I’ve ever done.  You’ve allowed me to experience love, and joy, and happiness, and laughter, and fun.  I’m sorry that I never acknowledged you for giving that to me.

I tried to make you do things you simply couldn’t.  Like be completely different to what you actually are.  I measured you by other people’s standards, tried to change you to be something you’re not, and tried to force you to perform in a way that you’re not designed to, just because other people’s bodies behave differently.  I realise now that I have been completely unreasonable in my demands on you.

I want you to know that I am deeply sorry, from the bottom of my heart.  I ask you to forgive me for hating and punishing you for so long, and know that I will work very hard to never do that again.

I want you to know that you are beautiful in your own way.  You are strong, powerful and healthy.  I don’t hate your big belly, or your fat arms, or your thick legs any more.  Your rolls and bumps and lumps are not objects of loathing to me any more.  They are now things of beauty.  They always have been, I just recognise it now, where I didn’t before.  You are a feminine body.  I never used to see you in that way, but now I do.  You’re all woman baby!

I don’t hate that you are hairier than other bodies.  I don’t hate that you pump out more hormones of all kinds than the average body.  I don’t hate that you sometimes have trouble keeping your skin smooth and clear.  I want you to know that I am not ashamed of you any more.  That I will stand up for your right to be as you are, and if anyone tries to change you when you don’t choose to change of your own volition, then I will fight them from doing so.

You and I, we’re going to work together.  Because we are together.  We’re one and the same.  You are me, and I am you.  We’re going to take care of each other, and make each other happy.

I love you.  You are beautiful.  Please forgive me.

Kath

P.S.  I’m going to shave your head in January, but it’s for a good cause.  You might feel a bit naked for awhile, but let’s just show your pretty scalp off and rock it huh?  We might have some fun.

Auntie Heffalump’s Advice Column

One of the great things about WordPress as a blogging platform is the stats and information it gives you.  Well, that and being able to send troll commenters direct to spam so I never have to read their bullshit.  Probably the most eye opening piece of information is the search terms that people use to find your blog.  At the moment, the number one search string leading to this blog at the moment is the phrase “what will my friends think about me dating a fat woman”.

So, let’s talk about it.  Cos you know, Auntie Heffalump doesn’t mind sharing a bit of her wisdom and advice.  Are you ready?  Let’s go…

Who gives a shit about what your friends think about who you are dating?!

Because if they are truly your friends, and you honestly want to be with this woman (which you should be, or why the hell are you dating her?), they won’t give a flying fuck about what shape or size she is, they’ll care that a) you are happy and b) that she treats you well.  Because that is what is really important, and any “friend” that thinks otherwise is not really your friend.  And you shouldn’t be giving it a second thought either.

If you really like someone, let alone really love them, they will be beautiful in your eyes, regardless of what magazines and movies and people who profit from the body image misery of others say they should look like.  If you’re dating someone that you don’t feel that way about, you need to ask yourself why it is that you’re dating them.  And if you want to get some of that sweet, sweet sexy lovin’ from someone, you’d better find them beautiful and tell them so.

The same goes for your friends and your own body shape/size.  If your friends or a date are judging you on what shape/size your body is, they’re not really you’re friends.  True friends care about WHO you are, not what you look like or if you fit some kind of shallow ideal.  I say get rid of those false friends and find some decent ones who really do care about you for the right reason.  It was the best thing I ever did.

The thing is, what does someone’s physical shape/size matter if they’re a complete douchebag?  I have a relative who is considered outwardly gorgeous, blonde, pretty, thin, etc – but she’s a complete bitch who treats everyone badly, so it makes her ugly to the core.  Yet I have other friends who are fat, or have bad skin, or are hairy, or short, or a million other things that our media and marketing tell us are hideously ugly, but they’re so lovely that these “flaws” meand absolutely nothing to me.  I don’t even notice these thing most of the time, unless THEY point it out to me.  What I notice is their kindness, their intelligence, their sense of humour, their gentleness and so on.  Maybe they have something that is considered unsightly, but I notice other beautiful physical things about the people I care about.  A cute pixie face, gorgeous cheekbones, great hair, soft hands, lovely teeth, a beautiful smile.  When you truly care about someone, something as trivial as fat or acne or whatever doesn’t matter a jot.

For those of you worried about how others think of you because of your physical appearance, let those thoughts go.  Treat yourself well, look after your grooming and find a style that makes you feel good about yourself, and anyone who thinks that isn’t good enough is not worth your energy and emotion.  Put your energy and emotion in living your life to the full and being a person that you can be proud of.

There ARE lots of people out there who will love you for who you are, not some shallow measure.

Hiding My Sins

I’m wearing a new dress today.  It’s a really lovely maxi dress in a black and white print that I picked up on mega special (80% off original price I think) at Big W last Friday.  I’m also wearing a little black crochet shrug/bolero thing over it, just because the dress is a little cleavagey, and that wouldn’t be very appropriate for my workplace.

This morning, a colleague complimented me on my dress, and then said “Good idea wearing the shrug over your arms, they hide a multitude of sins.”  Now I don’t know about you, but I felt that the compliment was nice until that moment.  Because I wasn’t wearing the shrug to hide my arms or my sins.  I have no problem baring my arms, even though they are yes, shock, horror… fat.  Very fat.

Why is it that fat people, in particular, fat women, are supposed to hide their bodies away, or obey long lists of rules about how they dress?  And furthermore, why is it acceptable for people to hand fat people a compliment, and then take it away by suggesting that their outfit makes them look slimmer than they are, or hides their “sins”?  Why does “flattering” always mean “slimming”?

You know all the rules.  Fat people:

• Shouldn’t wear stripes, especially horizontal ones.
• Should cover their bodies.
• Shouldn’t wear skinny jeans.
• Should cover their arms.
• Shouldn’t wear anything too fitting.
• Shouldn’t wear anything too loose.
• Shouldn’t show their tummies.
• Should wear muted colours.
• Should NEVER wear bright colours.
• Should wear big prints.
• Should wear small prints.
• Shouldn’t wear ruffles.
• Shouldn’t wear pastels.
• Shouldn’t wear different colours on the top and bottom of their bodies.
• Should flatten their tummies, thighs and butts with control top tights or spanx or some other kind of heavily elasticated undergarment.
• Shouldn’t be tanned.
• Shouldn’t be pale.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!!

Notice how many contradictions are up there in that list?  Yes, for every time you’re told one thing to do as a fat person when it comes to dressing, someone else is lining up to tell you the exact opposite.

Well here’s the thing.  This is my body.  My body isn’t slim, or the same shape as everyone else’s body.  It’s big and fat and lumpy and has a HUGE tummy that I couldn’t hide even if I parked myself behind a screen all day.  But it’s a healthy body that works and is beautiful in it’s own unique way, and that I have to clothe in a way that is a) appropriate for the venue that I am in and b) a way that makes me feel good and expresses my personality.  I DO NOT have to hide it, apologise for it, atone for it’s “sins”, disguise it, or be ashamed of it.  My body is not sinful because it is fat.  Fat does not have any connections to morals.  It’s just fat, not Satan.

I wear clothes that I like, that when I put them on, make me feel good, and express the mood I’m in and my personality.  I love bold prints and bright, rich colours, bare arms, dipping cleavage, soft, drapey fabrics that slide over my skin, prints that are feminine and prints that are cheeky and fun, styles that are comfortable for my busy day to day lifestyle and that are durable enough to last more than one or two wearings.

Of course, I do have a responsibility to wear clothing that is appropriate for the place I am wearing it.  A bathing suit is not the right outfit for my workplace, nor is a cocktail dress the right outfit for going to the dog park.  In my workplace I have to be groomed, clean and professional.  Being fat is not unkempt, dirty or unprofessional.  It’s just the shape of my body.  It’s not ok for me to be too cleavagey or show too much leg in the workplace, that goes for everybody regardless of their body shape/size, but it IS ok for me to bare my fat arms or wear horizontal bloody stripes!

If a fat body offends someone, it is THEM that has the problem, not the owner of the fat body.  If someone is upset at a fat person wearing something that they’re perfectly ok with a slim person wearing, then yes, it is THEM that has the problem, not the people wearing the outfit.  Bodies are not public property, nor are they bound by any rules as to what shape or size they have to be or even appear to be. Yes, that means that a fat body doesn’t have to wear “slimming” or “flattering” clothes.  They can break any and all of those “rules”, because they’re rules imposed ONLY on fat people, never on slim people.

Nor do fat people have to suffer in silence over those false compliments about how clothes “make you look thin/like you’ve lost weight” or “hide your sins”.  What’s wrong with just complimenting someone with “You look great today, that’s a beautiful dress.”  I’m far more likely to wear the dress that gets that compliment again and again than one that I’m told hides my fat away.  I think next time someone tells me that an outfit I am wearing hides my sins, I’ll suggest I should take it off because “If I’m gonna sin, I want to wear it like a badge of honour!”

But I know not everyone has the ability to be as cheeky and loud-mouthed as I am.  I know it really, deeply hurts a lot of my fellow fatties out there when people say these sorts of things, and I know a lot of you agonise over what you wear because you want to avoid people saying such things.  I used to as well.  Then I realised how bloody stupid all the rules were and that I couldn’t make everyone happy no matter what I did (unless I could miraculously become thin – but even then people would talk behind my back and say I was thinking too much of myself since I lost weight and blah blah blah).  So I decided to make ME happy.  And I found my cheeky, loud-mouthed attitude, screw what anyone else thought.

Wear what you want to wear my lovelies.  Wear what makes you feel good, what you like on yourself, what expresses how you really feel.  Wear it proudly and screw what anyone else says about your bodies.  When you feel good, you look good, and you show your beauty.  Every single human being has beauty, they just need to find the right way to show it, and I believe that is by being happy, proud of yourself and holding your head high.  YOU are worth it.  Every single one of you.

It’s Your BODY, Baby!

Yeah I know, it’s been some time since my last post.  I have been sick this week just gone, swinging between wild nausea, thumping headaches and this horrible lack of energy thing.  Summer gets me every year for a bit, and this week seems to be it.  So of course I have some blogging to catch up on.

A couple of days ago I came across this post on Tumblr.  It’s from The Tummy Project, which aims to showcase all forms of tummies, regardless of shape, size, skin type, colour, hair or lack of hair.  An excellent body positive project.  But this post really worried me.  I’ll reproduce it here:

My tummy is on its way to being what my family calls “gobby fat.” See the pooch at the bottom, under my belly button? That will be gobby fat in ten or twenty years, maybe. All of the women in my family have big middles, and they just laugh about it and make jokes but I know they hate it and it makes them feel awful. I am tired of being scared of this happening to me. I am also scared that someone will know this is me in this picture, because I am the funny, confident girl who is always telling other women to chin up and be proud of their bodies and love themselves. And they’ll know that I am a fraud. But I don’t know what to do about any of it. I just have this tummy. I always have. At every size, at every age, the belly has been.

I’m still shocked when I see that photo and read the accompanying post.  This young woman thinks her tummy is fat??  What the HELL are we teaching young people if they could possibly think that they are fat when they are shaped like this?

That “pooch” below her belly button.  That is supposed to be there, it is her bloody internal organs!

Body image is so fucked up in Western culture that we seem to be thinking that our bellies MUST be concave or at least flat, that they cannot have any curves or roundness to them at all.  Not only is it an impossible goal for a healthy body to obtain, it’s also not even true in the pictures we see of models and actresses that do have stomachs like that.  Either they’re digitally altered so that it’s not there, or they do things like starve themselves the day before a shoot so that they don’t have a “food baby” or a bump from where the food and internal organs naturally sit.

What disturbs me even more from the post is that this young woman is being taught by the women in her family that a) her body is something to be loathed, b) to accept people laughing and making jokes about her body and c) that they can’t express their feelings about their bodies.  If they hate their bodies so much, why aren’t they helping this young person in their lives who HAS a slim body in not hating hers?

There are some inroads being made into body positivity these days, but we have so far to go that we need to really work with the young.  Right from tiny children, we need to be teaching kids and everyone above that our bodies are marvellous things.  Sure, they come in all different shapes and sizes, some of which are slim and commercially “beautiful”, but all shapes and sizes are beautiful in their own way.

Not to mention that our bodies are INCREDIBLE!  I mean, think about your hand just for five minutes.  Do some things with it – pick something up, wave, point, toss something in the air and catch it, click your fingers.  Isn’t it incredible that in a matter of seconds we can command our hand, and the rest of our bodies, to do all these things.  In the blink of an eye, our brains and our bodies work together to propel us through our daily lives and we  never even give that any thought.  How often do you thank your body for doing the work it does every day.

That’s just the stuff we can control.  What about all the things our bodies do on their own?  Like breathing, processing food and water, self cleaning, thinking, growing, repairing itself (the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself are the teeth!) and a myriad of things we don’t know about.  How awesome is that?

Instead of realising this, we focus on every single thing that we consider “flaws”, even those these things usually are just features that are unique to ourselves.  The next time you think of your body’s flaws, try and see them as a feature, rather than a flaw.  These are the things that make you, YOU.

Our bodies are not a bunch of “parts” for us to critique and obsess over.  They’re an amazing system and thing of wonder that we hardly even fathom the complexity of.

We need to take care of them, be kind to them, nourish them, move them and appreciate them.  Love your body, no matter what it’s shape, size or what it does and doesn’t do.  Love it for what it is, and what it does for you.