What is your revolution?

You. Yes, you. You are a little revolution, just waiting to happen. So, be here--in your own body, ready to make it happen! It is absolutely OK to be happy with your own body! It's actually even ok to love it!

Just those few words are enough to incite panic and fear for some of us. I get it. I have been there. Being in this body, and loving it were two of the very LAST things to cross my mind! In the next week, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) will dedicate an entire week to raising awareness nationwide about the prevalence, symptoms, treatment, and statistics surrounding eating disorders. However, my idea of awareness starts much earlier. What if we all believed that we truly deserved to love and respect the body in which we reside, just EXACTLY as it is? No changes needed. I don't have to change who I AM! The potential is there, just waiting to be awakened. I don't need to have a certain body type/shape/weight in order to deserve the space I occupy! Neither do you. Neither does anyone.

So what is your revolution? Mine is self-love. Radial, unapologetic self-love. I'm not talking about an arrogant or conceited love. It's a love that says, "I refuse to hate any part of my body, even the imperfect parts." Imperfections are unique fingerprints of our creative potential. Imperfections are what make me unlike any other person that walks the face of this earth. I can't help but believe that embracing, redefining and loving our imperfections can heal the negative thoughts that feed the eating disorder monsters. I actually strive to be perfectly imperfect with confidence and style. In doing this, I hope that others can see how empowering and freeing it is to live and dance through life like this! When I gave myself the permission to screw up, admit that I was wrong, laugh at my clumsiness, and forgive my shortcomings, I stopped trudging through life looking down at the ground! I decided to dance!

My body isn't perfect. It's not what society considers a "dancer's body." I don't care. EveryBODY is perfect, and everyBODY deserves to dance. This has been one of the most valuable, life-changing lessons I have been given through the practice of Nia. No, I'm not "skinny." Yes. I dance. I can even teach! I dance feverishly and crazily with my whole, imperfectly perfect body toward a revolution of changing what it means to love our bodies.

Where to focus?

I don't particularly enjoy the concept of having an entire week devoted to Eating Disorder Awareness (this is next week, by the way). Don't get me wrong, I think that there is far too little attention given to these deadly disorders and the lifestyles that foster their development. However, raising awareness just draws attention to actually diagnose-able cases/incidences of these insidious disorders. What about the countless numbers of little girls (and boys too) who criticize every flaw and blemish they see in the mirror? What about the constant focus that most of us have upon the way we look? Body judgments, body shaming (fat or skinny), body sneering, and just plain disregard for our bodies is literally EVERYWHERE! How is awareness of the diagnosed cases going to keep this from stealing more lives? It's not enough to just notice the symptoms and get treatment. It's not enough, by far.

Like most things, I have found that I prefer to focus on what is wonderful or beautiful about something first, before or rather than focusing upon what is ugly, not good enough, or wrong  with it. I think the same goes for bodies, weight, size, shape, and appearances. What would happen if little girls were taught to love their cute little bodies from their foreheads to their feet, and everything in-between? What if we let kids teach US how to exercise? What if we stopped waging war with the mirrors and scales by learning to love and accept what they show us? What if I laughed at myself in the mirror every morning instead of sighing in disbelief as I pinch or poke the parts of me that disgust me? What if little ears NEVER heard us say, "I hate my body!" or "she/he/I/you/this is so ugly!"? What if the word "fat" just became another adjective? The world would be a much different place if I took the feelings out of the word "fat." (Think about that one for a moment--take the feelings away from the word "fat")

How on earth can we make changes to anything by HATING it? I can't change my body by hating it into compliance! If my primary reason for exercising is because I hate my body because I'm not exercising, it is a pretty sure sign that before long, I will hate the exercising too. Trust me, I did. I HATED going to the gym. I hated running, and I hated counting laps or miles run on the treadmill. I was told that I would love the body it gave me, but that was a lie. I hated that too. Physically, I may have weighed much less back then, but I can tell you that if you could have put my self-hatred on a scale, it would have weighed FAR more than the 50 pounds I had lost. That hatred was worse for my physical, emotional, and spiritual health than the weight that I have gained since then ever will be. It is so much easier for me to WANT to take care of a body that I love than it was to stop abusing a body that I hated.

What do we have to lose by believing that we're wonderful and beautiful and deserving of love and affection?  The despair and darkness of self-hatred? Maybe. I, for one, am willing to try. And with that, I am reminded of a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

The same goes for bodies. Join the revolution of body love. A revolution that starts right now, in your own body.