The fight for fat acceptance is a going to be a long haul, so today I thought I would post about inspiration.
I am unrepentant inspiration lover: inspirational quotes, cheesy songs, this is one of my favorite videos:
Here is another favorite video – this one is from the Fit Fatties Forum
Some people I know make fun of me good-naturedly. They say it’s silly, they say that they are too jaded for such cheesy things to motivate or inspire them. They imply that I am perhaps a bit ridiculous for deriving motivation and inspiration from Michael Bolton singing Go the Distance from Hercules. They may well be right and as usual I’m not saying anyone else has to crank up the Michael Bolton. So maybe I am kind of cheesy and ridiculous when it comes to this.
I. Do. Not. Care.
We live in a world where we can get 386,170 negative messages about my body every year and so those of us who choose to love ourselves and our bodies, and those of us who want to let other people know that they can do the same if they choose not only have to actively reject every single one of those messages but then find the energy to shout new messages at the top of our voices.
One of the things I want is a world that embraces bodies of all shapes and sizes and I’m willing to fight for that. The catch is that in order to do that I have to deal with a lot of crap from a lot of trolls and haters, and companies that profit from making us feel like crap about ourselves. So send in the quotes, the theme from Greatest American Hero, If by Rudyard Kipling, whatever it takes to get us through. We may be cheesy, but we’re cheesy and kicking ass.
Do you have a favorite thing that inspires you and helps you when the negative messages from a fat phobic society get to be too much? Feel free to post them in the comments!
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Dances With Fat 
I find great joy in images of fat art; which is why I have (literally) hundreds of Pinterest boards devoted to artists who choose to revel in the fat body.
your website, & i mean that.
You save yourself or you remain unsaved. ~Alice Sebold
While that is possibly a bit heavier and not as light and cheesy, it reminds me that it’s my job to worry about my health, particularly my mental health. And the endless body hatred, weight cycling, obsessive dieting and eating disorder that consumed me for so many years was NOT helping my mental health. Nor did I get anything but fatter for all my many years of effort.
I also have a body positivity playlist I created. Some of the songs are just in general empowering, and not specifically body related. But it helps.
The world is fucked up. I am fine.
This has been a great help to me when I start to wonder if all those negative voices are right. Also I listen to a lot of music that reminds me how strong I am. Like Roar by Katy Perry.
Fight Song, by Rachel Platten
and, one of my personal favourites, which I use to rev up my motivation before a race or a run: Uprising, by Muse. I personally think you’d love that one!
I try to surround myself with as many body positive influences as possible, which is why my social media is full of them! Dancing always makes me feel amazing, so I do that as often as I can. 🙂
I have a good mood playlist that has some body positivity messages and a lot of general life-is-good stuff… advantages of being a music-based life form (MBLF) is that a good mood is only a refrain away at any given time.
The most amazing motivators and I am so not saying this to suck up because it happens to be true, are you and Liss over at Shakesville. When I hear too much of that garbage and it overwhelms me, I can come here, or go there and know I’m safe.
Seconded! This place is a great motivator, and really helps me to love myself better.
Thirded. lol So many times I’ve been really feeling awful and down and have let the fat-phobic bs start to drain me and get me down and then in pops one of Ragen’s posts in my email in box and about half way or less through reading it I can feel a definite shift in the way I’m feeling. Not only that but my shoulders kind go back, I start to sit up straighter, and all the sudden I feel stronger, happier, and more confident. Ragen has given me so much inspiration and helped restore an amazing amount of self confidence. I could never thank her enough!
I really wish I wasn’t so poor – I would love to help support her and her activism work. I feel it’s the least I could do. Sadly I’m just not making enough to be able to do that. 😦 I hope some day soon I can start making enough to start helping her activism work. She’s given so much to me by writing such amazing posts all the time, I feel awful that I can’t give anything to her.
If you’re looking for a way to support her, without spending money, you can reblog and direct other people to her blog. Spread the word about Fat Activism, and about Dances With Fat, via email, blog posts, tweets, or just chatting with your friends. Or just send her some positive messages, to help counteract the oodles of hate-messages she receives. These would all be good means of helping out.
Those are great suggestions! Thanks, Michelle! 🙂
I have a little saying: Anyone who doesn’t want me, can’t have me.
Usually, it applies to romance, but it can apply to friendship, as well. When someone gets all fat-hatey at me, I just say, “Well, he can’t have me.”
Another thing that helped me a lot, after my father died, is when someone sent me a quote, which I now have set to my desktop, as a constant reminder: When something goes wrong in your life, just yell, “Plot twist!” and move on.
The second one really strikes a chord for me, as a writer, because stories without drama are boring.
Some of the things that inspire me and keep me going (besides your blogs):
I’m not sure how to embed a YouTube video, but I’ll give it a try.
Here we have Christina Aguilera’s Fighter: https://youtu.be/RBOJpIwF47Y
Lily Allen’s Fuck You, originally written to anti-gay haters but just as applicable to any kind of haters: https://youtu.be/7gqFZjfFGuM
And Pink’s Fuckin’ Perfect: https://youtu.be/BUGJ02Uc8yA
Keep at it
Melody Beattie
Keep practicing your recovery behaviors, even when they feel awkward, even when they haven’t quite taken yet, even if you don’t get it yet.
Sometimes it takes years for a recovery concept to move from our mind into our heart and soul. We need to work at recovery behaviors with the diligence, effort, and repeated practice we applied to codependent behaviors. We need to force ourselves to do things even when they don’t feel natural. We need to tell ourselves we care about ourselves and can take care of ourselves even when we don’t believe what we’re saying.
We need to do it, and do it, and do it – day after day, year after year.
It is unreasonable to expect this new way of life to sink in overnight. We may have to “act as if” for months, years, before recovery behaviors become ingrained and natural.
Even after years, we may find ourselves, in times of stress or duress, reverting to old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
We may have layers of feelings we aren’t ready to acknowledge until years into our recovery. That’s okay! When it’s time, we will.
Do not give up! It takes time to get self-love into the core of us. It takes repeated practice. Time and experience. Lessons, lessons, and more lessons.
Then, just when we think we’ve arrived, we find we have more to learn.
That’s the joy of recovery. We get to keep learning and growing all of our life!
Keep on taking care of yourself, no matter what. Keep on plugging away at recovery behaviors, one day at a time. Keep on loving yourself, even when it doesn’t feel natural. Act as if for as long as necessary, even if that time period feels longer than necessary.
One day, it will happen. You will wake up, and find that what you’ve been struggling with and working so hard at and forcing yourself to do, finally feels comfortable. It has hit your soul.
Then, you go on to learn something new and better.
Today, I will plug away at my recovery behaviors, even if they don’t feel natural. I will force myself to go through the motions even if that feels awkward. I will work at loving myself until I really do.
It’s funny how this is about inspiration, because when I was watching the second video and noticed how many belly dancers there were, I noticed the costume at 2:48 and thought, “Man! What a gorgeous costume!” And then I realized that the top in that is sort of like the kind of top I was wanting to make for myself (as a belly dancer). So I paused it and sketched out how I felt the top was constructed. I may have to see if I can figure out how to make it. 🙂
So yes, this post did inspire me! Thanks, Ragen!