fatanarchy:

I’m a passionate person. But I’m also a pretty practical person. I spend a lot of time thinking and working on how to become the person I want to be, a person I like and respect. And when I confront an obstacle concerning something I want to change about myself, I want practical advice about how to get that shit done. Theory is nice, but I like practical, tangible steps I can take to make the change I want possible. For instance, people say “you need to learn to be more patient” but there’s no fucking manual on How To Be More Patient. And usually the people who want you to be more patient don’t have any practical answers for you. They just want you to suddenly be what they need you to be, without providing you any applicable steps to get to that place. It’s ridiculous and it’s hard to do.

Obviously everyone is different. So not all of these idea will work for everyone. I’ve talked to some fat women whose journey to self-acceptance looks a lot different than mine, so the things that work for me, may not work for you. I love bouncing ideas off of people, so my first suggestion would be to ask many different fat/size acceptance people how to begin the process of self-acceptance. That way you can find what works for you and discard the rest.


All that being said, here are some things that you can do, in my experience, to begin the process of self-acceptance (in relation to body size):

(please watch this video from shakethecobwebs, as step one was inspired and partially quoted from it and it is just generally a really good place to start)

1) “Recognize that it’s taken you your whole life to hate yourself. From the moment we’re born, especially as women, we are taught that the only way to be a worthy human being is to be an attractive human being.”  For decades, billions of dollars a year have gone into advertising for beauty products, clothing and diets. Billions of dollars have  been spent every single day, every single month of every single year, creating a standard of beauty for your mother and her mother, and her mother, and now for you. These billions are spent, nonstop, day and night, expressly for the purpose of perpetuating a social standard that says that “if you are not beautiful then you have nothing interesting or important or special to give to the world.” You did not learn this overnight. It takes years of indoctrination by media, teachers, friends, bullies on the playground, family members to learn to reject yourself. You absolutely have to recognize that it takes time to break down years of self-rejection. So give it time.

2) Stop/reject the messages.

    a) Stop listening to them. Don’t listen to them in your head…  Don’t allow any negative thoughts about yourself to stay in your head- shut them down immediately. Even if that means saying “shut the fuck up” in to that voice your head or out loud. Do not say anything bad about your body anymore, even if it feels like you’re lying. Do not say anything bad about anyone else’s body.
    b) don’t listen to them or read them outside of your head. Do not read mainstream magazines, no matter how much you may love them. They don’t love you back and they are hurting you. Put the television and radio on mute every single time it’s commercial time. Pet your cat, pick the lint off your shirt, sing a quick song… do something else that does not require you to look and/or listen to advertisements. Don’t let that shit in anymore. Period.
   
3) Inundate yourself with antithetical material. If you are a fat person, inundate yourself with photos of fat people. If you have big ears, inundate yourself with photos of people with big ears. Even if you have to work hard to track them down, find photos of people who look like you and look at them. Stare at them. Stare at the details. Look at them every single day. Look at them for 1-3 hours a day if you can.
     Your brain has been trained to see only certain shapes as attractive/acceptable. The more you reject those images and look at images of bodies that are “socially unacceptable” you are literally retraining your brain to see differently. It’s amazing. You may not even realize that it’s happening. But if you commit to doing this, one day you will catch yourself in the mirror and your body will look normal to you. This is a practical and pivotal step to accepting your body.

4) Touch your body. It’s yours. You have to live in it forever and ever. Spend some time alone with it. Turn off the phone, turn off the music, turn everything off, even if it’s for five minutes. Sit or lay and just FEEL your body. How do your toes feel? Do you have pain anywhere? What places are you comfortable touching? What places do you never touch, either because you don’t like that part or you can’t reach it. Just be in your body. Listen to it. As shakethecobwebs says in her video, work on having a relationship with your body. Talk to it, listen to it, touch it.

5) This is the hardest step, and it’s kind of like the patience thing. Stop caring what society thinks. I know that’s way easier said than done, but if you think about it, it’s really society that you’re listening to. Why? Why is society’s opinion so valuable? What is going to happen to you if you begin to accept your body as it is now? What is the very worst that is going to happen if you stop giving a fuck? Are you going to lose your friends? Will people say shitty things about your body to your face more than they do now? Likely not. But if you’re worried about it, arm yourself with comebacks. They don’t have to be snotty (unless you want them to be), but think of the worst things people could say or do, and then come up with some things to reply with, so you don’t go out into the world feeling unarmed. Look up great comebacks, ask allies what they thing would be good comebacks and then practice them out loud. Write them down. Commit them to memory so you can always be prepared. Never underestimate the power of being prepared- the person doing the harassing doesn’t need to know you thought of it beforehand.

But how do you stop caring so much about what other people think, you ask? This is like the patience thing, you say? It’s a decision. That’s all. You wake up every morning and decide. You wake up and say to yourself, “I am okay how I am and I don’t give a fuck what they say.” And some days are harder than others. But every day that you decide that your body is your own and no one else’s business, it gets easier. And in the end, you will succeed because the truth is on your side. The truth is,

It is your body.
And it is no one’s business. Period.

6) I wouldn’t be being my authentic self if I didn’t say this one crucial thing. Question everything.

Question what I say. Question what others in the fat acceptance movement say. Question what your family and friends say. Question what the bullies say. Question the media, the government, the diet industry, the beauty industry. Question and challenge your own thoughts about what you believe to be true and what you think you know about body size and shape. It’s scary, but it’s imperative.  In practical terms, write it all down. All the questions you have and all the answers. Only you can sift through all the information and find out what works and what is true for you.

I hope this helps, at least for some practical steps on how to open the door to self-acceptance. I believe in you.

I thought this was pretty powerful and worth reblogging. Even if all the steps don’t work for you, even if only ONE does: it’s worth it to have these messages on your screen. 

I really, really want to underscore that questioning your assumptions is PARAMOUNT. Especially if gender performance and expectation play into it, but even if not. For me I have found a lot of power in the idea that no body type REALLY indicates gender, no body part, no clothes item, no way of carrying weight — no matter what others think. The same is true for health, beauty, sexuality. This is my own conclusion and I don’t dictate others’. But personally I find it ludicrous to make blanket statements.

I also want to add in that being judgmental of your own body parts because they cause you pain, or mental distress, is perfectly natural and healthy, just as it is healthy and okay for others learning to love themselves to not be able to hear you talk about that distress. It is sometimes worth finding alternative solutions to that - whether that’s clothes, or products or whatever - than “my body is bad”, but it isn’t always possible. And neither side is wrong.