Be Beautiful: How 30 Days Nearly Naked Changed My Life

"In doing the BE BEAUTIFUL project I dated my body for 30 days. I took it to all my favorite places, put it in juxtaposition with some of my favorite pieces of art. Every day I took time to recognize how beautifully fierce, and gracious my body really is. When it was in joy I met it there, when it was in sadness I honored its sadness, when it was sassy I bore witness to its sass. Each date commemorated with a photo of my body and the words “BE BEAUTIFUL” written on it. With every photo I found something new and inviting about the house I’ve been living in for 34 years; the one I never paid mind to. It was not easy at all, but love is not easy and learning to practice self love has been worth every ounce of the struggle. Challenging an internalized belief that I am lacking desirability because of the size of my body is a necessary service to my work, my community and myself.

Over the past few months I have been blessed to be part of a body politic think tank at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. As a group we are engaging the question “what sits on the other side of my body’s shame and joy?”, That is a hard question to answer. For me in order to understand what sits on the other side of body shame and body joy I have to engage my internalized body shame and invite the possibilities of body joy. Given that I have been a woman of size my entire life raised in poor, suburban, white, American culture my core belief systems are steeped in shame and invisibility. What better way to challenge those internalized beliefs than to examine images of my body on a social network setting. A place completely at the intersection of my given family, people I grew up with, people who only know me in the context of art, and my current chosen family.

The first picture I shared I was wearing a bright orange tight fitted slip, in black letters I wrote, “BE BEAUTIFUL” across my belly."
See the entire article @ The Body is Not an Apology