All About that Body Positive Vote, No Shaming.

Body-Positive-Vote-No-Shaming

 

This year has been one fraught with negativity, hate, and insecurity. These feelings, unfortunately, have been applicable to just about every aspect of our lives. We don’t know about you but, damn, we’re exhausted. With just a couple of months left in 2020, we want to make this home stretch a positive one.

The clock striking 12:01 on the morning of January first won’t miraculously make everything better. However, we do hope that we can all strive to be in a place where we feel happy, loved, and confident by charging forward, finding within a strength and power we weren’t quite sure we possessed.


A Positive Charge

We hope, if you were able to, you used your voting power to make your voice heard during the recent Presidential election. Your voice is important, valid, and it matters. And just as it can be used to sway the climate of this country, it has the strength to shift the state of not only your own self-esteem but that of others as well. That’s why we’re campaigning for, and asking you to vote one more time; this time, for body positivity and no shaming.

Clinical psychologists may be the experts many turn to for guidance on self-esteem. However, it was an author and social worker who started the body positivity movement. Connie Sobczak and Elizabeth Scott, LCSW, founded The Body Positive in 1996 because of their “shared passion to create a lively, healing community that offers freedom from suffocating societal messages that keep people in a perpetual struggle with their bodies.”

The meaning of body positivity has evolved over the decades to celebrate our strength, confidence and beauty. Today, The Body Positive defines it as learning to love your unique body, quieting that critical voice, and living in a way that “gives you permission to love, care for, and take pleasure in your body throughout your lifespan.” 


How do I Cast My Body Positive Ballot?

Becoming body positive isn’t as easy as filling out a ballot. Thanks to the most unsexy year ever, isolation, increased social media use, stress, boredom, and a lack of physical activity has made it terribly hard to remain body positive.

Here’s the sexy part: you hold the power. You get to choose the narrative. You can vote to be a loving touch, motivating mentor, and uplifting voice for yourself and others. And this is important because that scar from last year’s holiday, stretch mark from the birth of your child, and five pounds gained during quarantine are not important. Yes, you read that right, it’s important because it’s not.

These badges of honor, milestone markers, and reminders of historical experiences should not be looked at negatively, but with unapologetic confidence and pride - and then we move on with our day because, we’ve got a lot of living to do. Rather than obsessing over these seemingly momentous things, move your body, touch your body, be unapologetically confident in your body, instead. 


The Bottom Line

When you vote to be positive and kind to yourself and others, when you take pride in and care for your body, when you love and live unapologetically, you will discover the the strength of compassionate words, the power of confidence, and you might even lose those five pounds...if you really don’t want them.

Share your body positivity journey with our community at @bawdybeauty.