Become a Warrior

In 2009 I lead a Be Body Positive workshop in Colorado for Latina youth. In one of the activities we brainstormed all of the messages they got on a daily basis about what their bodies were supposed to look like, from their friends, family, school community, media, doctors... There were so many that I was blown away. From messages that told them to physically change their body to even one youth telling me the message she got was to be white. I remember putting up the huge posters on the walls around us and asking them how they felt seeing them all together, and of course they felt small and ashamed and hated it. So we tore them down and ripped them to shreds! In a very real way, we were refusing to be surrounded by images and messages that harm us.

A few days ago a friend was telling me about how one day without warning she started to recall harmful things that a person in her life used to say to her. Just as she started transporting back to the time in her life when she was small and those things were said, she flipped open her visor mirror in her car and said "No. I refuse to let this harm me." She told me she decided in that moment to be a warrior.

Yes! Let's try that idea on. When we begin to recall harmful messages we have received that invalidate us or make us feel bad about ourselves, let's become warriors against them.

How you can become a warrior:

• Recognize
• The purpose of recalling messages that have been harmful to you is to begin to understand your own body story. It is to shed light on what or whom has influenced you to feel about your body/size/gender. This is where we listen to our body and our hearts and see if something sits well with us.
• Resist 
• We muster up strength and use self-love to fight against harmful messages.  We turn away from the them, we tear them down, we use activism, we cross them out, we say NO.
• Create
• We share our truth, we take on messages that make us feel good, we claim our unique beauty and perspective. We change the way we interpret all messages and follow the path again: Recognize, Resist what doesn't fit you, Create new meaning.

Messages have power when we give them power. Let's fight against the messages that harm us. Let's continue to fight for Love Guerrillas everywhere!