On the path to my dreams

Recently, a young woman (name has been changed for confidentiality) contacted me to find out about how to weave body image and self-love into a career. It made me feel inspired to describe my journey to my current career as well as envision for myself where my career is going. I have so much that I would love to do in my life. Sometimes it is important to think about where we have been so we can start to dream about where we are going. 


Hi Olivia,

So nice to get your email! I would love to tell you more about getting a Master's in Social Work. 

Most people I know who became social workers didn't "grow up wanting to become a social worker" its something that they stumbled upon, or came upon later on in their process because they realized at some point they wanted to do something to help people and address systems of oppression or societal injustice in some way. Social work is a hugely vast field but the main thing that binds us all together is working with people and addressing social issues. 

Body image is a HUGE passion of mine! I got my BA in Politics, Legal Studies and Music and was on my way to law school when I realized that people were cycling through the civil legal system because the underlying issues were never addressed adequately (eg. mental illness, poverty, low-income, lack of education, etc.). So I began thinking about how I could help AND I wanted The Body Positive work I had been doing in high school and college to be involved somehow. 

I ended up watching the movie Precious in theaters and went home and wrote my personal statement to apply to social work school. I thought the same as you that if someone (anyone!) could show young women that they were okay in their bodies just as they were and they could love themselves, they would avoid so much pain and suffering! 

I got into social work and pursued a clinical track which prepares you to be a therapist and learn about mental health. Even within that concentration there is a lot of variety, you could work with children, adults, older adults, families, couples, students (any age), etc. I did an internship with youth and families my first year of social work school and the next year with adults because I thought it would give me a balance and I could decide from there which population I liked more.

I decided that I loved working with adults in mental health settings and working with youth and young adults in my work with The Body Positive. I never had an eating disorder so I didn't feel passionate about helping people through their eating disorders, but I did struggle with body hatred and eating problems and know I am more passionate about prevention of eating disorders. 

What I do in my job is I am a mental health practitioner who works with adults with severe and persistent mental health disorders like Schizophrenia, Bipolar and Major Depression. A lot of the people I see also have substance use disorders/addictions. What I explored in social work school was how ALL people are affected by how they see themselves and their bodies. My clients who have serious mental health challenges will come to me and talk about how they hate their body. At first it surprised me because I was also the assumption that body image issues affected people who had more resources (the idea that if people had other concerns like getting their next meal, they may not have time to care about their bodies let alone hate it). But I learned that this is a universal issue! 

While I was in social work school I really began to see self-love as a universal human right and see it within a social justice lens. A lot of what you learn as a social worker is how to effect change on different levels: the individual, organizational and societal structures. Body image affects all people and in many ways that overlap with other social justice issues including LGBT rights, gender norms, abilities vs. disabilities, diversity, class, race, etc. My thesis was developing Body Positive curriculum for social work students so they could use it with their clients.

I am in the process of developing a new part of The Body Positive which I have just started and it is called Love Guerrillas. It will be an online and social justice/activism group with activism projects that people can do in their communities and share online. It has started as a blog and you can read about it here: http://loveguerrillasmanifesto.blogspot.com 

My suggestion would be to apply to social work school! Follow your passion! 

Hope my story helps!

Jessica

Time Travels...

Hello! And welcome back to The Love Guerrillas Manifesto! I have taken a break from writing to grieve, to work on some amazing projects, to learn, to travel and to sit with what I have shared over the last 15 entries. I have discovered that a HUGE part of this work is taking time to experience self-love and cultivate it. By taking a step back, I can truly be present to it! It makes me think of how powerful being witness to something is. I sat back and not only became witness to my life, but witness to self-love actualizing in different waves over the last month.

In my day-to-day life I am a social worker working with the most amazing clients and team members! One of the things I have been busy working on is a project that promotes Recovery being possible from Mental Illness. By using dance we were able to cultivate a feeling of "Happy!" that starts the conversation about how we all are affected by mental illness and to be aware and supportive to one another. What was so special for me is how everyone in the video used their bodies to move!! This video is not only about mental illness it is about creative soul expression! Click the link below to see for yourself:

Recovery is Possible!

Working in the mental health field can be very rewarding and very difficult. It is a practice for me in holding a paradox. Over this month I had to say goodbye to someone I worked with who passed away and a different goodbye to a powerful and phenomenal supervisor who was retiring. Loss in any form allows a space for rebirth and for something else beautiful to come in the space that the loss left. I truly listened to these losses and allowed myself to grieve them. What I have learned from my own grief process is that being in the moment and allowing yourself to feel loss keeps you connected to those who you perceive as being "gone". Lighting a candle and allowing my heart to break for one, sharing laughter and hugs to the other all help me keep a golden thread from my heart to theirs. 

This practice and this time is connected to my experience with my body completely and totally. Because it is my body that is the vessel that keeps all of these memories and experiences at my fingertips! I recall in my body the feelings of love, connection, hope that emanate from my heart and surround the people that I come in contact with. 

This month also saw great love in the form a wedding between amazing friends, a new family unit with beautiful children and a profound experience dancing again with one of my closest friends- a true soul sister. Witnessing love in these ways was powerful and allowed me to truly take that love in! To let the love that I saw on their wedding day, and in the eyes of my friends with their smiling children and the connection with my friend as we danced, was a practice in letting love fall across my shoulders, dance across my chest and settle deep inside my belly where I will hold it forever. 

I have a keen awareness and deep appreciation for my partner who sees me totally and with eyes of love and admiration daily for what I may struggle with, and for all that I want to do in my life. Having someone truly see me and reflect a loving gaze is so powerful and I feel that it is so needed in my life. It is as if you are riding waves on a sea alone but know that there is a vessel behind yours, there to catch you if you need help sailing.

So it is in all of these experiences that I come to a deep gratitude for the space and time to be able to truly experience them. I started to feel guilty about not writing that somehow it would be a reflection of me somehow, but what I have learned is that in this work of self-love, action and stillness is still movement! I honor the times to be still, as I honor the times to move/act. 

So, welcome back or welcome for the first time, as witnesses to my journey- in hopes that you will share your journey with me too. 

From "Difference" to Diversity

Before I knew about The Body Positive, I had an experience of my body that was wrapped up in “difference”. I had a different skin color than my peers, different shape and size than my friends, different genetic heritage that dictated the size of my lips, the color and shine of my hair and the size of my legs and feet. What I didn’t know then which I know now, which is that the beautiful differences were diversity, not fat. 

All the differences I noticed were described to me and by others as fat because we didn’t know what else to call it. Magazines were telling us and older girls about what to wear, how to be in the world and about fat (or not wanting it), so I figured that the difference I saw had to be because of a defect in my body, shape and size and that I was probably to blame. 

As a freshman, when I first sat in the classroom where The Body Positive support group was held in my high school, I had this feeling come over me of excitement. This was where I could explore my relationship I had with my body and get new language, including LOVE for my body. This message about loving my body, insulated me from eating problems and body hatred throughout high school, college, graduate school and through the hardest times in my life. The foundation that I formed then, a powerful and dynamic relationship to my body, is one of wonder, gratitude and love. 

Being involved in The Body Positive as first a participant, then workshop facilitator and public speaker for over 12 years has been difference between me turning on myself in hard times when “difference” became known to me, and me turning my perspective and attention to wonderful diversity and loving myself and my body despite what is going on in my life. 

The love of difference is my beauty instead of “difference” as the absence of beauty. Not only do I take pride in the care and compassion I give to myself, I hold this for others in my life including friends, family and my community. My love for my body is my inherent beauty which allows me to care for myself and from this loving place see beauty and diversity everywhere I go, not difference.  

Nature's take on beauty of diversity, not difference

Love-spiration

In my work and research on the topic of self-love, body image and Size Diversity, the conversation usually gets stuck on "media literacy". By stuck I mean, it is usually where people hang their heads and say, "how could we ever change the systems in place that oppress us and make us feel horrible about ourselves"? It is where many conversations about self-love start and end. However powerful media has become, and social media- ("thin-spiration"??) talking about the images themselves doesn't help people feel better about their bodies.

If you were to show a group of women a magazine full of images of women whose bodies are contorted, photo-shopped and manipulated to sell products, it actually reinforces them rather than fights against it. This happens even when the objective may have been to look deeper into the validity of the images in order to realize they were made to sell you a product. Its like holding up a picture and saying "this makes you feel bad! Look at it and take in all the ways you will never be like this image". The focus on it alone can be re-traumatizing.

In my mental health work I have learned about working with people who have experienced trauma. The literature on the topic of working with people with trauma says that to go back and have someone describe it, look at it and relive it is actually re-traumatizing instead of restorative. What is healthier, is beginning to integrate the trauma into their experience and relating to it in a new and healthier way.

"While we cannot directly affect the images, we can drain them of their power.

We can turn away from them, look directly at one another, and find alternative images of beauty

in a female sub-culture; seek out the plays, music, films that illuminate women in three dimensions;

find the biographies of women, the women's history, the heroines that in each generation are 

submerged from view; fill in the terrible, "beautiful" blanks. 

We can lift ourselves and other women out of the myth-but only if we are willing to seek out and support and really look at the alternatives." p.277

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf

This quote from The Beauty Myth illustrates my point well. We need to drain the images of their power and begin to re-envision beauty that is inclusive and values us as humans with spirits and souls. What if what we saw in the media reflected more diverse and inclusive images of beauty? What if our conversation about "media literacy" was more about creating Love-spiration?

Call to all Love Guerrillas:  Resist. Fight. Create. Return to self-love!

Theme Songs

I LOVE music and dancing. I have music playing as much as possible throughout my day and I select genres based upon how I feel or how I would like to feel. Celebration to me is: salsa. Chill and mellow is: soul or jazz. Hope and love: Motown. There is so much more! As much as I get attracted to beats on the radio and start singing along, there is inevitably a moment when I catch myself and say, "did they just say that?"From perpetuating horrible messages about your body, to promoting sexist and racist stereotypes, popular radio is not always a safe-haven for your body. I am not anti-radio, but there are times when I need more from music that popular radio is able to provide.

Awhile back I started compiling a list of my theme songs. Songs that make me feel good! Songs that if I were in a movie and the camera was focused on me walking down a busy street or jumping around on the beach like this photo ^ this theme song would be playing in the background and would reflect a bit of who I am. I encourage everyone to do this! Once you have a list you can listen to it when you want to feel really great in your body! What a wonderful gratitude practice!


Here are some off my list:

• Lady don't tek no- Latyrx
• Golden- Jill Scott
• Gotta Be- Des'ree
• Dune Methane- Hieroglyphics
• Hate on Me- Jill Scott
• El Cantante- Hector Lavoe
• La Negra Tiene Tumbao- Celia Cruz
• Bitch- Meredith Brooks
• Yo no se mañana- Luis Enrique
• Dontchange- Musiq Soulchild

One day I want to compile every single body/self-loving song on the planet and host a Love Guerrilla party. Sounds fun right? 

What is one of your theme songs and why? 

Activism Ideas Vol. 2

A week ago or so, I posted some ideas for activism based upon 3 different levels including micro (personal), mezzo (interpersonal/organizational) and macro (global/societal). Here are some more ideas for you to get out there and spread the messages about loving yourself and your body to the world!

Micro-level:

Find your own gratitude practice

Staying in the present moment is one of life's challenges and great pleasures. At times we can all get caught up in future or past and skip over the present moment. When we stay in the moment we fine-tune our process of deep listening to the wisdom of our body and the wisdom of our soul. Your gratitude practice may start with just noticing your body as it is now! Close your eyes and scan over your body starting with your toes, up to your knees, to your hips, your chest, shoulders, down to your elbows and finger tips, back to your neck, your face and your hair. See your body through what it provides for you: the ability to move, to interact with others, to work or create, to play, to love, to stroll or to run! Follow up your scan by writing a couple sentences about what you noticed and what you are grateful for. There are many ways to practice gratitude for your body which include and are not limited to: cooking a special meal, meditating while hiking through nature, journaling, having a conversation with friends. What is your gratitude practice?

Mezzo-level:

Post-It Activism

Get a book of Post-its and write on each one (or as many as you want) positive messages that you want to spread to strangers in the spaces that you visit! Examples are:

• Love your body!
• I love your smile
• You are beautiful
• You are loved
• Riots not diets! (a personal favorite) 

Post them where ever you want! On doors, on mirrors in bathrooms, on magazine covers in a book store (bonus points to those who sneak them into to diet books and "change your body" mantra type books!), on telephone poles, on ATM's, on fruit stands, be creative! I once came across one on a telephone poll in Berkeley and it brightened my day! You never know what might make the difference to someone struggling with self-love. Put your message of self-love out there!

Macro-level:

SPEAK UP (on the Internet)

The internet is a vast landscape full of possibilities to speak your mind and speak your truth. Post comments on blogs, ask questions, go to websites of harmful products or who promote harmful messages about people's bodies and click on "contact us". Let people know about Health at Every Size. They may not already know about how messages that work to increase health for all people are much more inclusive than messages that promote healthy behaviors for people who are in privileged bodies. Speak up about how messages make you feel. Speak up for others who may be afraid to. Comment, post, write, message, speak up! You may not know what could come of it, so why not try? Spread the word that loving your body is important for all people of ALL sizes. Spread the message that everyone benefits from loving themselves!

Mixed Heritage

In my day job as a social worker, I am on the Cultural Competency Advisory Board which is made up of mental health workers, consumers (clients) and consumer advocates (people who work for community based organizations). As part of this board we come together to work on special projects in order to improve the way that our services meet the needs of diverse populations. One of the projects I am working on exploring how services could be better delivered to people with "Mixed Heritage".

Part of this project is coming up with some experiences that us 'mixed folk/biracial/multi-ethnic' people face on a daily basis:

• What are you?
• Is that your mom/sister/dad/brother?
• You don't look _____(insert ethnic group here)
• You're only 50% (or whatever percentage you are)
• That's a great mix! (When someone finds out what you are)
• ::::Squints at you really hard::: "ohhh, now I see it!"
• Do you live in _______ ? (insert a city or region that has a high population of diverse people in it)
• Why do you act white? (or another group that you do not identify with ethnically or culturally)
• Check only one box: African American, Asian, Latino, White/Caucasian, Native American, OTHER

Being who I am has greatly influenced how I feel about my body and even more so because I have had to come in contact with the above statements many many many times in my life which makes me think about how I appear to others. This is not just for mixed folks. Social location affects all humans. Let me explain:

The way that I look at the world is based upon my personal and individual social location.  Which means that different aspects of our personality, identity and position in society afford us a unique take on the world and affects how we see each other and ourselves.  

My social location: cisgender female, 1st Generation Filipina, 2nd Generation Puerto Rican, heterosexual, raised in the SF Bay Area. 

Social location can also include: socioeconomic status, educational background, language/dialect spoken, political affiliation, religious affiliation, sexuality and more!

My experience as a "mixed heritage" person is not independent of how I feel to be a Filipina-Puerto Rican woman, or Filipina-Puerto Rican woman social worker!

Ultimately our identity and social location is a HUGE influence in how we view our bodies and ourselves. As I think about all the negativity that one can experience being a "mixed heritage" person (like confronting the above statements daily), I think about also all of the beauty in not being able to fit into ONE box:

• unique perspective
• the ability to navigate through different circles and cultures freely
• the choice to identify how you want to, not only how you're seen to the world
• the love for and value of DIVERSITY, not only in your family, but your partners, your community

What is your social location and how does it influence how you feel about yourself and your body?

My Parents

Myself, My sister, My Mami

My sister and I 

Me and Papi

Me and My Lola

Me and Grandma