Since I've started becoming more body positive, I've realized that it's a community effort. Through sharing stories, and sharing your confidence and your struggles, you can help out other girls on their journey to body positivity. I follow tons of tumblr blogs that help me feel more body positive, but a lot of the more text-heavy, serious posts can really help inform you about the bigger contexts of things.
I feel like tumblr is a different kind of blogging than a wordpress or blogspot is. Tumblr uses a lot of pictures/videos/short stories to help promote body positivity, but it isn't always really informative. It's a great place to receive a lot of support, though, on your journey to better body image!
I've found that bodypos blogs that aren't on tumblr offer a little more in terms of information, current news, and in-depth analysis of certain body positive issues. One blog that I really enjoy reading is Weightless, and it targets a lot of various issues within the fat community. The majority of it’s readers are female college-aged students in America, however, it has some hits from places like India and the UK.
It's written by Margarita Tartakovsky, who has a Master's Degree in clinical psychology, and is an associate editor at PsychCentral. While getting her MS, she focused her studying on body image and eating disorders. She also co-wrote an e-book with her friend about ways to embrace your curves. How she manages to do this and still update her blog multiple times a week -since 2009- is beyond me.
Basically, she's awesome.
Not only does she have a blog that focuses on body image (aka Weightless), but she also writes on other topics like anxiety, ADHD, couples, and creativity. She's a fan of listicles, usually in offering ways to boost confidence, and loving yourself. She writes to help others feel better about themselves, and offers ways to create a lifestyle change for leading a body positive life.
More specifically, she has a series of blog posts she calls "Self-Care Sundays", which are basically used to share links and sites that she feels can contribute to making you feel better, whether it be in regards to your confidence, stress levels, creativity, etcetera. Her post from Sunday (10/19), for example, offers a variety of links that expose you to different activities that you can try yourself, or that are simply just fun and interesting articles. There are links to how to use walking as a form of meditation when you're having a rough day, a link to a listicle about how to get out of a bad mood, how to deal with painful emotions, and a list of journals (which can promote writing as a method for meditation or therapy). A couple of her other posts in this series provide yummy, healthy recipes so that you can eat food that not only tastes good, but also makes you feel good. Overall, her Self-Care Sunday posts really help someone wind down after a long stressful week and sort of take care of themselves before jumping in to the next week. It’s nice that she shares things that make her feel better as a way to help everyone else feel a little better too. She deserves a hug.
Not only do I read her blog to inform myself how to lead a healthy body positive life, but I also read it when I am in a place of doubt. One of her posts, very fittingly titled "What to Remember When You Feel Terrible About Your Body", is one that I've re-read multiple times as a reminder for what to do when I don't feel so great. My favorite part is when she says
"So if you’re feeling like crap about your body, then you’re feeling like crap about your body.
That’s OK.
It’s something to acknowledge, accept and feel — instead of beating yourself up for beating yourself up."
It just reminds me that my feelings of self-doubt, or disgust with my body are completely normal, valid, and okay. It doesn't mean I'm being bad at being body positive, it means I've hit a rough patch, and that I will get over it just like any other obstacle. Feeling worse about the way I'm feeling - feeling wrong- won't fix anything, but rather knowing that it's okay to feel bad about myself opens up the possibility to feeling better. She says that in these times of doubt, just learn to be grateful, because although you may not be satisfied at this point in time, there are a lot of things that could be different, and maybe even worse. It's important to learn to appreciate the littlest of things. Her tone and voice are very soft and caring, while still being authoritative and informational. It's almost as if my older sister or mother was giving me some serious self-love advice.
Through Weightless, Margarita has helped me, and I'm sure many others, lead a positive self-loving life, acknowledging all the ups and downs you’ll face on the way. It's not always easy to love yourself, but it's definitely possible, and with the support of Margarita and her blog, as well as the other body positive blogs on her blog roll, you too can be on your way towards becoming a body positive goddess.
Good luck, lovelies. ~~
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