Falter, balance, re-calculate

Last week I bought my very very beautiful pictures and wrote a blog post.

Then I proceeded to have a little crisis.

A few hours after I posted the blog link to my Facebook I became extremely self-conscious.
The Stuck in Vermont piece was incredibly well received and I was overwhelmed with feedback about how brave I am/was to expose myself in that way.

Suddenly however, I felt extreme worry that continuing to talk about body positivity was starting to feel like The April Show. That was not my intent, and I'm very sensitive to the thought that I could be coming off as attention seeking.

So from my phone, laying in my bed late at night I hid that link to that blog post. And you know what, hiding it felt really shitty too. There was nothing I could do to mitigate that feeling.

Then this week, out of the clear blue --- just when I was feeling like I really needed to just shut up for a while and be more quiet about my life and journey (P to the S, I hate that fucking word "journey" - it's stupid and feels trite) some very peripheral people in my life sort of came out of the woodwork.

They messaged me for advice. They messaged me to tell me that what I have to say and what I put out into the world has made a difference in their life and how they treat themselves. The messaged me to say 'this is hard, but I'm going to keep trying'.

So ---

because of that, because people are watching, because even if it feels a little self indulgent to talk about myself --- I guess I'm going to keep doing it.

A couple of side notes:

1 - Body Pos is not strictly for large women. Body pos is for EVERYONE. Self awareness is too.

2 - I'm not 'cured' - I have bad days, but I put in the hard work to lessen the frequency of those bad days.

3 - If you're going to work on this then it's important to assess your level of personalization. If you're still paranoid and personalizing ALL THE THINGS, please check yourself. I will talk about this in depth - but for now, just try to be mindful.

I don't feel brave. I feel unencumbered. I feel honored to have a plethora of truly caring, interesting, just as messed up as me - people in my life.