Community Is Crucial To My Survival
I don’t think I would survive very long without community.
This is one of my communities! Have you ever seen so many people happy to flip off the camera? We have all been trained for the Body Trust® Provider Certification through Be Nourished.
*I recognize this community is overwhelmingly white. Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant, the creators of the certification are very aware and diligently working to cultivate an environment that is supportive and welcoming to people of color. Photo by Vivienne McMaster
No, really. I don’t think I would. Community has always been incredibly important to me.
It has changed and shifted over the years as I have learned and grown. I’ve been a part of many different communities over the years. They have all taught me different lessons and nourished a part of me.
After learning about body and fat liberation, community was one of things that I really focused on building. And actually as I write this, I am waiting on a friend to arrive from Seattle who was with me the weekend I learned what all this body liberation stuff was.
She is one of the very first people that became a part of my body and fat liberation community. I could not be more grateful.
My queer, fat body is at the margin. When I started working towards body and fat liberation, a radical paradigm, I simultaneously felt my world expand, yet contract.
There were fewer people to discuss what I was learning. There were fewer people that had heard or understood what I was learning. There were fewer people working towards the same. The spaces where I felt comfortable became less and less. Yet, I had this freedom.
Finding, pursuing, creating, and being in body and fat liberation community has been the thing that makes my world expand again.
I was honored to listen to Sonya Renee Taylor, creator and author of The Body Is Not an Apology, speak last night about radical self-love and how the body is not an apology. Radical self-love is part of how we work towards liberation. I lit up when she talked about the ninth tool in the radical self-love toolbox. It is “Be in Community.”
We are wired for connection. Being in community is one of the ways that we build resiliency and immunity to all of the fatphobia, sizeism, and oppressions that we face on a daily basis.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s still hard as fuck, y’all. Sonya created such a beautiful discussion that held all of this last night. To be in a room filled with people of all different sizes, shapes, colors, abilities, backgrounds who each has their own body story and discuss the complexities of radical self-love was magical.
As I think about getting to spend time with my friends who were there with me at the beginning of my journey, a bunch that I have met along the way, and the new ones I will meet at the Body Liberation Movement event this weekend, I think about how extraordinarily special it is to have community.
It feels serendipitous that this is the day that I am launching my community on Patreon. I’m about two weeks past my deadline. I’ve actually felt pretty guilty about not meeting my original deadline, but here I am in awe of it being perfect timing.
Patreon gives creatives, writers, and artists the opportunity to have patrons support their work on a monthly basis. You get to pick what level of support works for you, starting at $3. I get to provide writing prompts about body and fat liberation and grow a fabulous virtual community. As a bonus, I chose super cute fat animals to represent each of tiers that you get to pick from.
I’ll be doing weekly videos, expressive writing prompts, connecting you to people around the world who are seeking truth in world where everything we have been taught about bodies is wrong.
Let’s move towards radical self-love and body freedom together.