Tara Jane Style

This is more or less a part 2 of my body positivity essay from earlier this year so if you haven’t read that yet, go check it out then come back 😘.

Definitions:

• “Body positivity is “the mindset that everyone is worthy of love and a positive body image, regardless of how the media and society tries to define beauty or the ideal body type.”

• “Body neutrality is a neutral emotional and physical stance toward your body, which can help you foster self-acceptance and remove societal judgment. It can be a good approach when being positive about your body doesn’t feel genuine or is too big of a step.”

I think it’s all fine and good to SAY all the things you think you should about body positivity and/or body neutrality, but it’s a completely different thing to actually put it into practice yourself.

My body positivity journey was kickstarted in the summer of 2020 when I saw this post from Shandra Redwine (@losermentality) telling me that life was too short to NOT wear the damn shorts.

View this post on Instagram

I don’t know why this did it. Why after (at the time) 33 years on the planet, many of which I spent actively hiding the areas on my body I deemed “unworthy of sunshine,” that I was finally ready to receive this message. But receive it I did.

It didn’t make my insecurities go away. It didn’t magically “cure” me, but it DID give me the permission to let myself release the fear and stop fixating on the core memories I had of when my weight had been used as a weapon against me by men:

• Elementary school boys calling me “Fatty”
• When men in college told me I was a “fat bitch” when I was asking them to leave me and my friends alone
• The time a guy shouted from his car as I was crossing the street in my mid 20s, “Hurry your fat-ass up”
• The multitude of times it was used as an attempt at emotionally breaking me by an abusive ex-partner.

I was offered a moment of clarity and my mental chemistry made a perceivable shift – life IS short. What a silly thing to not wear shorts.

Fast forward to last weekend, three full years later of actively practicing body positivity to this picture my husband took of me for my food instagram:

It would be a lie to say that my eyes didn’t gravitate to bumps and lumps on my thighs. But, instead of immediately jumping to negative self talk, I let myself sigh internally and shrug it off. Instead of being consumed by what others would think and cropping the photo to something more “flattering” – I posted it as is.

Body positivity (or even body neutrality if you’re not quite there yet) is not like flipping on a light switch. It takes making conscious decisions about what you are and are not going to allow to occupy your headspace.

Do I 100% love my body. No I do not. As Emma Thompson put it, “I don’t know any woman that lives with a body she likes and so my question, I think, for everybody these days – is why are we wasting our time, our passion, our energy, our money on hating ourselves and not enjoying the vehicles we have to live in?”

Don’t waste your life’s purpose. Wear the damn shorts (or in this case tennis dress 😆).

XOXO, Tara