I NEED YOUR STORY.
One of the most difficult aspects of my work is helping women re-frame the issues they have with food and their body from a "ME" problem to a "WE" problem. Teaching women that THEY are not failing at body image or making peace with food but rather THE CULTURE is failing - well - it's a hard shift for many women to make.
A little while ago I shared my own Food & Weight Story with my newsletter crew and Facebook Group: I relayed the story of my relationship with food and my body....where the problems started and where the solutions began. It was a strangely scary thing to do. I hadn't expected to find myself in a vulnerability spiral but there I was - intensely anxious about the response I was going to get to my very first public overshare:) Here's what happened: at the bottom of my shame pit I started to receive emails from women. Women all over the country. Women I knew well and women I didn't. Women comforting me, all saying the same thing.
Women saying, "ME TOO".
Their stories were all different but they held a common thread: the shared experience of absorbing the cultural message about weight and worth, internalizing it, and allowing it to negatively affect their beliefs about their body, their behaviours around food, and their health. Some had managed to claw their way out, others were still in the swamps, searching for peace.
In all the "ME TOOs!" I started to see how Other Women's Stories could help me teach women to shift from "ME" to "WE".
....and I got an idea.....an awful idea. I got a wonderful, awful idea....
Wait a minute. I'm not the Grinch. It was just an idea.
One of the most difficult aspects of my work is helping women re-frame the issues they have with food and their body from a "ME" problem to a "WE" problem. Teaching women that THEY are not failing at body image or making peace with food but rather THE CULTURE is failing - well - it's a hard shift for many women to make.
A little while ago I shared my own Food & Weight Story with my newsletter crew and Facebook Group: I relayed the story of my relationship with food and my body....where the problems started and where the solutions began. It was a strangely scary thing to do. I hadn't expected to find myself in a vulnerability spiral but there I was - intensely anxious about the response I was going to get to my very first public overshare:) Here's what happened: at the bottom of my shame pit I started to receive emails from women. Women all over the country. Women I knew well and women I didn't. Women comforting me, all saying the same thing.
Women saying, "ME TOO".
Their stories were all different but they held a common thread: the shared experience of absorbing the cultural message about weight and worth, internalizing it, and allowing it to negatively affect their beliefs about their body, their behaviours around food, and their health. Some had managed to claw their way out, others were still in the swamps, searching for peace.
In all the "ME TOOs!" I started to see how Other Women's Stories could help me teach women to shift from "ME" to "WE".
....and I got an idea.....an awful idea. I got a wonderful, awful idea....
Wait a minute. I'm not the Grinch. It was just an idea.
|
|
|
|
My SUPER SCARY goal for this year has been to write a book.
(curls into a ball and rocks back and forth)
To write about the transformative, messy, work I do with women and the life-changing information women require, in order to leave diet culture for good. I have spent months racking my brain, trying to figure out HOW I could best convey the KEY message in this work: this isn't YOUR problem, it's OUR problem. We all suffer in a thin-is-best culture and we're all working hard to survive it - whether we know it or not.
I was comforted by the stories of these other women and as I read them, it hit me:
This is it.
These stories are what I need to drive that key message home.
I can use the common experience of so many women as a way to teach.
And to heal.
Annnnd, I can trick other women into writing my super hard, scary, book project for me.
Genius!
But seriously. I don't think I could write anything that would be more interesting or de-stigmatizing or transformative than a book on disordered eating, body image, & re-defining health that includes the stories of REAL women.
So, I need your story.
As long as it's about weight, body image, and health - there is no right or wrong story.
You don't need to have it figured out. The story doesn't have to be dramatic or funny or traumatic or life-changing. I don't even mind part-stories. A single, formative, memory.
It can be ANY kind of story, it just need to be YOURS.
Other women, myself included, need to hear your food and weight story, your beliefs about your body, beauty, and health....where you think the problems started and solutions began. If you even have a solution?! Most don't. No happy endings required.
Have you always had a great relationship with your body? Why do you think that is?
Have you found a way to fortify yourself against the culture?? How? HOW?!?!?
Jot it all down. I want it all.
Your story will help de-stigmatize body image issues, emotional and disordered eating. It will help other women avoid the same pitfalls or climb their way out of diet culture hell. It will comfort, commiserate, celebrate....and, on top of that, it's just so damn cathartic to write!
Don't believe me? Try it!
(curls into a ball and rocks back and forth)
To write about the transformative, messy, work I do with women and the life-changing information women require, in order to leave diet culture for good. I have spent months racking my brain, trying to figure out HOW I could best convey the KEY message in this work: this isn't YOUR problem, it's OUR problem. We all suffer in a thin-is-best culture and we're all working hard to survive it - whether we know it or not.
I was comforted by the stories of these other women and as I read them, it hit me:
This is it.
These stories are what I need to drive that key message home.
I can use the common experience of so many women as a way to teach.
And to heal.
Annnnd, I can trick other women into writing my super hard, scary, book project for me.
Genius!
But seriously. I don't think I could write anything that would be more interesting or de-stigmatizing or transformative than a book on disordered eating, body image, & re-defining health that includes the stories of REAL women.
So, I need your story.
As long as it's about weight, body image, and health - there is no right or wrong story.
You don't need to have it figured out. The story doesn't have to be dramatic or funny or traumatic or life-changing. I don't even mind part-stories. A single, formative, memory.
It can be ANY kind of story, it just need to be YOURS.
Other women, myself included, need to hear your food and weight story, your beliefs about your body, beauty, and health....where you think the problems started and solutions began. If you even have a solution?! Most don't. No happy endings required.
Have you always had a great relationship with your body? Why do you think that is?
Have you found a way to fortify yourself against the culture?? How? HOW?!?!?
Jot it all down. I want it all.
Your story will help de-stigmatize body image issues, emotional and disordered eating. It will help other women avoid the same pitfalls or climb their way out of diet culture hell. It will comfort, commiserate, celebrate....and, on top of that, it's just so damn cathartic to write!
Don't believe me? Try it!
Here are "The Rules"
1. Type up your story and send it to me at foodfreedombodylove@gmail.com. Conversely, I've also provided a Typeform link:
1. Type up your story and send it to me at foodfreedombodylove@gmail.com. Conversely, I've also provided a Typeform link:
2. In submitting your story you agree that you are comfortable with me using your story in my upcoming book. I may not be able to use ALL the stories I receive but my goal is to collect 100 STORIES! That's a lot. Get writing, you freak.
3. I may need to edit your story: tidy it up, pull out one key piece, etc. My goal will always be to maintain the integrity and intent of the story...I just need you to be okay with me changing it up slightly, if needed.
4. I know that I am SO privileged to get to read and share your story. Thank you for trusting me with it. Ideally, I'd love to credit your story with your first name, last initial, and age. If you aren't comfortable with that, just let me know how you WOULD like it credited: first name only? initials only? anonymous? You call the shots.
Don't want to share your story? No problem...just share this email!!! I want every woman to have the space to tell their story.
I can't wait to read every word.
XO
Jill
3. I may need to edit your story: tidy it up, pull out one key piece, etc. My goal will always be to maintain the integrity and intent of the story...I just need you to be okay with me changing it up slightly, if needed.
4. I know that I am SO privileged to get to read and share your story. Thank you for trusting me with it. Ideally, I'd love to credit your story with your first name, last initial, and age. If you aren't comfortable with that, just let me know how you WOULD like it credited: first name only? initials only? anonymous? You call the shots.
Don't want to share your story? No problem...just share this email!!! I want every woman to have the space to tell their story.
I can't wait to read every word.
XO
Jill
