Speak well of your body

[firecat]

via http://harrietbrown.blogspot.com/2007/07/take-love-your-body-pledge.html
via serenejournal and sistercoyote

I, your name here, pledge to speak kindly about my body.

I promise not to talk about how fat my thighs or stomach or butt are, or about how I really have to lose 5 or 15 or 50 pounds. I promise not to call myself a fat pig, gross, or any other self-loathing, trash-talking phrase.

I vow to be kind to myself and my body. I will learn to be grateful for its strength and attractiveness, and be compassionate toward its failings.

I will remind myself that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and that no matter what shape and size my body is, it’s worthy of kindness, compassion, and love.

The point of this pledge is to "change the way girls and women talk to themselves and others about their bodies." I like that. I'm all for changing how body-hatred talk becomes an automatic bonding ritual among women that IMO ends up damaging our self-esteem and reinforcing a negative tendency to view our bodies as tools and vehicles to be manipulated instead of, well, us.

I certain am happy to pledge that I won't "call myself a fat pig, gross, or any other self-loathing, trash-talking phrase," except in mockery of such phrases or as a way of describing an inner landscape I don't agree with and want to change.

The part I won't promise is not to talk about how fat my thighs or stomach or butt are. Because promising that in the context of a promise not to talk trash about my body implies that I'm broken if I have fat thighs or stomach or butt. And I don't agree with that. My thighs and stomach and butt are fat, and there's nothing broken about any of them.