Equip yourself with the tools to embrace your body
Last week, I attended a screening of EMBRACE - an empowering documentary that explores the issue of negative body image created by Aussie Mum of three, Taryn Brumfitt. After undergoing her own personal battle with her body image, Taryn founded The Body Image Movement which has a very clear mission to harness and facilitate positive body image activism by teaching women the value and power of loving their bodies…from the inside out!
The movement was conceived in 2012, whilst Taryn was contemplating plastic surgery after her third child in the hope to “fix” her post baby body. She hated her body and there was a deep rooted belief that by making her breasts perkier and tucking away bits of her tummy that she would undoubtedly be happier. However, during the process, she had an epiphany…
“If I go through with this, what am I saying to my daughter about body image? How will I teach her to love her body? How am I going to encourage her to accept and love her body, when I am standing in front of her with a surgically enhanced body? What type of hypocrite or mother would I be?”
She realised that the messages she was portraying to her daughter were not the messages she wanted to be giving. She desperately wanted to ensure that her daughter had a strong sense of self and an understanding that she didn’t need to be skinny to be healthy or happy. So… she decided that going under the knife, for her, was not the answer. With the decision to cancel her surgery firmly in place, she was still left with the awareness that she was stuck in a body that she didn’t love, with parts she detested, and in order for her to be true to her daughter she had to be the living, breathing example of a positive body image.
And so began Taryn’s journey. What unfolded for Taryn was an unwavering desire to discover, teach, educate and shout around the world that loving your body can bring you happiness and by learning to do so, change lives forever.
The documentary was amazing - so many powerful messages that I believe every human could learn from. I intend to write a long (and passionate) post about body image and my key takeaways from the documentary but for now I have attached a really short article from The Body Image Movement’s blog - “Young Girls and Body Image.”
Although this article focusses on helping to create a positive body image amongst young girls, I think them message is so important for us all. It is no surprise that so many of us have unhealthy relationships with our bodies as we are bombarded with unattainable idealisms of beauty through our media. However, we can equip ourselves with some powerful tools to negate this. The negative messages we give not only to children but to the fabulous women we surround ourselves with and most importantly ourselves through the way we act and talk about our bodies need to be looked at. The blog outlines a few ways in which we can start shifting the message and start to really EMBRACE our bodies.