You might wonder, how does someone become a Fairy Godmother?
Well, it’s a long and windy journey so let me take you back to the beginning…
I was a little girl who cried herself to sleep wishing she had a Fairy Godmother to wave her magic wand and poof I’d be skinny!
Of course, that didn’t happen, and I internalized all these messages that say there’s something wrong with me (you’re too emotional, you talk too much, you’re too chubby – just to name a few) and it manifested in all these negative ways in my life:
- Instead of having a natural relationship with food I developed an eating disorder.
- Instead of having a natural relationship with my emotions, I started to binge drink.
- Instead of having a natural relationship with my sexual self, I was promiscuous and put myself in dangerous situations.
Words matter! The shit that we take in matters! It has an effect on our lives, and I came into adulthood believing being too emotional, being open-hearted, and being fat makes me bad and wrong. And because I believed it so completely it f***ed up my life for a long time!
Thankfully, I wasn’t left in that mess…
Do you believe in super powers?
What makes us stand out can often be the very thing we struggle to accept.
But what if those things could be our super powers instead?
Today, at almost 50, I know that my ability to get deeply in touch with my emotions & others is called empathy! And it’s a superpower!
My ability to be open-hearted? While facing my own issues & the problems it created, this was the secret to being set free from alcoholism for over 10 years now! I count being open-hearted as a superpower.
And you know what? By the same token I am FAT. I am unapologetically round as hell! I have thick thighs, luscious tatas, a stomach that jiggles like a bowl full of jelly.
This is ME and all my FATNESS:
And for sure, some people don’t like it. But I’m done apologizing for it because hating myself and my body never created anything for me! But accepting my body and having radical self-love for myself has set me free!
It’s created love in my life. Adventure in my world. And you know what? It’s having an effect on other people too. So much so I declared myself The Body Positive Fairy Godmother because the world effing needed it.
Where Did My Super Powers Come From?
They’ve always been there. It was just a matter of finding them. I’d like to say it happened overnight, but that’s not how it worked 😉 I had to go through some shit to get to this point…
It started with admitting I had a problem & needed help….
You know, every alcoholic has a rock bottom, and my rock bottom was waking up in a situation that shamed and frightened me – yet again.
I knew I couldn’t live like this any longer. I saw 2 options – killing myself or picking up the phone and admitting I needed help. I’m writing this so you know which option I chose!
That one phone call was the beginning of recreating my life and that night I walked into my first AA (alcoholics anonymous) meeting.
One of the things the women around the tables (AA) told me was “we’ll love you until you can love yourself.” I thought they were all bat shit crazy – I mean, I only wanted to get sober I didn’t need nobody lovin’ on me … or so I thought 😉
Hindsight is 20/20 and those women lovin’ on me is exactly what I needed. I began to see myself through their eyes & if they could love me knowing all the shit they knew about me… I could love myself – eventually.
While the journey to accepting, embracing & loving myself started around those tables, several years later I still felt like there was a missing piece! I still couldn’t look at my body and like what I saw, let alone love what I saw. I was still caught up in toxic diet culture bullshit with an eating disorder running my life.
Then October 2018 happened…
I had just recently moved from small town Northern Michigan to the West Coast to be with my boyfriend (now fiancé) after a year of long-distance dating. Having always wanted to try Yoga, back in Michigan, but being told by an acquaintance “I’m not saying you can’t go but there’s no one that looks like you” (read between the lines: no fat people go to Yoga), I found a fat friendly class here to try!
I didn’t know what to expect but talk about being in the right place at the right time… before class started we’re all laying on the floor in the dark with candles lit getting present. All of a sudden the Yoga teacher says, “I feel like someone needs to hear this tonight: you have permission to take up space just as you are… FAT and all.”
I had chills as tears streamed down my face. Holy Shit… for the FIRST time in my life I was being told I was okay just as I was and that I had permission to take up space in my FAT body.
I walked out of that class a different person! I realized there wasn’t anything “wrong” with my body that needed to be fixed – it was society’s messaging that needed fixing. I dropped out of toxic diet culture, ditched the scale & began to find beauty in my fatness.
And then I had my “coming out” moment in 2019…
What I mean by that is I stepped out onto the runway as a plus-size model!
This was the moment I came out to the world “saying”:
‘This is me. This is my body. If my fatness makes you uncomfortable, that’s your problem, not mine. I will no longer apologize for taking up space & I’m done trying to shrink to make others comfortable.’
From that moment on I was on a mission to empower & inspire other plus-size women to embrace themselves just as they are and to take up space boldly, confidently, but most of all unapologetically!
Here at Plus Size Confidence, I look forward to practicing all of my Super Powers:
- Bringing my empathy to all interactions.
- I’ll always show up authentically – 100% unapologetic for being ME. (And that means you’ll probably hear a swear word or two – just a forewarning 😉 )
- Being an invitation for YOU to find liberation through body acceptance & radical self-love show you can show up confidently but most of all unapologetically!