Radical self-love as a practice of individual and collective transformation

I want to change the world by convincing you to love every facet of yourself, radically and unapologetically, even the parts you don’t like. And through this work, illustrate for you how radical love alters our planet. Radical self-love is an internal process offering external transformation.” - Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

“The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” -bell hooks, feminist educator and author

“What is at stake in a disembodied life? No less than complete and collective liberation.” – Cole Arthur Riley, Author of This Here Flesh

Sometimes we can fall into the pattern of caring for everyone else but ourselves. That can lead to exhaustion and burnout, so we need practices that sustain and ground us through the everyday. Practices that help us connect with our experience, so that we can nourish ourselves and stay connected to our communities.

When we love our bodies, we love ourselves.

And we offer that love and acceptance to other bodies. 

When we practice judging ourselves, we often also judge others. 

And we become what we practice. 

“What we pay attention to grows” –adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategies: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds.

We also model to our children through our actions and words.

So to practice love for my body means I am also embodying the care I hope my daughter has for her own body.

A practice of radical self love can help break this cycle of self-violence and hatred of bodies–both mine and yours. 

So I am practicing love for my body.

And all bodies.

I facilitated a group workshop exploring practices that helped embody radical self-love inspired by Sonya Renee Taylor’s book The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love.  At the end of the session, a mother shared how hard it was to love herself and reflected, 

“This child I care for comes from me and I love her unconditionally, but I struggle to offer that same love to myself, even when I know that my body created my child’s body.” 

Let’s practice receiving love from ourselves and others.

Let’s cultivate ways to care for and tend to our bodies.
To listen for what they need.
Come back to ourselves. 
Let’s practice being aware of and grateful for everything we’ve created, held, been through, birthed.

And then feel appreciation for all the bodies we interact with each day.
For every body on this earth.

“Making peace with your body is not about finding some obscure pathway to the peninsula of ‘liking my thighs.’ Making peace with your body is about awakening to who you have always been: the physical, spiritual and energetic manifestations of radical self-love.” - Sonya Renee Taylor