Autumn Beauty Collage – photos by Michelle Fairchild
I find beauty and things to delight me in every season. Our natural world is an artists dream. Just look around and you can see how Autumn knows how to put on a show. She is vivid and rich, the hues of yellow, orange and red sometimes shocking even in their glory.
Already this season our family of four, while on a weekend jaunt out of town, stopped in Suisun City at Larry’s Produce. I am almost reluctant to share about it publicly, thinking it might be better to keep it a secret. The market is already a wonderful place to pick up produce during the late spring and summer months, but it becomes even more festive in my eyes in the fall when the pumpkins, squash and gourds arrive. Here is a sample of the delights to be had at the outdoor market.
Larry’s Produce – Photos by Michelle Fairchild
Living in Northern California in a more rural area there are also farms that transform into festive destinations in the month of October. Just this past Friday I went on a field trip with my daughters 2nd grade class to a local farm where we went on a train ride, a wagon ride, picked pumpkins right off the vines, bounced on a trampoline, shot corn cobs out of air cannons, wandered through a corn maze and watched little piggies race.
Hawes Farm – photos by Michelle Fairchild
Not only are the images about Autumn stunning, but so can be the words of writers who wax poetic about this season and its golden abundance. Here are some delightful reads for you to enjoy.
In my exploration of all tings Autumn I also came across this sentimental creation by Cathy Cullis called Fragile Things.
fragile things
autumn leaves seedpods
feathers rain clouds
fading photographs
poems
my heart
Fragile Things by Cathy Cullis
Have you experienced any Fall fun yet?
Here is a list of some ideas to get you going.
Consider writing your own poem about Autumn or simply a list that begins with Autumn is…
Grab your camera and go for a drive or a walk and capture some of the fall color in your area.
Pick up some pumpkins and colorful gourds at the store and create a display on your porch, dining room table or altar.
Is there something you love best about this season?
Yesterday I drove east for an hour, up a highway that takes me into tall trees and near to Lassen Volcanic National Park which is home to smoking fumaroles, meadows freckled with wildflowers, clear mountain lakes, and numerous volcanoes. I listened the whole time to the cd These Changing Skies by the band Elephant Revival.
My destination was Dos Aguas, the home of friends and my spirit guide who I am journeying and vision questing with for 13 months. The journey includes reading month by month the book The 13 Original Clan Mothers by Jamie Sams, creating an art piece/shield each month, fasting on the full moon day, ceremonies, and additional exercises/assignments. I arrived and was greeted warmly by my friends and all their fur-kids (four cats and seven dogs) who all clamor, wiggle, purr, lick, jump for some pets, scratches and hugs. My guide and I spent two hours together, part of the time in conversation and then in a very grounding ceremony barefoot, under the canopy of trees over a hundred feet tall, with the water from Battle Creek rippling and babbling by us.
I had been feeling overwhelmed with the demands of my day job for a few weeks and I had been under a tight deadline to complete a special project the week before too. Prospects of potential opportunities and change also had me attempting to keep anxiety at bay. A grounding ceremony, bare feet touching the ground, time spent in that beautiful environment and reminders about what really matters most and who I am were things my soul were in extra need of on this day.
On the drive home, listening to more Elephant Revivial music I reflected and let my mind wander, all while keeping a watchful eye for deer along the sides of the road. I contemplated what to share with you all in this Mojo Monday. My thoughts traveled to one of the more recent newsletters I received from Dr. Margaret Paul, therapist and co-creator of a program called Inner Bonding. I enjoy her insightful and thoughtful newsletters and her approach regarding such subjects as healing, wellness and healthy relationships. She had shared a more personal story in her newsletter entitled Do You See Your Essence? Here is her very insightful commentary about loving ourselves and recognizing our true essence.
Do You See Your Essence?
By Dr. Margaret Paul
September 16, 2013
I grew up with parents who had no idea they even had an essence. They believed they were their wounded selves, and that they were not good enough. Because they could not see their essence, they could not see mine, so I also grew up believing I was not good enough.
Everything changed for me when I finally saw my true essence.
Since my wounded self was programmed to believe that I was not good enough, I could not see my essence through the eyes of my wounded self. In fact, my wounded self was so convinced that I was not good enough that she spent a lot of energy hiding my essence. I could not see my essence until I started to practice Inner Bonding and began developing my spiritual connection.
Through my consistent Inner Bonding practice, my connection with my spiritual Guidance became stronger and stronger. By testing out, many times, what my Guidance told me, I finally learned to trust her.
So when she showed me the magnificence and beauty of my true essence, I believed her. That’s when I stopped needing others’ approval. That’s when I started to be able to fully manifest my life.
My Guidance not only showed me how incredible my essence is, she showed me how incredible everyone’s essence is. She helped me develop the ability to see and relate to people as their essence rather than as their wounded self.
Now I know, as Anita Moorjani states in “Dying to be Me,” that the essence of all of us is love – an individualized expression of the love that is God. Not only are we love, but each of us has been given unique gifts and talents to enable us to express our love in unique and individual ways.
Inner Bonding is about learning to love yourself – but you cannot fully love yourself until you know who you really are.
Right now, take a deep breath. Put your focus into your heart and move into an intent to learn with your Guidance about who you are. Use your imagination to envision your Guidance – whatever that is for you.
Now imagine that you can see your soul essence – your true self – through the eyes of your Guidance. What do you see? You need to get beyond your wounded inner child to the child you were before you became afraid, and learned to protect. You might even need to go all the way back to before you were born, since if your mother didn’t want you, or there was a lot of conflict in your environment, you might have already been afraid – even before birth.
See if you can FEEL the love that you are, and all the other unique and wonderful qualities that you are as a soul. You might want to write down what you see.
One of the habits I’ve developed is the exact opposite of self-judgment: I acknowledge out loud to my little girl whenever I behave in a way that truly expresses my soul essence. I tell her how grateful I am that she is within me and that I get to take loving care of her. I marvel at her creativity, her kindness, the joy she receives from giving to others. I praise her for her love of learning, her joy and laughter, her connection with people and animals, her playfulness and her aliveness. I let her know how much I value her deep sense of integrity and honesty.
In other words, I do what good parents consistently do – I mirror to her, throughout the day, who she really is.
Yet even this isn’t enough. In order for her to believe me, I then need to treat her as a cherished being. I need to love her by taking loving action in her behalf. Seeing her is only the beginning. Taking consistent loving action in her behalf lets her know that I truly love and cherish her. This is what Inner Bonding is all about.
For more thoughts about
embracing yourself as your own beloved
come read my most recent article called The Embodiment of I AM
in Cosmic Cowgirls Magazine.
Here is also a taste of the music of the band Elephant Revival as they perform their song called Go On.
ELEPHANT REVIVAL
Go On Lyrics
Go on, go on,
Go on and find your life now.
Go on. It’s alright.
We all feel something similar
Sometimes. Oh, oh.
Oh, sometimes. Oh, oh.
Don’t wait, don’t fear,
And don’t work too hard.
Don’t worry ’cause you’re here.
You’re here, through ever-shifting shades,
And now somehow. Oh, oh.
Oh, somehow. Oh, oh.
It’s love, it’s love.
It’s love that keeps me high enough
And the drugs and sex,
Or the lost respect and sacredness.
And it’s sad, and true,
‘Cause most things can hurt or help.
It’s up to us. Oh, oh.
It’s up to us. Oh, oh.
I know, I know.
We’re here to sow some words
And hope they’ll grow, they’ll grow
In moundless fertile hearts and endless fields,
We’ll know, cause most things can hurt or help.
It’s up to us. Oh, oh.
Oh, up to us.
Oh, oh.
All up to us.
Go on, go on.
Go do those things you’ve always wanted to.
My friend,
When the morning comes our dreams
Don’t have to end.
It’s true,
I’ll be there when I can for you, my friend.
Oh, I’ll be there when I can.
Layer by layer
I removed all I thought I was,
all I thought I had to be
and in the moment
I was left standing
naked and vulnerable
without identities and labels,
I remembered….
I AM THAT I AM
~ Lenita Vangellis
Opening the book where my heart shaped bookmark was hidden within the pages I found myself greeted by Mark Nepo’s essay called Where Love Is Deep. I find his book The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have to offer up wisdom, advice and new perspectives. Seeing as how I have been working diligently on a big project, the timing was ideal to read the sage and inspirational words of Mr. Nepo. Here are the authors musings on envisioning, dreaming and manifesting. “Despite our culture’s over-emphasis on doing, there is a a rightful place and time to get things done. In truth, there is very little we can not do. Much of the time we just lack either the ability to envision the dream built or the confidence that we can build it. I remember early on how my grandmother would encourage me to envision even the smallest dreams down through my hands into the world. She would say, ‘See it her,’ pointing to my forehead, and the she would take both my little hands and say, ‘Now see it here.’ Then she would laugh and say, ‘And soon, it will be here.’ With this, she would look around the room. It is an amazing thing about being human that we can feel something inside and then build it in the world. It seems we have this inborn need to love and to create. At their deepest, these drives of spirit appear to be the same. For through her love, wasn’t Grandma creating me? Don’t we help birth another the instant we encourage them to see with their heart? Don’t we help birth the world each time we give someone confidence to build what they see with their heart? Somehow we are meant to wrestle the earth –wood, clay, marble — into forms; to seize the air — notes, words, color–into signs; meant to hold other breathing questions like ourselves and shudder as we part. I go on and on as if to declare that life is worth living. It makes me ask with joy, What shall we fall in love with tonight? To what color shall we devote our being? What instrument shall we be next? Close your eyes and envision some becoming that you dream of. It might be the dream of a solid relationship or the dream of a home or the dream of building something lasting with your hands.
Breathe deeply and envision the dream fully completed, existing in the world.
Breathe slowly and spend time with this vision. Enter it and circle it.
Now open your eyes and look to your hands.
Feel the completed dream move into your open hands.
Feel your hands pulse with the energy of the dream waiting to be built.
What dreams are you envisioning? Do the visualization exercises provided by Mark Nepo cause any shifts or realizations? Without thinking too much about this question (Just see what is the first thought that comes to mind.) What color is your dream? Were you surprised by the answer? What does this color represent? How does it make you feel? What do you think you would need to do to realize your dream? Do you think that it is true where love is deep much can be accomplished?
A message has been repeating itself this past week. I am listening. I heard it first last weekend during an amazing workshop presented by Cosmic Cowgirls that featured Lyz Anzia, human rights journalist and found of Women News Network. The Women News Networkhas dedicated itself to bringing global attention to the needs and empowerment of women through online news journalism.
During the workshop one participant asked how do the journalists covering difficult subjects about such human rights issues which include stories about sex trafficking, rape, abuse and more, keep from falling in to despair about the many problems around the world. Lyz responded very clearly that journalists are able to do the work because they know that the work they are doing can help to change such things. In addition Lys shared that the stories they are writing help to inform 500 UN agencies and NGO (non-governmental organization) affiliates, international offices of legislation, worldwide universities and Schools of Law, as well the public at large. In effect the articles being written have the power to change laws, impact legislation, and inform people who are in positions to enact even greater changes in their communities and their governments. Just this last Friday night I had dinner with two dear friends who work on the front lines with people in crisis. One works for a women’s refuge shelter. The other has served as a therapist for those with mental health and drug and alcohol related issues. It is common that the shelter is short on staff and yet the clients continue to stream through their doors. My friend’s healthy realization is that she is only one person, and she can only do what she can do during her eight hours at work. My other friend spoke of the high number of 51/50 clients that had been brought into their center recently and then shared about talking to a peer who handles all the cases in a region for veterans who are suicidal. Again the message was we are each one person and we can only do what we can do.
In January of this year I wrote a Mojo Monday post called Change and Empowerment. That post was about how we can be aware of what is going on in the world and being sensitive, thoughtful and caring people, not manage to lose ourselves in all the swirling problems and tragedies in the world. There are always so many issues from the bees disappearing, to animal cruelty, to thousands dying because of chemical warfare, to people starving or not having enough clean water, to girls being sold for sex, and the list can go on and on and on. While I don’t believe that burying our heads in the sand is the answer, it also isn’t helpful to the world or to our own well being if we begin to drown in a sea of depression. When I see someone I know posting on Facebook one tragedy story after another I want to give them a hug in person and gently suggest “Pace yourself my friend.” Personally I want to be informed of what is happening in this big wide world. I do care deeply about our planet and all the people living on it. My heart wants so much for every person to experience a loving and happy life. I sadly know that this is not the reality for too many living among us. I know that I have to balance out the harsher realities with uplifting and positive stories so that I am reminded of all the beauty and joy that also exists in our world. I also think as Lys Anzia so clearly stated in her workshop, that knowing we are doing something to effect change and make a difference in a positive way can also keep us uplifted in the midst of stories and events that are hard to bear. The way we make a difference will vary and look different from person to person. I know that my husbands day job as a middle school science and mathematics teacher impacts the lives of his students significantly. He even has students who he taught about 20 years ago who have remained in contact with him all these years. I have worked for a non-profit foster adoption agency for over nine years and working shoulder to shoulder with social workers and therapists to serve the foster and adoptive children and adoptive families has been very gratifying. I also infuse the writing I do for Cosmic Cowgirls Magazine, this blog and the book I am writing with inspiring messages about healing, grace, love and forgiveness. Other ways I try to make a difference is by eating a vegan diet, signing petitions, making my voice heard about political issues by writing my representatives and so on. Even though we may earn modest teacher and non-profit salaries we also still choose to donate to causes each year that speak to our hearts. It may be the local food shelter, a center to help those in need, a family that is struggling, or an animal shelter like The Farm Sanctuary.
Photo by Michelle Fairchild
I realize that not all the day jobs out there will feel as if they are designed to serve a greater humanitarian purpose, but that doesn’t stop one from having a positive impact on one’s fellow workers or from volunteering or offering one’s services in other ways. While it may not be the easiest thing to do all the time it is in some ways the simplest, and that is to extend love and kindness to others on a regular basis.
Photo by Michelle Fairchild
Think of some things or images that are uplifting to you. Do you have these images in your immediate surroundings? Do you keep things in your environment that bring you joy and remind you of the beauty that exists in our world? One of the things that is always sure to make me smile are sunflowers. Sunflowers remind me to breathe. They remind me of the wonders of nature and our planet. They remind me that nothing is permanent and that this is a good thing for life is dynamic. The praying mantis friend on the one sunflower reminds me that my positive thoughts create my world and that beauty comes in all forms. There are also sources out there that offer up positive stories. One such site is called Daily Good: News That Inspires. Just today a friend shared a an article to warm the heart called The Business 9 Women Kept A Secret for Three Decades. Here is a story about a small group of women who anonymously for many years have done things like paid someones utility bill, bought new clothes for children, donated pillows and linens and personal care products to a shelter for survivors of domestic violence and so much more. They raised the money by selling pound cakes. You can read more about these inspiring women by clicking the linked article title. Other stories of goodness and kindness abound if we look for them or take notice. There is a beautiful story told in this video about a love letter a man name Fred wrote for his wife who had recently died. You might want to have a box of tissues nearby as you watch how through the kindness of others his letter is transformed into a song.
Recently I also found incredible inspiration in a children’s book called Amos & Boris that I read to my twin daughters. There were some simple, yet profound messages in the book that captivated my heart. Here are some images for you to enjoy.
A Beautiful Body Project is an upcoming series of book volumes & an online media platform dedicated to women & body image, dedicated to sharing stories about motherhood, aging, cancer, still-births, miscarriages, weigh-gain, weight-loss, dysmorphia, and beyond.
It all began when photographer and dancer Jade Beall posted this photo above of a friend of hers that she took in her studio Tucson, AZ. She had already posted photos of her post-birth body to show the world what she was going through after her son Sequoia came into this world. And through all of this she realized that there were hundreds and thousands of women who also wanted to share their life stories about their bodies! The emails started flooding in and she realized she had to build this project, that it was her calling.
A Beautiful Body project is movement of women coming together to tell their stories and celebrate their ever-changing bodies so that future generations of women can live free from self-suffering.
Portrait of Jade Beall with son Sequoia.
A few weeks back in a Mojo Monday post called My Body Is Magic I mentioned this project and shared a video about it. This week I found myself inspired yet again by Jade Beall and her co-creator and husband Alok Appadurai with two poems they shared on Facebook and on the web site for the project.
Here is the first poem by Jade that will also be featured in my upcoming Cosmic Cowgirls Magazine article entitled The Embodiment of I AM in September.
You can wear makeup or nothing at all
You can wear heels
or walk barefoot
You can drive a BMW
or take the bus to the store
You can have plastic surgery
or leave your body alone
It all means the same to me:
We are all variations of truthful beauty
I honor you as you choose to be
while I pray for freedom from unnecessary suffering
and I pray for the wisdom of listening to one’s truth
Our paths are unique while uniting as one
One Love!
And there is an urgency for compassion for one another
that begs us to
honor
and listen
and treasure
those around us
While we live our lives
As authentically as the DNA that is being danced
by the beat of our one heart.
-Jade
Here is the fierce and inspiring poem by Alok Appadurai.
Milking Millions Off Women’s Self-Doubt
Industries are born on the backs of Women hating themselves. It’s an emotional slavery that milks these women, dollar by dollar, Like chained dairy cows, Oozing vicious droplets of self-hate That rot the roots of a woman’s inner beauty…
You see, executive bonuses don’t swell when women feel naturally beautiful Just as they are. You can’t push lipstick, eye shadow, foundation, and blush Like crack cocaine or heroin, On a woman who sees her true worth, you dig?
Millions are milked from the financial breasts of women Simply by convincing them A Grand Canyon exists between them and being beautiful.
Magazines and movies are complicit in this lie that warps all of our minds
into a silent submission prostrating to the Lords Of Media Who enrich themselves on the suffering of a woman,
as she whips herself leaving emotional scars that don’t have to last a lifetime
but all too often do.
Diet pills, Spanx, and photoshop are foot soldiers in the war on women’s self-esteem,
hell-bent on their own Crusade to convert unsuspecting teens, or worse, preteens,
into self-critical consumers of false hopes offered by surgeons, photographers, and others
who want to hide, reshape, retouch, or fix what actually isn’t wrong with you.
Millions are milked from the bank accounts of women who have been brainwashed to believe they aren’t good enough.
Industries thrive when she looks in the mirror and hates herself just a little more with each day, each wrinkle, each magazine consumed.
Embodied self-esteem breaks the chains of dependence on products that merely momentarily massage our bandaged egos,
Cutting the umbilical chord of self-suffering that has been feeding their bodies and their brains
with toxic imagery of fake tits and other ideals that are nothing more than comparative trampolines:
Your mind soars on the amphetimes of a shopping spree
yet crashes when the superficial effects wear off.
Ask yourself this:
Who would buy what is being sold if women actually believed they were beautiful for who they are,
not what they look like?
Industries would crumble. Bonuses would deflate.
Executives would scramble, Board rooms would be abuzz.
What would they do if women stopped buying the lie that they are flawed, that they aren’t enough?
And the best part of the corporate magic trick to maximize profits built on women hating themselves:
women do a bangup job making other women hate themselves too,
and have become the front line warriors destroying other women’s fragile sense of self.
You can blame everyone and their mother
or you can believe: It’s time.
It’s time to close your eyes, ears, and wallets to the pimps of self-loathing
who want you hooked on their drugs that manufacture dysmorphia in your brain.
Self-esteem doesn’t come in a bottle. You were born beautiful.
There is only one way forward. Women rising up &
Empowering each other to leap into the unknown chasm
of life’s greatest love affair with one’s own self.
–Alok Appadurai is a writer, co-Founder of “A Beautiful Body Project” & “Fed By Threads”, an advocate for animals & the environment, and a proud father to baby Sequoia.
Alok, Jade and Sequoia
Founder Jade Beall has been a photographer, a massage therapist, and an inspiring dance teacher for women for over a decade. Her work is touching thousands of lives around the world.
More about Jade in her own words:
“A quiet yet profound love for photography took me by surprise my senior year of high school (1996, yeah, a while back) because of an incredible teacher at Tucson High, Mr. Halfmann. Today, I gather inspiration from poets and local photographers alike, finally finding my true passion for what I call Medicinal Photography for Women a few years ago in 2009. Medicinal Photography means to serve as an empowering tool to facilitate healing for women to feel beautiful and irreplaceable, just as they are, without need of digital alterations.
I have taught weekly dance classes for self-empowerment with live drumming for over a decade, I run a made in America sustainable clothing line that feeds Americans in need with my husband. I in-joy listening to people and looking into their eyes and seeing THEM, the real, beautiful them.
Becoming a mother in February of 2012 brought forth this Beautiful Body Project. Through this journey that motherhood in all her glory and raggedness has generously gifted me came a new-found desire to connect to other women on a much deeper and more meaningful level. This inter-connectedness, this unity with other mothers and other women has been one of the most precious gifts of all (besides my gorgeous and perfect son, of course).”
*********************************
Please visit and explore the web site for A Beautiful Body Project. You will be inspired and moved by the stories and the images.
Do you feel inspired by this project?
Does it have any impact on how you view yourself?
What are your thoughts about accepting and loving your body ~ imperfections and all?
“At the end of your brush is the tip of your soul.” ~ Andrew Hamilton
Some of my mission here on planet mama earth is to shine a light on extending love and grace to ourselves. I don’t have a magic wand that can heal others or make people love themselves. My wand can only work on me. The good news is that I am quite confident that everyone has such a wand.
It began with a dear friend posting this quote to the left on her Facebook wall on July 5th.
I responded:
LOL – This is part of what we call writing your Legendary Story. Plot twists in the real world can be a real pain, but when you look at it from a story perspective, oh this is when the story sometimes gets really good and juicy!
She wrote:
Oh yeah! well I could use some boredom right about now LOL Plot twist, Plot twist, Plot twist!!!
I wrote:
You’re funny!
Then I wrote:
Tonight while reading the novelA Good AmericanI come to this paragraph on page 353 that ended Chapter 40 – “My grandmother’s life had been one long opera. There had been drama, heroes, villains, improbable plot twists, all that. But most of all there had been love, great big waves of it, crashing ceaselessly against the rocks of life, bearing us all back to grace.” (Can you believe that!?! – how uncanny!)
Her response:
synchronicity.. gotta love it!
Then on July 8th I read this in an astrological forecast by Heather Roan Robbins on Starcodes. Thursday, July 11: If conflicts and friction arise early on; breathe through it and be safe. Tell good stories midday; when the plot twists, choose a good road. Afternoon is more efficient as the Moon enters mental Virgo, but instincts may work better than our minds; unknown factors can challenge our judgment as the Sun sesqui-squares Neptune. Watch out for detours, sloppy conditions, and defensive people; feel the good road underneath.
I began to get this nagging feeling that the Universe was telling me to “Pay attention, this is important!” and then laughing at blowing my mind with some good old synchronicity. Several weeks have passed but I still felt inspired to write about Plot Twists for a Mojo Monday post. I am curious and wondering what kind of plot twists others are experiencing out there? How are you dealing with them? Do you have a basket of goodies or a tool box, or belt if your more into packing them on your hip, that you can reach into when life throws you curve balls? Have you been experiencing more synchronistic moments? What are your thoughts about synchronicity? What is THAT about?
Something to wonder about and ponder are the lyrics to the song Synchronicity by The Police:
Synchronicity I
With one breath, with one flow You will know Synchronicity A sleep trance, a dream dance A shaped romance Synchronicity A connecting principle Linked to the invisible Almost imperceptible Something inexpressible Science insusceptible Logic so inflexible Causally connectable Yet nothing is invincible If we share this nightmare Then we can dream Spiritus mundi If you act as you think The missing link Synchronicity We know you, they know me Extrasensory Synchronicity A star fall, a phone call It joins all Synchronicity It’s so deep, it’s so wide You’re inside Synchronicity Effect without cause Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause Synchronicity You can also read more about how to handle things when life throws you curve balls in my article called The Compass of Love in Cosmic Cowgirls Magazine.
“I like my body because it’s magic.” – 5-year-old Sofia (aka Lola)
Interrupt Magazine published an article that caught my attention. Writer Marie C. begins by sharing a startling statistic. “By the age of 13, 53 percent of girls say they are unhappy with their bodies. When were they happy?” In order to find out, Marie C. photographed and interviewed girls between the ages of four and eight and asked them what they liked about their bodies. These girls share wisdom the rest of us have forgotten. Sharing this article was already on my agenda for Mojo Monday. Yet I took note last Saturday during a water aerobics class how many women were making critical remarks about their bodies. Comments were made now and again that reflected how many of the women wished they looked different. A part of me wanted to address the whole group and ask “How many women here like their bodies?” I had a strong intuitive sense that most of the women would not have responded positively. Consider the wisdom in the answers of these other young girls when they were asked what they liked about their bodies.
“I like my body. I like my eyes because they help me see different things. I also like my hands because they help me write different things. I also like my feet because they help me walk and have fun. My name is Jeniah and I’m 8-years-old!” – 8-year-old Jeniah
“My whole body I love I love.” – 4-year-old Layla
“Something I like about my body is how fast I can run, and how healthy I am.” – 9-year-old Lana
“I like that I can move with it. I like that eyelashes are long. I like that my skin is half white and half brown. I like that my hair can shake.” – 6-year-old Bayan
“I like my hands they help draw.” – 6-year-old Laila
“My body is magic because… …of my bright green eyes that are soulful and shine. …of my ability to float, glide and swim in the water like an otter. …of my big smile that is warm and toothy. …of my hands that can transform my creative thoughts into art and written words. …of my strong legs and big traveling feel that support me well. …of my arms that give comfort, bug hugs and serve a volleyball fast and hard. ..it provides me with the tools to live and love this life.” – 44-year-old Michelle Ida Fairchild Now it is your turn. List some things that you love about your body. How is your body magic? Take a self portrait. The photo(s) can be your whole body or of parts you particularly love.
Lastly, be sure to embrace yourself as your own beloved. Come learn more about A Beautiful Body Project and watch this video for a very inspiring experience.
We Are All Meant to Shine! 