This week I received this email from a lovely reader, who has granted me the permission to address it publicly.

I am writing you for a bit of advice. I have this friend who is sweet and nice and so many ways, but like so many others she speaks carelessly when making comments about people who are “overweight”. When I bring  to some friends attention attention when they bother me,  they often scoff as if I am being sensitive for no good reason, or acting as if I misunderstood them because they couldn’t possibly talking about me, and I am not the same as those other people because I am pretty..blah blah blah… Calling someone sensitive in this type of situation is just as inappropriate as calling someone insensitive when responding to a racial slur… An attempt to take away their power to feel and have an opinion, and I always get upset and sometimes back down, which isn’t like me at all.

I have written before about how to determine if a friendship is toxic and how to fire a bad friend, but I wanted to address this question on the site because this is an issue that feels larger to me than whether or not someone deserves your energy and time.

Namely, how do we begin to address the insidious nature of sizeism and weight stigma in our daily lives?

When we, as a society, permit ourselves to villainize an overweight faction of the population, labeling them lazy and fat and worthless, or viewing them as a problem to be fixed, we are limiting ourselves. Yes, there are many unhealthy overweight people. There are many unhealthy underweight people.

There are many unhealthy  people. Period.

There are many people who are caught up in some facet of trying to achieve the thin ideal, and who are dying trying to become something that they aren’t.

However, it is still politically correct to make jokes and comments about people who are overweight.

It is quite interesting how many people who would never dare to make fun of someone based on their race, ethnicity, disability, difference, or even sexual identity, but they merrily laugh along when someone dons a fat suit or scold their daughter/sister/innocent stranger on the street about their body mass index.

Now, I’ll hop partially off my soapbox to talk with you about the ways in which you can combat weight stigma and sizeism in your daily life.

1. You’ve got to stand up for yourself.I know it’s scary. I know that standing up for yourself can feel like shining a huge spotlight on your body, but, you impact the world when you tell others, out loud, that they are offending you.
2. These conversations can be uncomfortable. I recommend that you watch this TEDtalk with Jay Smooth about how to talk about racism, which points out the difference between saying “You’re a racist” and “that thing that you just said was racist.” I find this tactic HUGELY useful when talking about sizeism and weight stigma.
3. Surround yourself with a supportive community – online or in real life. Find yourself some people who like you just the way you are, and watch how much more comfortable you are able to become in your skin. That comfort level will ripple out and touch all of your relationships. When you speak calmly and with careful intent, you deliver your most powerful message.
4. Get media literate. Come up with a few blatant examples that have felt particularly offensive to you, and use them to remind you why it is that you care about this topic.

Try to remember that, for the most part, people are acting out of their own insecurities and body neuroses when they are making statements such at these. That isn’t an excuse, but we can choose to have compassion for them regardless. In a world where everyone wants to say something about your body, it can be difficult not to pick this habit up. Take to reminding them of the reasons why what they are saying is hurtful, and how you would prefer if they didn’t say things like that around you.

At the end of the day, feel free to employ this tactic: Ask for what you need, get what you get, and decide if that’s enough. Repeat twice, and if you aren’t getting what you need out of a situation, determine whether or not it is worth your time or energy to keep trying.

How do you experience weight stigma and sizeism in your daily life? What do you do about it?

Yikes! Today’s body loving blogosphere is laaaate, BUT I have been working on on my application to Marie Forleo’s Rich, Hot and Happy B-School scholarship. So, I’m sure that you’ll forgive me. Bonus: Now you get to check out my wicked geeky entry video below this week’s lovely link round-up.

I just love this post from Julie Parker with Tips for Building Confidence.

Have you ever been terrified to take HUGE, BIG steps towards the life of your dreams, even when it means leaving so much behind? Read this post.

Do you do yoga at home? This post from Anna Guest-Jelley is about how creating a home yoga practice is a powerful tool for body acceptance.

Fear and Shame are NOT good motivators for Change, Marsha Hudnall breaks down the controversial documentary The Weight of the Nation.

Do you take the time to chew your food thoroughly? So many of us don’t and it is so important for our digestion! Check out Teeg’s The Art of Chewing.

“Grief is a stalker that sneaks into your everyday, prying open a door you’d rather never existed.” THIS post by Margarita Tartakovsky.

Have YOU broken up with your self-doubt? What the heck are you waiting for?

What are you holding on to that is no longer serving you? As per usual, Jenn Gibson hits this post out of the park.

Absolutely fantastic: Beauty Parlor Politics.

Learning to Believe What You Only “Believe.”

It is heart-breaking how often people refuse the simple act of asking for what they want. Read this, and then promptly stop doing that.

In honor of Mother’s Day – I encourage you to read Mom Enough by Hannah Marcotti. Also, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! You are fantastic lot and I hope you had a magical day of celebration + revelry.

How to get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable. Read it.

And, as promised:

Take out a pen and a pencil, or whip up a fresh google doc.

Ask yourself these questions:

• If you could have any kind of life possible what would it look like?
• How would you dress? Who would you date?
• How would you communicate in your relationships?
• What kind of sex would you have? How often?
• How would you eat? How would you move your body?
• What kind of house would you live in?
• How would you make an income? What would that income look like?
• What would your relationship with money feel like?
• What would you do on a sunny afternoon?
• What would make you feel alive?

Be patient with yourself, it may take you a little time to formulate your ideas. There may be words crossed out or written over. You may have several drafts before you get it quite right.

Words matter, take the time to choose the right ones.

The thing is, so many of us are quickly moving about our lives, running from place to place too busy to think about what we would be doing with our lives. If we felt licensed to to ask ourselves the hard questions, quietly putting one foot in front of the other as we worked towards what we actually want, how might our lives be different?

Would we look back on the years, wishing we hadn’t wasted so much time?

You aren’t wasting time when you’re living your life instead of letting your life live you.

How might it feel to make a conscious decision to construct your life with your own two hands, reveling in the strength of the foundation or the bones of the beams and rafters? How might it feel to throw your head back and laugh when you realize that, though you had the best of intentions, you tiled the inside of the closet instead of the bathroom? To pull it up and re-do it joyfully, because you are permitting yourself the time and energy to get it done right, even if it means correcting a few errors?

I imagine that it might feel really fucking good.

After you’re done compiling your draft of a life from the questions above, think for a minute about what that person might do, today.

Would they take the time for a proper lunch break? Would they spend time with their kids cooking dinner? Would they make sure that they got enough sleep? Would they go to a hip hop yoga class in the evening? Would they shut down their computer and go out for martinis with their best friend?

Do that. Start there. Live the life of the person that you want to become.

_________________________________________________________

Want to supercharge your vision and start making serious moves to step into your best life? 

Work with me.

One time I was at a conference, and a girl said to me:

Ohhh you’re that Marzipan girl. I’ve been to your site. Very dark stuff.  Good, I mean, but very dark.

I started writing Medicinal Marzipan with the express goal of getting the words that were boiling up in my body out from beneath my skin and into the most loving container that I could create. I started out slowly, timidly. I had no readers at the time, but I was afraid that the internet itself would reject my words back to me.

And tell me to try again. To be better. To work harder.

To pull my shit together and shellac over my wobbly bits.

I went to grad school where my absolute favorite teacher told me I was too smart to waste my time on therapy lite, in reference to everything that I had built here and my belief that self-love and authentic living was at the core. I was told that social workers just don’t have twitter accounts.

I was told to pack it up and shut it down if I ever wanted to make it professionally.

Medicinal Marzipan was referred to as my “googling problem,” as in, when you google me, things show up.

Because therapists are supposed to be blank slates. We aren’t supposed to have our own thoughts or words or history. It is supposed to be about the client. Apparently, it can’t be about the client when the client can google you and read your life story. I just don’t believe that is true.

Remaining strong and certain in the face of all of this has been one of the hardest things that I have ever done.

There was a little, teensy voice in my heart that said:

This is who you are. This is what you’ve built. This is the first place in your life that you can be yourself, 100%. This is your life’s work.

You know, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about who My People are, considering what they (you) need from me, and what I can do to give more of myself, more often, in the best way for me.

I have worked hard to figure out how to show up for you, what to share, and what to hold back.

I have decided this: no bullshit, no lies, full disclosure – just like it has always been.

Truthfully, for me, there is no other way.

There are many days when I feel in awe of the community that has come together around this site. I am so unbelievably grateful to each and every one of you that has stopped by here to take a second to think about how you, and we collectively, can love ourselves harder, dream bigger, and live more expansively.

Also, I’m proud of you. It’s true, sometimes things around here are dark, often, but you know what? I love the dark parts of our existence. I am in my element when the cracks in the wall start to show, and everything is threatening to fall apart completely.

I love dismantling, taking stock, and rebuilding from the ground up. It makes me feel tingly and wild and earth-shatteringly clear.

I believe that we are better for it.

I also believe that it would be absolutely impossible for me to yammer on at length about living your best life, if I wasn’t walking the walk. So here we go, I am plunging in head first. There will be some changes around here in the coming months, but nothing scary, just more of what I know in my heart I have to offer the world.

No tricks, no lies, no frightening sales tactics – just love, for myself and for you.

You want to work together? I would love to coach you. Or collaborate with you. Or build something beautiful with you.

You know where to find me.

Happy Sunday!

I am out of town and out of touch celebrating the beginning of May, the Supermoon, and the end of my last semester of grad school. Thus I thought it would be a really good opportunity for a good old-fashioned brag post. Back in the vintage Medicinal Marzipan days, I used to ask readers every Sunday what was the ONE thing that they were most proud of having accomplished the week prior.

Now, it could very well be that you wrote a kickass post that you want us all to read, or it could just be something absolutely wonderful that you did.

Or, you know, that you didn’t lose your mind and start yelling at strangers when you were stuck in a traffic jam.

What moment lit you up, made you feel good, and that you’d like to share?

Hit us up in the comments.

xo

I have been thinking a lot this week about why publishing Monday’s About the Author post made me all clenched up and dissociative, and why I had a moment of flush-and-panic when a couple of people that I know in real life mentioned it.

To which a little voice inside my head said,

Oh my gosh this is so embaaaarrasssssing. Caught in the act of thinking I’m something.

Here’s the thing, I’m really freaking proud of myself, but it is fascinating what triggers our most tender parts. Fascinating how you can want to be acknowledged for something that you’re proud of, but you don’t want to be reminded of it. Or told out loud that we are appreciated.

Or how those moments, the ones where you go outside of your comfort zone and talk about what you’ve done, are prime targets for the smallest, lingering shadow of an I don’t deserve your attention voice.

The world will not celebrate you if you don’t. 

Flat out, you will not get the things you are desiring if you can’t dig deep and believe that you deserve them. You will not be able to move forward, achieve great things, attract clients, find the partner of your dreams, or make more money if permit yourself to get caught up in a conversation with the voice that tells you that you don’t deserve all of the good things coming your way.

You deserve the absolute best life that you can imagine for yourself.

You deserve to have more clients, and not just clients but clients perfectly suited for your business style, than you are able to serve at any given time.

By the same reasoning, you deserve to have a waiting list, you fabulous thing you.

You deserve to have a partner that listens to the words that are coming out of your mouth, and treat you as though you are every bit as special and gorgeous as you are.

You deserve to have a comfortable, kind, and compassionate relationship with your body and with food.

You deserve to charge what you’re worth, and have people pay you, without expecting you to put all of your love and energy into helping them for free.

You deserve to drive a car that gets you where you’re going and live in a home that is cozy.

I can almost hear a naysayer in the distance who begs to differ, who says:

Who are YOU to think that you deserve that kind of wonderful life? Why should you have access to things that other people don’t? What makes you think that you are so special?

That naysayer is alive and well in the back of my mind, and keeps me in check when I start to dream too big or think too much is possible.

Today I’m going to ask you to, lovingly, thank that voice for all that it has done for you over the years, keeping you safe and creating careful stability for you out of the chaos of growing up.

I’m going to ask you to thank that voice, and then, tell it, firmly, that it’s services are not longer necessary.

Kick it to the curb.

Make the decision, right this second, that you are no longer going to be chained up and controlled by the perceived or real expectations of others, your set of deeply ingrained Shoulds, or the part of yourself that constantly needs to  question whether or not you deserve all of the simply amazing things that are coming your way.

You deserve it. Period.

You are worth taking a chance.

_______________________________________

Ready to start celebrating how amazing you are, but you have no idea where to begin? I’d love to help you plan that party. Work with me to put your Shoulds on notice, and begin stepping into the life of your dreams.

It struck me yesterday that many of you new readers and subscribers don’t know me very well. I would love to change that, and re-introduce myself you to properly.

Hello. My name is Mara Glatzel, and this is my site.

I am a 27-year-old woman currently living in Boston, Massachusetts with my sweetheart, C, and one of my best friends, D.  I’m exactly one class (ahem, tomorrow) away from finishing my masters in clinical social work, where I have focused my education primarily on a trauma specialization, attachment theory, and feminist therapy. I love working with clients who are absolutely positive that they fucking hate being in therapy.

I’m a pretty fantastic hula hooper. I love absolutely anything that mixes bright colors with stripes + polka dots, yes both. I eat kale and cookies for breakfast with equal measure.

I often get accused of being a bit of a dark-side-dweller, and I must admit, I am truly fascinated by how people behave when they think no one else is looking. I believe that anything is possible. I also believe that you construct your reality with the language that you use to describe it.

2008

Started Medicinal Marzipan as a place to connect with others people who loved to talk about body image, healing, and living a life that they weren’t quite sure they deserved yet, though I suspected, at the time, that I was the only one. I met C in September 2008, fell madly, truly, deeply in love. Wrote about the double shame of feeling like I was too smart to hate my body so much, and why texting is deeply problematic. I asked C to move to Vieques, Puerto Rico with me for the winter inappropriately early in our relationship – took a huge chance – and she said yes. At this time, I was also one half of a go-go hula hoop duo called Flo Hoops, a waitress, and the kitchen manager of a catering company.

2009

I started working consciously on manifesting my dream life, which, for me, included getting married, having this site viable for me to be able to work for myself, and learning to love what is. I wrote one of MM’s most highly read posts – Is it OK For Me to Check my Girlfriend’s Email? C and I got swine flu, which was really, wretchedly awful. We went back to Vieques for the second winter. I worked as a waitress in a phenomenally awesome Italian restaurant, as a cab driver, in a hula hoop factory in my living room, and at a vineyard.

C told me that she would marry me if I went to grad-school, oh-so-sneakily thinking that would buy her some time. The next day, I applied to five social work programs. I got in.

2010

The year I discovered twitter. Seriously, this changed everything around here. I decided to quit suffering and start living joyfully, best decision ever.  C and I got engaged – YIP! I moved to Boston to start a clinical social work program, stripped down to my skivvies for a good cause, took part in a virtual dance party, and explicitly addressed the silver lining of my sexual trauma history here on MM.

2011

I wrote the Marzipan Manifesto, told you it’s OK for you (and me) to have everything that you want, and was gifted tickets to an Adele concert after staying up all night praying for a heavy dose of body-loving inspiration. I wrote this post that I am particularly proud of for International No Diet day. I went to DC and talked to some serious big wigs about what is wrong with the war on obesity, and why telling people to just eat the the correct servings of things! and drink water! doesn’t really help. I stood up straight, gave myself space, and believed in every word I said.

2012

I woke up in January, and realized that, as thinking about searching for jobs in my field of study was zapping all of my joy and energy, I needed to do something differently. Thus, I created Practical Self-Love Coaching – a coaching service for people who are truly ready to step up and grab the life of their dreams with two hands. My bottom-line philosophy is that you can achieve absolutely anything that you set your mind if you’re willing to think outside the box, give yourself permission to step into the life you’ve imagined, and dig deep to believe that you deserve it.

I’m graduating May 18th. I’m getting married June 9th.

This site is getting a serious and sparkly facelift by the beginning of August, to make it even roomier for us to hang out and build foundations beneath really big, exciting goals and dreams.

I would love to connect with you on twitter + facebook, that’s where I do my absolute best chatting.

Drop me a note if you’re ready to renovate your life and you’d like some mega-assistance, find me at medicinalmarzipan {at} gmail {dot} com or use this handy form.

Questions? I’ll answer (almost) anything – hit me up in the comments.

If I Don’t Like Me, Can I Take Care of Me? by Marsha Hudnall, who, is simply fantastic.

Do you have a low sex drive? Or, find yourself wanting more out of your romantic relationships? Read this. It’s lovely + smart + wonderful.

L-O-V-I-N-G this Sarah Von + Roots of She collaboration: Let’s not Pretend it’s Always Easy.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by your biz? Check out Laura Simms’ Crash & Burn Antidote.

Baked spinach meatballs. YUM.

Fantastic post up this week on Nona Jordan’s blog, The Business Yogini – Effort Required – because sometimes things are hard, an that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Fascinating – True Story: I’m an Online Dominatrix.

I mean, seriously. How much more amazing could this possibly be – Brene Brown interviews Jenny Larson (The Bloggess) about her new book. Which, by the way, I just bought because it looks FANTASTIC and I am moderately obsessed with The Bloggess. Check the book out here: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir)

What is your hunger relationship?

Have you guys heard about Andrea Owen + Amy Smith’s Self-Love Revolution? It is a FREE 30 day academy on all topics self-love, with interviews from really, seriously amazing people. I am beyond honored to take part and encourage you to sign-up and skip on over to ‘like’ them on Facebook.

So many of us have jacked up ideas of what it means to treat ourselves kindly.

All of us, former dieters and non-dieters alike, are socialized to associate treating ourselves kindly with: feeding ourselves food that we don’t typically allow or eating it in greater quantities, permitting ourselves to relax our personal boundaries, and before we know it, we find ourselves feeling worse than we did to begin with.

For many of us, self-care is a meal with no rules.

For many of us, the idea of treats or rewards for good behavior is hard-wired in, even long after we’ve excavated the litany of other dieting rules and regulations from our lives.

For me, it’s the promise of an ice cream sundae.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me, treating ourselves kindly can mean an ice cream sundae. But, only if you’re the type of person who can safely and healthfully eat an ice cream sundae without awful bodily recourse.  And I’m not talking about gaining weight.

Sugar makes me crazy. It makes me yell at the people that I love, and feel like my body is overrun by an army of insane feelings running every which way all at one time.  It makes me self-conscious, paranoid, alarmed, terrified, and sad.

Now, the point of this post isn’t to tell you not to eat sugar, the point of this post is that I know that eating sugar makes me totally flip out, and yet, whenever I’m stressed or overwhelmed, I feel, deeply, like I deserve to eat that ice cream sundae.

I have earned it.

I have been so good and I have been working so hard.

But, you have to stop and wonder, why am I “rewarding” all of my hard work with something that makes me feel like shit? Something that makes me feel 100% worse than I was already feeling when I was so stressed out.

What is it about the ice cream sundae?

It is the food I didn’t allow myself.  To me, ice cream sundaes have been synonymous with breaking all the rules, hanging out, relaxing, letting my hair down, and saying fuck it to all the hard things in my life. It has been the ultimate revenge against all the things that have pushed me beyond my own capabilities, or asked me to be more than I am.

It has been my way of reclaiming my right to my own body and mind.

And yet?  For me, it is completely the wrong choice. It is a choice that is laced with my personal history of body hatred and control. It’s not that I can’t eat a sundae mindfully, it’s that, if I were being mindful, I would realize the sharp pains in my stomach or the acceleration of my heart rate or the huge crying fit that is just welling up in my chest.

It’s about taking a moment to be sweet to yourself, truly sweet and loving and compassionate, and realizing that what might actually make me feel better is an avocado on some 7-Grain toast with salt or an indulgently long shower or an impromptu trip to the movies with my sweetheart or a delicious nap.

By definition, self-care should be something that makes YOU feel CARED FOR and love and cozy and merry. This will be different for everyone, but I invite you to take a good look at what your self-care practices reflect. Are they fulfilling your deep need for comfort and relaxation? Do they leave you feeling well-rested and loved? Do they inspire you to hop back in an tackle your next project?

Because truly, I deserve so much more from myself than that damn ice cream sundae. I deserve some solid attention and care.

What’s your favorite self-care activity?

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This is a guest post written by Melissa Dinwiddie of Living a Creative Life. 

Early on a Wednesday morning, about a month before high school graduation, I’d boarded a chartered bus with a bunch of other seniors, while the rest of the school was scurrying to make their first period classes. It was “Senior Cut Day,” and instead of books, our backpacks were stuffed with towels and sunscreen, because we were spending the day at the beach!

Now I was seated in the back next to my friend Jenny, who was filling me in on details about the dress she’d bought for Grad Night, when she reached down to scratch an itch on her calf.

Suddenly she gave a shout. “Oh my GOD!” she cried.

“What is it?” I asked, alarmed.

Jenny’s eyes were wide with shock. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I forgot to shave my left leg!”

It seems silly now, but at age 17, such an oversight — on beach day, no less — was unthinkable. My mild disgust at Jenny’s disaster morphed into horror as she turned to address the bus as a whole. “You won’t believe this,” she announced, “but I only shaved ONE of my legs!” She laughed, the kids in front of and behind us laughed and rolled their eyes, then went back to their conversations.

I, on the other hand, was mortified.

Some part of me admired Jenny for her ability to laugh at herself, to let herself be imperfect in public, to use humor to deflect judgment, but this was a new concept for my teenage self. Up til then, my m.o. had been to do everything in my power to hide my imperfections. The very fact that I wasn’t perfect brought me tremendous shame. And yet here was Jenny, shining a spotlight on her “flaw,” turning herself into the butt of a joke!

What terrible things would result from the discovery of my own imperfections and flaws? In truth, I don’t know that I ever even articulated my exact fears to myself. All I knew was that keeping up the appearance of perfection felt absolutely critical.

It was also a helluva lot of work.

A zit was grounds for scheming up excuses to not leave the house. In dance class, if my belly wasn’t flat as a pancake, I tied a sweatshirt around my waist to camouflage it. I had only recently allowed myself to bare my right leg above the knee, after the surgery 2 ½ years earlier which left me with vicious scars on either side of my kneecap.

Though I was still horribly self-conscious about it, thankfully I was past the need to hide those scars, otherwise I’m sure Senior Cut Day would have resulted in heat stroke. Somehow I’d forgotten to pack a T-shirt, and I was just too ashamed of my body to go without a cover-up. Heaven forbid someone might discover that my belly wasn’t perfectly flat, and that my tiny breasts didn’t fill out my bandeau bikini top! So I hid them under my dark blue sweatshirt, and spent the day in physical discomfort and emotional misery, in constant fear of “discovery,” with sweat rolling down my torso.

Jenny, on the other hand, stripped off her sweats as soon as her feet hit the sand, exposing her stubbly left leg to the world — and her own not-perfectly-flat belly, too. She made self-deprecating jokes about her unshaved leg, and she may have felt self-conscious, but she didn’t waste energy trying to hide it.

Of the two of us, whom do you think had more fun?

I learned a big lesson from Jenny that day, which I look back on as the start of my long journey toward loving and accepting my body on its own terms. I still have moments of feeling shame and self-consciousness, of course — we all do — but I’ve learned what Jenny had already figured out back in 12th grade:

Disclosing shame has an almost magical power to defuse it. And embracing our perceived flaws creates space for so much more love than the exhausting effort of keeping up appearances.

Melissa Dinwiddie is an artist, writer, inspirationalist, and creativity coach, known for helping people live the fully creative lives of their dreams. She publishes regular inspiration on her blog Living A Creative Life, and hosts a free video Hangout every month, where all kinds of creative folks connect and fire each other up. Melissa’s first ebook, Creating Happiness: 9 Essential Secrets for Creative People (Established, Emerging, or Just Starting to Dream) is due out later this year. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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