We trust that the mail carrier will bring the mail on time.

We trust that whatever we put in the recycling bin will be recycled, not sold or thrown into a landfill.

We trust that the cashier will charge us for the right amount.

We trust that the pilot will bring us to the right destination.

In short, we trust a lot of strangers– many of whom we may never see again.

So why can’t we trust ourselves?
Why can’t we trust each other?

You tell me.

—

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Beloved citizens of the world,
I want you to do something revolutionary.

And I want you to start
right
about
now.

I want you to revolt against the media, against the society, against anyone and everyone– teachers, parents, classmates, coworkers, “friends”, YOURSELF– who tells you the lie that you are not good enough.

I want you to revolt against every corporation and commercial that tells you that you won’t be attractive, smart, get a significant other, or have friends unless you buy, eat, or wear their product and look exactly like everyone else.

I want you to revolt against every single message that tells you that you have to be perfect, that you have to fit in, that you have to look or act a certain way, that you have to be wanted and loved by other people, that you have to be anything but just yourself to have a happy and peaceful life.

I want you to revolt against anything in the world that tells you you have to do anything other than simply BE YOU.

I want you stop listening to everyone else, including me. I want you to listen to yourself.

You’re a fucking star, and you know it. You’re amazing at doing the only thing YOU can, that no one else can– be yourself.

Now go revolt.

Go do.

Go BE.

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Answer to the last post: RVXN stands for revolution.

And now that we’ve started this revolution, I want you to share it.
Tweet it, Facebook It, Stumble it, Bookmark it, Email it to a friend.

Spread the word, and ¡Viva la Revolución!

—

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Cotton candy, July 2006

—

Unconventional is the name of the game.

I’m giving away one FREE 16×20 Limited Edition Print (of which only 10 will ever be printed), so head on over here to see what it’s all about and enter!

—

When I first got this domain several people asked me: “What does RVXN mean? It sounds like a prescription pill or alphabet soup.” But I had a perfectly good reason for choosing those four letters, I swear, at 5 in the morning when the idea was finally conceived.

My question to you is: What do YOU think rvxn means?

Think about your answer before peering at the comments, please, and tell me what YOU think it means!

—

On another note, whoever makes the 500th comment on this site will get FIVE free 4×6 prints of their choice from any of the photos here (depending on availability– after a hard drive crash last year I don’t have some of these photos anymore). I’m not going to say how far away it is, though, but I might repost this when it gets even closer

And this month I’m committing to FINALLY starting to sell all the clothes and shoes I’ve bought and never worn– to rid myself of what I don’t need. (I said I’d start in February, but better late than never!) Spring cleaning here we come! Look out for some great deals on cute clothes and accessories soon!

—

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When I feel both profoundly uncomfortable and scared to publish something… that’s when I know I’ve succeeded.

—

I know I said I’d be writing about weight this time, but something else came up and I wanted to share with you first.

For the past couple of months I’ve been dissatisfied with myself and where I am, in the world, in my journey. Once upon a time my only dream in life was to “be happy”– check. But after that, what else could I do, what else was there to strive for?

I feel that admitting I’m in school is like a confession. Maybe because I don’t particularly want to be.

Last quarter was the first quarter of school in my life that I actually gave more than the absolute bare minimum of effort to my studies. Assiduous was a word of the day the first week of school, and I decided it would be my word for three months.

And I succeeded. And I felt accomplished, if only temporarily. And I realized I didn’t really learn anything more from doing any more.

I saw college as the final panacea to my childhood-long weariness with education. Surely it would grant me more freedom, surely I would finally learn about things that I cared about.

But I’ve never really felt like I’m actually learning something. All I’ve learnt from my classes– even in a less “conventional” major that won’t easily land me a high-paying “job”– is that when people talk about the “modern” era, they don’t mean the present.

Woo-freakin’-hoo.

I don’t mean to knock education down, and I know many of my friends and classmates will be some of the greatest lawyers, doctors, researchers, optometrists, pharmacists, businessmen, and engineers of all time (of all time).

But me?

I’m still figuring it out. I know what I’m fiercely passionate about, what I’m good at, what will (I hope) benefit you and you and you. I just need to live a little (or a lot) more and find the right way to make it work.

As long as I know I won’t ever have to say, “How I wish I had done this or that…” I know I’ll be fine.

With that said, last night led to some frightening new beginnings:

My new photography site:
Sui-Solitaire.com
(& Other Photography)

If you have ever enjoyed any of my photography, please follow my new photography blog and support me in making my own dreams come true.

After all, I’m the only one who can.

Thank you always.

(I’ll be periodically posting links when I update Sui-Solitaire.com, but never fear– my personal photography will still, for the most part, be posted here.)

This is just one fraction. There’s always more to come, more to explore. Next victim, after photography, is writing

—

I don’t want to idolize anyone. I’m not going to follow in anyone else’s footsteps.

I’m just going to be me.

—

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Cookie Monster is addicted to carbs.

This post addresses negative body image as a result of emotional eating, and the effects of using any other activity, addiction or compulsion to try to escape ourselves and our feelings– drinking, smoking, the computer, video games, even compulsive exercising.

I write based on my own experience and observations, which may or may not coincide with your situation. But if they do, I hope it helps you in any way.

—

Regardless of what I ate yesterday or a year ago, and regardless of what my body looks like today, when I make healthy choices, when I’m “being healthy”, when I’m eating only when I’m hungry and stopping when I am satisfied– I feel wonderful, I feel alive.

When do I feel negative about myself, about my body image? When I eat something or sometime even though I know it’ll make me feel bad, or sick, or worst of all, disappointed with myself. When I feel too full and bloated because I knew I ate more than my body needed at that moment, and when I continue to make choices that are unhealthy.

More and more I realize that in the end, it’s not about how much I weigh or what I look like or even if I gained enough for there to be two of me that affects my mood.

It’s not because I don’t love and cherish my body that I feel negatively when I eat to the point of sickness. It’s because I know binging and overeating is a way of self-abuse, of not giving myself the respect I know I deserve.

(However, I know I’m not perfect, and even though I’ve recovered from my eating disorder, there are still moments that I will not eat “perfectly”, that I will binge. The most important thing to do in that time is to forgive myself, and realize that instead of being distraught that I still do it occasionally despite recovering, know that it might be a sign from my body or heart that I need to be paying more attention, taking more care, and really finding out what I’m feeling and how to feel better constructively.)

The irony is that oftentimes it’s hard to love our bodies when we have negative body image, but the solution to solving negative body image is loving ourselves. By loving ourselves, we begin taking care of ourselves and our health– which means instead of binging or overeating, we will naturally begin to gravitate towards healthier choices and have a healthier body image.

Emotional eating or binging has nothing to do with willpower or self-control. When you are stressed or bored, it’s not because of lack of willpower that you might reach for food to comfort you– it’s because gosh darn it you’re a hard time, and the only thing you can think of right now that’ll calm you is a great heaping portion of your food of choice.

For me, I’ve worked out that I reach for food as comfort because when I am truly hungry, eating fills what is otherwise empty. Eating is a way to “fill” myself, for me to feel fulfilled.

But we can fulfill ourselves, we can deal with our stress, boredom, sadness, depression, and any other emotion– including happiness– much more constructively. And much more healthily.

We can make a list of things we enjoy that doesn’t involve eating. Taking a walk, for instance. Treating ourselves in other ways, such as taking time every day just to relax, read, watch a movie, enjoy a bath, wind down or simply not do anything and be silent in the present moment. Slow, mindful breathing. Meditation. Talking to a friend. What about? Just about anything. Write out our emotions when we feel them, instead of eating them.

Because eating our feelings (or getting drunk or smoking or anything else to try to feel differently) won’t make them go away. On the contrary, by eating them we make them a part of us. But instead of a part that we can eventually get over and let go, after crying or being absolutely antsy or realizing how we really feel, we push it down, we make our feelings collapse under the weight of unhealthy choices, and we think we’ve exterminated them when instead we’ve ignored ourselves when we needed to be there the most.

And then as more and more of our feelings get buried under whatever we stuff ourselves with, they will band together, and they will revolt against us for ignoring them in their time of need.

If we don’t let ourselves feel our feelings, they will never go away. And we become numb, anesthetized things, not vibrant and feeling human beings.

Anesthetic only numbs the pain temporarily. It does not destroy it. Anesthetic is a temporary “solution”, and the pain returns later, tenfold as a result of trying not to feel it earlier.

Going numb is not fun. It doesn’t solve any problems and it does not make pain go away. It is a way of coping, but it is also a way of running away from ourselves, from our heart that so desperately wishes to be heard and taken care of.

The only real answer is to let ourselves feel what we feel, regardless of how painful (or even not painful) it might be. To let ourselves feel until, slowly, we naturally heal from having gone through the course of our emotions.

And then we can perhaps feel something else as a result of taking care of ourselves and continually loving ourselves– subtle and quiet, only found within ourselves. Not within anything or anyone else. Not within materialism or appearances or the superficial.

What is that feeling, that state, that journey?

You already know.

“Happiness comes from within your heart, not from your surroundings.”

Or your food, or your weight, or your body type, or validation from others.

In a dramatic, announcer-worthy voice:
Next time(s), on cynosure: The weighty issues of weight.
Losing weight won’t “make you happy” either.
(In fact, nothing can make you truly happy except yourself. But you know that already.)

—

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But that’s so hard to do, with the things you put me through.

Feel this Way by Consequence feat. John Legend

Don’t you feel like that sometimes, about yourself? You desperately want to love yourself, but sometimes what you put yourself through, like holding onto guilt or resentment, not taking care of yourself, being too self-critical– makes it harder.

“Loving myself is all I want to do.”
That’s all you need to do, anyway (love yourself, that is), to be happy– everything else will fall into place eventually.

Now tell that to yourself. Aloud or not. Ten (that’s 10!) times. Every morning. Every hour and minute you need to be reminded: “Loving myself is all I want to do.”

But how do you love yourself, or even learn to love yourself? I know it’s not as easy as just someone telling you to love yourself, but for now, if you believe (with all of your being) in the statement: “I love myself”, you’re already one step forward.

And don’t be afraid to be yourself. Being yourself is one more (HUGE) step towards loving yourself– and that expression of yourself, in its stubbornness to refuse to simply become whatever anyone else tells you to become, is revolutionary in its own right. (Ever wonder why that particular combination of letters comprises “rvxn”.org? But that’s an explanation for another day…)

NEVER be afraid to sing your own song, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. (Blue sky in the sun? It doesn’t even make sense! But I love it anyway because he’s so unafraid to express himself.)

—

Speaking of loving yourself (and your body!), I love Eric’s comments on “this is me: cellulite & stretchmarks”:

Fat is HOT… cellulite is devastatingly gorgeous. the ripples of the ocean of wisdom.
[..]
“If she is taught to hate her own body, how can she love her mother’s body that has the same configuration as hers?- her grandmother’s body, the bodies of her daughters as well? How can she love the bodies of other women (and men) close to her who have inherited the bodies of their ancestors? To attack a woman thusly destroys her rightful pride of affiliation with her own people…”

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes p.203 (bold mine)

On that note, a talented musician friend of mine, Stebbo, wrote an amazing song, which he describes in his tweet: “Girls: You’re beautiful,” so you know I’m going to love it! (On that note, he “blames” me and “you are beautiful” for this song!) Listen to the song “Beautiful” here!

And in response to Eric saying “Fat is HOT”:

@rvxn Not all fat is hot. Empowered/confident fat is. Meek/shy fat isn’t.
[..] Although that does go in line with the idea that you gotta love your body. And that’s the part of it that’s hot.

@iamstephenliu (Stebbo)

Finally, check out this wonderful post by Kat at Girl Germs. That’s true beauty right there, the kind that inspires and moves.

Salutations, Sweetheart ♥
How are you loving yourself today?

—

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I look at my body, stripped by myself, with my glasses off. The lines blur together in the mirror.

It doesn’t matter what or who I am, we’re all parts of the same great thing.

We are different but not separate.

—

Do you know what’s the easiest way to accept or open your mind to or forgive someone you might not have wanted to before?

Talk to them. Reach out to them. Communicate. Or even just smile.

How can you love them or help them, reach out to them, do anything for them, or simply open your mind to their existence if you don’t, can’t even strike up a conversation? Talking with them makes us more able to relate to them, to be able to recognize that they, too, are just like us– humans who wish for and are entitled to happiness just as much as the next person. Let’s make the first step and simply say hi.

Instead of this distance. This vast and cold distance we put between ourselves and others that ultimately leads to even more isolation ignorance and prejudice instead of understanding and acceptance.

We were all strangers once. And then we got to know each other.

—

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I find the whole notion of not trusting people in general because your trust has been hurt so much in the past to be so sad. It assumes that just because some people are a certain way, all people might be. It’s prejudice on a species scale– some humans may betray your trust, but that doesn’t mean all humans will.

If you stop trusting others because you were hurt once, you lose. You’re the one who misses out on the full spectrum of interesting people out there.

If you refuse to forgive someone, you’re the one left bitter and hurting.

Complete vulnerability is a great strength. Putting yourself out there, opening up, forgiving others, revealing yourself to the world, letting everyone know the real you instead of an artificially constructed image, seeing the goodness in people after being hurt so many times takes courage, but inevitably transforms you into a stronger person.

You can do it, though. You can defy all those people who take the easy way out and simply stop living, because living means experiencing with feelings and feelings means the possibility of pain. But that pain is so beautiful because it’s a part of you too, and every time you survive that pain your heart grows even mightier.

You can do what some people now find impossible– trust other human beings.

I trust you. I believe in you.

And even if you might hurt me, I’ll forgive you, I’ll learn to love you even more, and I’ll trust in your inherent goodness anyway.

—

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I didn’t write this post for… me.

It was for you, to show you that every damn inch of you deserves love from yourself, even if “society”, the media, your co-worker or friend or parent or sibling or cousin or even partner tells you otherwise. Don’t believe them.

This post is all about you.

So, tell me:

—

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thanks loliver

—

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