Hello friends,

Early this month I brought Body Loyalty to the annual conference for the Association of Women in Psychology. I presented a poster (you can check it out here) to get feedback from clinicians and see if I could find some collaborative partners to research and test Body Loyalty and see how it works for people. I was pretty nervous going in because I was really feeling my inexperience in the world of academia. I was afraid to discover I was full of it, and instead the response could not have been different. The response was bigger than I dared to imagine. It felt really clear to me that we are ALL struggling and we all know that nothing we're doing is fixing that, but don't know what else to try. When I started talking about what I've learned as part of the disability community, as Atticus' mom, through my years of community organizing, it just felt like I happened to have taken an uphill and rocky short cut to some information we're all desperate for.

The problems we're struggling with are not individual problems and so they won't be solved with an individual solution. When we have to work the way we do to get whatever quality of health care we manage to get with so little support or aid, when we have so little control over the air we breathe, where our food comes from, the resources at our disposal to solve problems before they become problems that can't be solved...why oh why do we hate ourselves for the consequences our body has to pay?

Because we're taught to. Because it serves the interests of the people who have the power. Your health is not a personal failing. Your ability is not a personal failing. Your body shape or size is not a personal failing. It's just your humanity.

Corporations who make money off our labor, powerful interests who want to keep us compliant with capitalism, industries that take our money and return it with toxic shame, they work so hard to convince us that our every sign of humanity is an embarrassment. We are fed so much shame for every body function or need, and it doesn't serve us in any way. It just steals our money and keeps us hustling, thinking the only way we will ever be deemed worthy is if we earn it.

This way of life just can't survive in the new world we're living in. We have too much proof that we rely on each other for care. That there is no way to prevent the eventual course of mortality. That no amount of status at work will make up for a burned out body.

There are solutions to these problems that plague us, but it requires abandoning denial and embracing our humanity. And then being loyal to the rest of humanity.

To change my relationship with my body, I needed to spend some time evaluating what I believed. What I believed a good or successful or adult human looked like, and who those beliefs benefitted. I had to start treating myself like a human being, and not a machine.

But that was too advanced a goal for me to start with. I still believed I was a *special* kind of messed up. Other humans got to have needs without those meanings attached, but my needs were a sign of failure. So I started by pretending my body was a pet horse. I would take care of a horse and not think it was a failure of a horse. And eventually, after treating myself with care and dignity for a while, I could do it because I believed I deserved it.

My old Reese Dixon YouTube channel has been mostly dormant for a long time, but I'm bringing it back to host Body Loyalty content. The part of being a YouTuber that was the hardest for me was the editing, but luckily I have found a really talented video editor to work with. She handles a lot of the social media too, so if you interact, say hi to Zoe! Her first video is already up on the channel.
Meet Tresa

I also started a Patreon account to support Body Loyalty expenses. We're working towards non-profit status, but in the meantime, know your support goes to Zoe to have more time for videos.
Patreon

Changing the relationship you have with your body is much more complicated than just shouting "self love" at yourself. It requires a deconstruction of some inherited messages and harmful beliefs. It requires changing what you value. On the blog next month, we'll be talking about Body Loyalty Values.