…so let's talk about more than body image!
Hi friend!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the purpose and payoff of this weekly email series.
The truth is that I started these emails nearly a decade ago as a place to write, share, and explore ideas, and a lot of that content was about my personal life– what I was thinking about, working through, reading, learning, or experimenting with. Same with social media: I posted often about myself and my life as a way of connecting with people and inviting conversation.
A few years ago however, around the same time I developed the 4 body image avatars, I shifted my content in a few different ways.
I stopped posting so many images of myself on social media, and started using text imagery instead. This was done in part because of the changes to the Instagram algorithm, and in part because I wanted my work and my words to stand for themselves and not be so tied to the imagery of the person who wrote them. I knew this would lead to far less engagement at first, but I thought this shift would ultimately best serve the work I was doing. Without seeing a thin, able-bodied, white, and otherwise privileged person attached to the content, people of all body shapes, sizes, abilities, races, and other identities could more easily apply the work to themselves.
I also niched down further than I ever had before. I took a brand that had previously been focused on the broad umbrella of body image, confidence, empowerment, self-worth, sex, joy, business, and liberation, and narrowed my scope to one thing: body neutrality.
This shift happened organically, as I found that creating text-based imagery for instagram required me to step more into a “teaching” role than an “exploring/inviting” role, and as I started sharing the new system I had created (the body image avatars) for helping people reach body neutrality.
The rest is history, since it was that niched-down content that directly led to me getting a book deal with Penguin, and spending the next year and a half absorbed in the book-writing process. (Speaking of which, I have some very exciting news on that front—I get to reveal the cover of my book soon, and start taking pre-orders!! Eeeee!!!! Stay tuned for that!)
Anyway, this shift was obviously the right call for me and my business at the time, but lately I’m feeling a bit limited by it. After all, body image is only one facet of liberation, healing, and expansiveness. There’s so much more to talk about!
For example, here are a few ways liberation, healing and expansiveness have been showing up in my own personal life lately:
I’m working on some really cool and interesting shit in therapy lately, including the addition of a weekly DBT skills group (about which I have many thoughts lol).
I’m working through old traumas that have always made partnership so difficult and painful for me, and exploring new levels of liberation, trust, communication, and vulnerability in my relationship with my partner. (Including new levels of non-monogamy!)
I’m using the magic of psilocybin as a tool for expanding my consciousness and connecting to joy, creativity, and the universe again.
I’m finding gender euphoria more and more often, and constantly marveling at the grand experiment of identity and self-expression.
I’m radically reexamining every aspect of my business, exploring which aspects of it are and which aren’t still in alignment with my deepest truth, values, and priorities– and daydreaming a new vision!
Oh man, even just writing that out got me a bit amped up, there’s so many interesting conversations to be had here!
Granted, I couldn’t be doing all this interesting shit if it weren’t for the foundation of body neutrality that supports it, but still. My brain is just itching to play in a new space lately, and I want to honor that. After all, the name this series is #TransparentTuesday, not #BodyNeutralityTuesday, lol. I gotta go where the truth is.
That said, I want to get a feel for where you’re at, so please hit reply and share your thoughts on the following questions:
Are you here exclusively for body image content? (And if so, would you want to be able to opt out of content about other topics?)
How do you feel about content where I’m sharing and processing aspects of my private and personal life? (Enthusiastic, neutral, or uninterested?)
Do you think you would be more or less likely to sign up for coaching with me (or purchase a program from me) if I shared more about my private and personal life here?
I’m so curious to hear what you think!
Especially that last bit– I sometimes think presenting as a “professional” means keeping my private life private… but then I remember that I value human connection more than professionalism! (Also, isn’t casting off that idea just one more aspect of liberation??)