Every year, the Wells College Women’s Resource Center holds a week of events focused on Body Positivity. One annual event for example is the body prints, where people can come go to the WRC and use paint to print any body part that they are comfortable with onto a piece of paper. Typically, people make boob prints, but people can choose whatever body part they want. This event in particular was a big milestone for me; in the beginning of my freshman year, I was starting to recover from my eating disorder and trying to respect my body following sexual abuse. These body prints reminded me that my body was mine, and that it was time to reclaim it.
This picture was taken my freshman year during body positivity week. Since this picture has been taken I have changed and grown so much… and I owe so much of that to body positivity week.
To me, this week is a reminder that my body deserves love regardless of the trauma it has been through. It reminds me to focus on the things that I love about my body rather than the parts of my body that I haven’t come to terms with just yet. It reminds me to focus on what my body is capable of rather than what it is incapable of. It reminds me that I can love this body, even though it has been violated by others as well as myself. It reminds me that there is no wrong way to have a body. It’s a week of reminders that I carry with me throughout the whole year.
Regardless of what your body has been through, it’s yours. It is never too late to pick up the pieces. You can’t undo what has been done to you or what you have done to yourself, but it doesn’t have to hold you down forever. Trauma shapes us, and it is not necessarily in all bad ways; we can grow and prosper in ways that we didn’t know that we were capable of. Love your body, regardless of what you do and do not see in it. It is your body, and honey it couldn’t be more beautiful. Love the shit out of yourself, during body positivity week and always.