The “Your Story” Series
We are excited about today’s interview with Sandra Olinger, who is both a music and Mom blogger, as she chats about body image and her Latina heritage. Our conversation really brought home the idea that “body image starts in the mind, not the body.” Body image is a mental exploration of how we view ourselves and healing comes not from external change or validation, but from internal dialogue, self perception, and acceptance of our genes with a g and jeans with a j.
Doing this work of healing our body story, exploring the layers of societal messaging, racism, fatphobia, and family messaging is so important to understanding the influences on our body image so we can reframe and heal. While we know that the power of positive thinking doesn’t change an entire system of injustice, sharing our stories and doing the healing work internally focuses on the only thing we CAN change: our perception of ourselves and our internal narrative.
This hard, but necessary work, leads to living with more freedom with our relationship with food, our relationship with movement, and our activities of daily living. Learning how to have body positivity, or at least body neutrality, is a key component to our mental health and will help us answer the tough questions that our children ask as they grow up and notice others’ bodies and hear the confusing messages about health and nutrition in schools and in our judgemental society.
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