A Love Letter to My Daughter
September 24, 2013 by Emma Wood
Filed under Body Image, Moms & Sisters, Role Models, Self Esteem, What to Say, How to Say It
Dearest. As I fed you at 4 o’clock this morning I admired your beautiful face: the curve of your check, the peacefulness of your gently closed perfect eyelids with their fan of lashes, the ski slope curve of your up-turned nose. You are everything you need to be. You are beautiful, not because society says […]
Lessons Learned From Zach Sobiech
May 24, 2013 by Arianna Merritt
Filed under Body Image, Featured, Guys, Healthy Coping, Media Literacy, Mental Health, Music, Role Models, Self Esteem, Sharing Feelings, Voice, Wellness
As you know, I love sharing stories of people who have impacted my journey. I was saddened to find out that a beautiful soul, Zach Sobiech, lost his battle to cancer earlier this week. Zach was only 18 years old when he died but in his short time he embraced life to the fullest. His […]
Mental Holocaust
January 5, 2013 by Angela Mensah
Filed under Body Image
I am currently reading Healthy Selfitude by NORMAL President Robyn Hussa and this month I am more aware of the shift toward mindfulness but also realize that as an African American that grew up in the Protestant church how foreign this concept may come across. I would like to speak to you as you consider […]
Thank you Eve Ensler
August 21, 2012 by mamaV
Filed under Activism, Body Image, Empowerment, Featured, Finding Your Voice, Role Models
Dear Mr. Akin, I Want You to Imagine… Posted: 08/20/2012 4:08 pm re-posted from HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/todd-akin-rape_b_1812930.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false Dear Todd Akin, I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve […]
Our walls of “perfect” bodies need to come down…
May 28, 2012 by Doris Smeltzer
Filed under Body Image, Eating Disorders, Empowerment, Featured, Loving Your Body, Parents, Role Models, Self Esteem
Graciously re-posted from Gurze Publications: A while back, Tom and I took our spring break to travel to the East coast and present Andrea’s Voice where we were invited. We spoke to packed rooms, evidence of the desire for more information on eating disorders. After speaking at a university in New York, I received an […]
Role Models Help Us Shape Identity
February 23, 2012 by Robyn Hussa Farrell
Filed under Body Image, Finding Your Voice, Loving Your Body, Music, Role Models, Self Esteem, Voice, Wellness
Dedicated in loving memory to Mizzar, I thought I’d share a post about an important role model in my life. An 80-something voice teacher with whom I had the privilege of studying for 7 years. The way in which this mentor appeared in my life, is as important as her role … Blog this!Bookmark on […]
ED 101 — A Film About Eating Disorders
November 27, 2011 by Robyn Hussa Farrell
Filed under Anorexia, Athletes, Binge Eating, Bulimia, Disordered Eating, Eating Disorders, EDNOS, Expressive Arts, Males with Eating Disorders, Mental Health, Recovery
This is our first post from Robyn Hussa, President of Normal in Schools (NIS). She started NIS driven to bring to our schools education about eating disorder through theater (or as Robyn would say “theatre” but I’m not so hip to the art scene). We all think we know everything about eating disorders, after all we are suffers, […]
If only I could have been this 16 year old
May 11, 2011 by MamaV
Filed under Role Models
Meet Andre’a. A 16 year old girl who reached out to me and asked me to watch her video. As I watched, I kept thinking about why some of us seem to be naturally confident, self assured and acceptant of themselves, while the vast majority linger around in self loathing for a lifetime. So is […]
What Would You Tell Your Younger Self?
March 19, 2010 by MamaV
Filed under Self Esteem
Inspired by the post by Kim at Adventures in Wanting last week, I wanted to further explore a topic she proposed that I found very interesting. She essentially asked – knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time and talk to the young version of yourself, what would you say? That […]
How I married a sex addict, and other symptoms of swine flu
March 8, 2010 by MamaV
Filed under Self Esteem
First some disclaimers. This is my story. Mine, Mine, Mine. I’m writing it because, that’s what I do. I write. I share my life. It’s how I have learned to cope. And keeping this secret for as long as I have has done incredible damage to me. It’s time to come clean, not just for […]
