Please read and SHARE WIDELY from the amazing folks at #TBINNA What Happens When We Say Yes to Radical Self-Love? #WhenWeSayYES
The Body is Not An Apology is in a season of tremendous growth, none of which could happen or be sustained without the amazing community of over 32,000 Unapologetic Posse Members in 42 countries around the world committed to ushering themselves and the planet into radical self-love! On Monday, June 23rd, TBINAA will launch our When We Say Yes crowd funding campaign. The campaign will seek to raise funds to build our very own online community of information, education, activism, and support around radical self-love, body empowerment, and unapologetic global transformation.
As the Leadership Circle began thinking about the reach and power of this movement, we could not help but be overtaken by the realization that this growth has been a direct result of how each of us in our own lives has chosen to say YES in places where fear would have had us stuck in No. This movement exists because people all over the planet, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, size, ability, etc. decided to say YES to the idea that it is possible to love ourselves and one another radically! WOW! What tremendous power lives in the big giant global YES!
Now, The Body is Not An Apology wants your story of YES. We want to know what happened when you said YES to radical self-love! What happened when you said YES to your own power and truth? What happens when WE say YES as a movement committed to a just, equitable, and compassionate world? Please share your story with us. It may earn you a featured spot on our social media sites or in our international When We Say YES video! Below are the guidelines for how to share your #WhenWeSayYES story with TBINAA and the world.
Submissions can be:
■VIDEO. Maximum length should not exceed 20 seconds. Video should be submitted as a quicktime .MOV file. Need to convert? CLICK HERE
■AUDIO. Maximum length should not exceed 1 minute.
■PHOTOS. Highest resolution and largest file possible. Our preference is 400 x 400 dpi if you want it considered for the film.
■ESSAYS. Between 500 and 700 words.
■TWEET. Tell us your YES in under 100 characters and they will be featured on our twitter page.
For video, audio, and essays, please include the following language and general theme:
“When I said Yes to ___(fill in the blank, i.e. yes to trusting my body, yes to believing in my intelligence, yes to healing my childhood wounds, yes to trusting my inner voice, yes to radical self-love, etc., etc.). Then tell us what happened (I got my dream job, I unlocked my creative potential and became an artist, I stopped hiding and took that salsa class, I fell in love, etc. etc.). All submissions should start with “When I said Yes to…”) The last sentence in your video and audio should be “I said YES!
Please be sure to include our hashtags
#WhenWeSayYES #TBINAA #Nobodiesinvisible
Please send your submission to submissions@thebodyisnotanapology.com or send files to our Dropbox account sonyarenee@gmail.com. We are excited to say YES with you!
Just how I remember her (with longer hair). courtesy of Donna Uettwiller,
Hi Everyone!!
First of all, thank YOU for following this blog/”website.” It means a lot to me, and to prove it, I’m trying to keep in touch more.
THIS SUNDAY, I’m headed to Philly. I won’t be performing (this time), but I will be in the audience supporting a musician friend of mine, Teri Rambo.
I was lucky enough to live close to a summer camp for youth with disabilities, Camp-Pa-Qua-Tuck. It was a sleep-a-way camp and the first time I had been around other kids with disabilities in a social context. While there, I met Teri. Maybe I was 10 or 11. She used to sing us to sleep with Joni Mitchell covers and hymns, except I didn’t yet know they were covers. She sent me a MIXTAPE with her recordings on one side and Miss Saigon on the other — I still have it. She was in college at the time. We lost touch. I never forgot her. Or Joni Mitchell. Teri gave me kindness at a time when I had very little, and by introducing me to Joni, she gave me my first taste of big words and poetry.
Teresa Rambo of Colorado, wherever you are, you rock:
The cars and buses bustled thru the bedlam of the day
I looked thru window-glass at streets
and Nathan grumbled at the grey
I saw an aging cripple selling Superman balloons
The city grated thru chrome-plate
The clock struck slowly half-past-noon
Thru the tunnel tiled and turning
Into daylight once again I am escaping
Once again goodbye
To symphonies and dirty trees
With parks and plastic clothes
The ghostly garden grows
And was able to find her. And GUESS WHAT? She is still a singer and has a show at World Cafe Live this Sunday. It also features 8 other songwriters!!
I’m going. Who knows? Maybe we’ll tour together in a town near YOU. Here’s the event page. I’ll be the poet crying in the front row — this time tears of joy!
Please sign up for her mailing list (and get a free download), buy her album and spread the word about this show!!
Today, the Huffington Post published an article I wish I didn’t have to write. In fact, they published it within 5 minutes of receiving it. Of course, technology can be used for good and evil.
I debated whether or not to write this article and give this person’s harassment and misogyny any more of my time (or yours), but here’s why I did: Before the Internet, it would have at least taken a few days, and much more effort (i.e., postage and possibly a phone book) for his hate speech to reach me. But thanks to instant messaging, I can go from “lovely” and “gorgeous” to “ugly and fat” in less than 12 hours. In fact, his last two opinions reached me in under a minute.
I finally joined a couple of weeks ago. My hands still shake when I take my own photos, but I do LOVE the filter options!! I still think “selfie” is a horrible “word.”
The Bodies Visible reading will feature Denise Jolly, international spoken word and performance artist, and founder of the Be Beautiful project, as well as local artist whose bodies are alternative and outside of mainstream culture. The reading will explore our experiences through real talk, humor, poetry and storytelling. Hosted by Natalie E. Illum. Opening performers include Heather Kerstetter, Tyler Vile, Julia Takes Flight, Taylor Carmen
This event is fully ADA accessible.
DENISE JOLLY is the creator of the Be Beautiful Project. She is a Writer, Performer and Artist Educator. She is the former Executive Director of Seattle Youth Speaks, and Vice President of Stronghold Productions. Denise’s work stands at the intersection of gender, class, sexuality, and body. She has taught and performed at colleges, universities, community centers, and public and private schools all over the United States, Canada and parts of Europe, working with student populations in elementary through college and beyond. She likes doing great things with amazing people and being moved by art, community and how the two work together.
photo by Drew Jackson.[/caption]
Natalie E. Illum... 
