And Happy Women's Month!! 💝
@quixotic_life Thank you for the reminder that self care is not selfish. It's amazing how much my overall health improved when I started accepting myself. It's a message that so many need to hear and embrace. ❤️
@JoyfulHeart ~ Right?! There's another delightful gem of a being on here who radiates this self acceptance, love and care, who is all about honoring their truth... I think they know who they are... 😘
I hope to be like them when I grow up!!
@quixotic_life who dat?
I mean... I suppose it could be a few people, but there's one in particular who just beams whilst posting...
@quixotic_life This is quality content 👍🏼 That wheel needs some pixels though, so here is a clear one 😊
Yay! Thanks @MrPaul ~ 😊
I needed this today
A solid routine, including sleep schedule, will help you integrate the changes. I might add exercise but that would make me a hypocrite. grin
@quixotic_life - love this!
@Gallowglass 👀
I do like this! Definitely a positive encouraging post!!! Thank you for sharing this
@quixotic_life thank you. Really these are all wonderful reminders & great encouragements.
I was cuddling with someone new to be me recently and I was asking for that position where I’m on my back and she is next to me but resting her head on my chest. Is there a name for that? It’s a lot of words to explain. And in fact I didn’t explain it well enough and she thought I wanted her to lay completely on top of me and started saying unkind things about her size. Which wasn’t my intent. The comfort of my cuddlers is always very important me.
What can I/should I do when presented with this vulnerability? Things that come to mind to re-assure seem to miss mark.
Those were cute to read. Love yourself. It's your life's mission.
Your worth is what you place your own worth to be. Great message to self love.
How about a filter for inner beauty/ character?
@quixotic_life just beautiful and touching
@Syins that is so sweet to ask about how to reassure someone.
First off.... as easy as it seems, you can never change someone's mind about themselves. They are the only ones who can TRULY give themselves a new message. What was mind-blowing to me was a comment someone once said "Your body hears all of your messages, positive and negative. If you don't love/appreciate your body, then you take away the chance for anyone else to love/appreciate it. The only thing your body/soul can believe is what you truly believe in your heart." Sometimes... when people are being hard on themselves I let them know that I'm going to provide three positive comments for every one of their negative ones whist they are with me. Trying to balance things out you know!!
I also think there is beauty in telling someone.... "I really enjoy everything that you bring to the table today. Thank you for sharing with me." Even if they are/look a bit different the next time you see them, I'm thankful for exactly what they present TODAY. in the NOW.
I think everyone has done or seen the "side by side/head on my chest" cuddle position and I've found that most people have no idea of things when you give them a "cuddle position" title. Because I love it when people are verbal about what they're hopeful for and also what their boundaries are I much prefer when they are wordy. It gives clarity that they've really thought about things and taken the time to say/type it. That's just me though. 😊
@quixotic_life you are such a beautiful soul. This thread is amazing.
Knowing you are WORTHY, no matter what your body happens to look like right now 💖💖💖
Just like our ideas don't /shouldn't define us..... Neither should our looks (because they'll change) or any other freaking thing. WE ARE WORTHY as humans. Waiting for someone else to tell us we are worthy (or beautiful, or the right size etc) will only end in disappointment because we can't please everyone. We are the only ones who have power to love ourselves with the utmost intensity... Why would we choose to give that responsibility to someone else???? That's crazy talk! Thank you so much for reminding me and being such a lovely, inclusive, decisive, funny, wise, intelligent, kind, squishily delightful human. So much love you’ve presented here.
@sillysassy You have a beautiful way of combining wisdom with encouragement! I appreciate you beyond words!
All the YAYS!!!... Look at all this love here!! My heart is so happy!! 🥰
@Syins ~ I think gently patting your chest and asking, "May I be your pillow?" would work. As far as reassuring insecurities... I'm not sure that what you might say would help, because those negative narratives can run painfully deep. It often takes a lot of work on the self to get to a place of non-judgmental, neutral acceptance. And even then those voices can still tear you down sometimes.
That said, some of the kindest things I've heard while getting a reassuring hug were: I hope one day you'll see you the way I see you and you'll love and appreciate you too. When you say things like that about yourself I feel uneasy. I just don't like when people are being disrespected/disrespectful. [With sincere eye contact] Please don't talk about my friend like that. I'm thankful for all of everything about you [extra squeeze] and what brought you here today. Thank you for sharing you!
Not good; You're not fat. It's what's on the inside that counts. You're so brave. (Really?? What the what does that even mean??)
@quixotic_life thank you for sharing these thoughts and concepts. I always need reminders.
@quixotic_life
I hope one day you'll see you the way I see you and you'll love and appreciate you too.
People used this strategy on me when I needed it, and it finally soaked in to the point where I could accept it.
I often use the same kind of words with others now. It seems to gradually soak in for them as well.
Abstract Darwinian aesthetics: sexual selection and the biology of beauty Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2003
Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visual, vocal and chemical cues that reveal health including developmental health. Beautiful and irresistible features have evolved numerous times in plants and animals due to sexual selection, and such preferences and beauty standards provide evidence for the claim that human beauty and obsession with bodily beauty are mirrored in analogous traits and tendencies throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Human beauty standards reflect our evolutionary distant and recent past and emphasize the role of health assessment in mate choice as reflected by analyses of the attractiveness of visual characters of the face and the body, but also of vocal and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards may vary between cultures and between times, we show in this review that the underlying selection pressures, which shaped the standards, are the same. Moreover we show that it is not the content of the standards that show evidence of convergence – it is the rules or how we construct beauty ideals that have universalities across cultures. These findings have implications for medical, social and biological sciences.
@SnuggleUpogus ~ Are you "mating" with your cuddle buddies?? Science or no, that's against the TOS here...
Adding... As much as I love Darwin, his whole theory goes out the window when it comes to people. People reproduce unintentionally all the time. Unless 'natural selection' includes two people with compatible bits bumping them into each other just because they're available, then fine. I mean let's be real... We really aren't a species that follows the rules when it comes to choosing mates. If we were, the rate of divorce would be much lower than it is and adoption and fostering wouldn't be necessary. People are gonna people, ya know?
I like this concept and find it liberating.
I was reading an article about those who grow up in poverty and violence. To the outside world our behaviour is seen as senseless and violent, even animal like.
But we are human beings, just like everyone else, and our behaviour is just the rational response to living in trauma. I remember reading that PTSD isn't an accurate word, because it is about "post" traumatic experiences. Life in the ghetto is not "post" but a continuous real time event.
How all of this affects my views on body image is that I feel "weak and not worthy of respect" if I am not big and strong. Strength is a rational response to violence as it acts as a deterrent and increases chances of self preservation.
Even though I'm out of that environment, I have still worked as a professional adult in rough places like oil rigs, and your ability to project strength still has an affect on how you are treated. It's hard to let go of these ideas.
Yeah... look, @SnuggleUpogus.
There are a lot of problems with the argument that humans mate strictly according to aesthetic standards set by past evolutionary success, but ultimately? This isn't a thread about sexual selection. It isn't about what humans do or don't find attractive—not sexually, not platonically.
It's a thread about bodies just being bodies, thanks.
We're not here to worry about our reproductive fitness (even if current beauty ideals were the be-all and end-all of that, which they're very much not). We're on this site to cuddle. Platonically.
And we're in this thread to have a break from the idea that we need to be sexually attractive or else oh, dear heaven, we're failing the species, how will we ever reproduce, no one will ever be drawn to us in a natural, Darwinian way, what can we do to be more sexually attractive (which is definitely the entire purpose of our individual lives within the human species, 'cause evolution definitely doesn't favor species with, say, asexual or homosexual members, right?) no, we've definitely gotta conform to at least the basic standards of beauty, whatever those are....
Good grief. One thread, man. One thread where we can just have bodies, and not worry about how beautiful ours are or aren't.
Because that isn't, believe it or not, terribly important to the survival of the species—and it's definitely not important on a website meant for platonic, nonsexual, nonreproductive cuddling!
Gah.
@DaringSprinter ~ You're the 🐝🐝➡️🦵➡️🦵!!! ~ 👏👏👏🤗🥰😁
And we're in this thread to have a break from the idea that we need to be sexually attractive or else oh, dear heaven, we're failing the species.
This. So much this. I am so bored of the narrative that people have to look a certain way in order to be of societal value. It's 2022 for pete's sake, there is still war, and famine, globally spread sickness and viruses and yet people are still hung up on whether someone else is f***able. Have we really progressed so little as a society that all we have to offer is the aesthetic value of our meat suits?
That's depressing and disappointing.