Although I am growing in self-love, deconstructing toxic messages from purity culture, & learning to let go of the opinions of others…. it still hurts receiving messages from people I know personally. Strangers are easy to turn the other way from, but personal connections can hurt. I received a text from an old friend, whom I co-wrote many songs with in the past.

She had been seeing my body positive, self-loving posts.

And she was bothered. She was bothered enough to unfollow and send me a text explaining her disgust. Although she said she loved me somewhere in the text — this felt far from love.

Purity culture kills. The mentality that bodies are inherently bad is toxic. Purity culture sees the body as a slave…. Something that requires bondage to keep under control.

Here is the thing… I’m truly enjoying art, photography, writing, my body, & sunshine in such an innocent and playful way. It feels magical. I also genuinely mean what I write in my posts. I also mean how I say it and what pictures I post. I’m living it. For instance, I was sunbathing and felt inspired to photograph and write. And it’s sad that the juvenile phrase “you’re wanting attention” thing was said — because, believe me, it’s much easier for me to hide away and “follow the rules”. (rules being the purity culture rules my brain knows all too well) I’m pushing myself to post and be and accept and love in ways my brain has been trained not to. Getting “attention” is uncomfortable for me. It’s new. I’m learning to be okay with it, welcome and love it. But her accusations are just so far off from the truth.

Perhaps she wishes my pictures were in a museum, where she could just be spectator. Maybe my posts have an underlying (subconscious or not) call to action. And maybe that is intimidating. Because I’m trying to live it out... it’s more than words on a page or a picture in a hall. This is real life. My life. Maybe I am subconsciously causing her and others to examine their own life. I don’t really mean to challenge. I’m just documenting what I see and feel in life — but maybe that’s the rub. I’m not a painting in a museum. But a moment of time you can feel and experience.

If I was to post a pic in a bikini, full on bikini and said.... ‘getting my quarantan on….' or, ‘I have been really trying to work out my xyz... here’s my before pic’..... NOBODY WOULD CARE. Because there is a reason for the body. But my pictures don’t give reason. I don’t explain or excuse or “justify” my body for simply being.

It is time to liberate ourselves & free our bodies from bondage. To recognize that we are not slaves to a book of rules. That we are inherently free & whole. We must not forget.