As a plus size blogger, I consider myself to be body positive. I have to be. For my entire life, people have told me my body is wrong and that it should be different. Someone had to love my body; it might as well be me. So when I attended the local showing of Embrace, I expected to like it, and the short version is, I did.

From the opening scenes with Taryn, the film’s narrator, director, creator, and central character, I knew we were in for something honest. Being body positive, loving your body, in the world today is something of a rarity. I knew that my fellow film-goers were about to have our ideas on body image challenged.

I love that.

Have you ever spent time considering where your ideas about beauty and your body developed? This film will guide you through that as it interviews women and they share their experiences. It will shine a light on how shared the conversations we have with ourselves are and that you’re not alone in this. We are bombarded, as women especially, but men too, with perfect images and ideas about how we should think, exist, act, be. And that needs to end.

We can end it.

It ends when we stop the conversation for the value of a person being their body or sex appeal. When we take the time to appreciate and love our differences and the unique way that we are all formed. Unique, but so similar in a lot of ways. There is freedom just around the corner for all of us. I can feel it.

Since my discovery of plus size fashion bloggers, I feel different; I changed and so did the relationship with my body. I nodded and smiled as women of all shapes and sizes embraced their body and shared their experience. How collectively they were realising that what your body looks like only matters when you’re living a small life. A self-important life.

Uh oh, that’s going to be challenging for some.

But it’s true. Sick and formally sick women, those who have faced adversity and loss don’t have time to focus on the way their body looks; they’re too busy. Too busy LIVING in their body. Not being tall enough, thin enough, athletic enough, not having perfect boobs or a skinless vulva doesn’t matter. Life and love and relationships matter, the size of your ass does not.

I don’t say that to be cruel and call you self-obsessed to hurt your feelings. But let’s face it if your biggest concern in life is what you or others are saying about the way your skin sags or stretches then you need a hobby.

Another hobby because let’s face it, for a long time now dieting and the scrutiny of our bodies has been the hobby. They told us to care that much, to ignore everything, to operate in life hungry and distracted by our physical appearance. They said this was the way to be happy and loved and appreciated.

Well, my friends, they lied.

Being present as the fullest expression of who you are is the way to those things. Your boobs, your ass, and your beautiful face have absolutely nothing to do with it. Embrace that, find where your happiness and purpose lie. I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be at the bottom of a bottle of diet pills or under the surgeon’s knife.

See the movie team. See it every opportunity you get and start to change the way you think about your body and other bodies. Chip away at the message put in front of you time and time again that perfection is attainable IF only you try hard enough. Let that programming go and get a little angry that they had the nerve to subject you to this.

Change is coming, it starts with each of us. Taryn has done her bit, now we each need to do ours.

Melissa Walker Horn

Hi! I’m Melissa Walker Horn. Around here, they call me Suger. I’m the Chief Blogger and doer of all the things here at Suger Coat It. Blogging since 1901; I love a casual ootd, taking photos, and writing about things that irk or inspire me. I love wine and cheese, long days at the beach and spending time with my family. I make stuff for the internet over at Chalkboard Digital. You know, living the sweet life.