hearts hips hands
ASK/TELL/SHARE   submissions   • love your soul • love your body • love your mind •

ask/tell/share
submissions
i'm trying to figure out anonymous submissions... in the meantime you can
email me submissions (photos, text, etc.)

loving links:
the tummy project
ms. magazine
bitch magazine
national organization for women (NOW)

the goal of hearts hips hands is to collect 1,000 stories/photos/lines/snippets about why you love your body (or a certain part of your body), your self, your mind, what you can do, and how you have changed the world for the better with just your heart and your hands.

they can be long, or short, or just a photo, or just a few words… anything really.

please contribute by clicking one of the "submissions" links above.

"Here is what you learn very early, as a young woman prone to fatness, even before puberty: My body is bad. My body is disgusting. My body is something for me to fight against. My body will not cooperate with my desire to be thin. My body is a disappointment to the people around me. I hate how all these studies and articles just assume as true that it is the natural order of things that fat girls will feel bad about themselves, as if this is, in fact, the proper way to view yourself when you are fat. No, this is not natural. This does not come from looking in the mirror. Girls are inculcated with messages that fatness is bad and that their bodies are their enemies. Loving your body is not option. That fatness-shame, combined with the puberty-shame of our puritanical, anti-woman, anti-sex culture, means that at the onset of puberty fat girls undergo deep, deep dissociation with their bodies. This happens to all kinds of girls, but especially fat girls."

Silvana @Tiger Beatdown › On Heavy Girls and Sexy Time

(it’s not natural to feel badly about yourself. it’s not natural to think you’re ugly and disgusting and unwanted. it’s not. you can learn to love yourself and see yourself as beautiful and that is JUST as natural—if not more so—than all of this self hate. i know it’s hard. i know everyone’s telling you to resent your body. but you can choose to stop. submit something. tell us what you love about yourself.)

reclining nude on a sofa  suzanne valadon c. 1928

reclining nude on a sofa 

suzanne valadon

c. 1928


"Unless you are very naturally thin, people around you will constantly be worrying about your weight well before you even hit puberty. I remember this well. I wasn’t a skinny kid. I wasn’t a fat kid either. Looking back on pictures of my child self, I don’t even think I was chubby. I just…wasn’t as skinny as some of the other girls who were my friends. Unfortunately, instead of fighting the negative media messages I got about thinness and my body, the adults around me reinforced those messages by not going WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING when I announced I was going on a diet, and by being constantly on diets themselves. When you are in the pre-teen era, you spend a lot of time looking to adults to figure out how you should behave, because you are just beginning to become aware of changes in your body that mean you will be an adult within a few years! And holy shit! And guess what — the adults around you are constantly obsessing about their own weight. And yours. Because, since it is the responsibility of parents to decide what their kids eat, and there are a million narratives about how if you don’t eat right you will get fat, parents are looking for your not-fatness as a way to verify that they haven’t completely fucked up as parents. And they are talking about how when you grow up, you will “struggle with your weight,” so enjoy it now, kid! Except you think, wait? I have compared myself to friends that I have? And I am, in fact, bigger than some of them? DIET TIME."
Silvana @ Tiger Beatdown › On Heavy Girls and Sexy Time
I love how big my hair is when it’s back-combed.And I love how when you look really closely my eyes are different colours.And I love how I can hold a stare.I am intense.(Or at least photogenic.)x thank you so much for this! you ARE intense (and your hair is pretty awesome)!  hearts hips hands #30

I love how big my hair is when it’s back-combed.
And I love how when you look really closely my eyes are different colours.
And I love how I can hold a stare.

I am intense.
(Or at least photogenic.)
x

thank you so much for this! you ARE intense (and your hair is pretty awesome)! 

hearts hips hands #30

what do you love about yourself? what do you think is beautiful, or useful, or good? submit! →
love

sometimes life is not what it seems.

you kind of have to face each day with a new sense of mind and direction and see where it takes you. in the past seventeen years of my life, i have found that decisions made in the evening times are not half as wise as the decisions made first thing in the morning. my mind never fails to amaze me with different thoughts and ideas every day.

as for my physical appearance - i am not always happy with the way i look. being surrounded by beautiful european beauties i am lucky enough to call my friends is disheartening at times. your personality and attitude is (in all seriousness) what matters. a person can be externally beautiful, but once you see their personality, everything is revealed. the vulnerability of a person is something i will never understand. perhaps it is better to never understand - a bit of ambiguity never hurt anyone.
so i have learned that dressing up is merely a way of making yourself look like who you want to become in a mirror, but it does not reflect how others perceive you at all. what really makes you a beautiful person is who you are as a human being.

perhaps what love tells us is not that we are ‘loved’ or ‘admired’ - but that someone who loves you appreciates who you are as a person. that’s the real reason why you should love yourself - you should appreciate who you are as a person, and the beautiful ways in which you contribute to the world. whether it be through a talent you have, or a quirky trait - maybe it’s just your sense of openness and perhaps you’ve got a way of being prompt for everything - somewhere, someone is appreciating you.

thank you for this!

hearths hips hands #29

click here to hop to an etsy shop that has über adorable (sometimes vintage-inspired) women's clothes in sizes 14-24. they're expensive, but this is a rare find, so i thought i'd share it! →
travelwithroses asked: As one of the women who's submitted something here, in response to the person who said:

"i wish i could feel like these girls do about my own self. loving themselves for their size and embracing their imperfections. i haven't been able to learn how to do that, and i wish i had."
Anonymous

Let me just say - like you've already done - that it's an ongoing struggle. There have been days, weeks, months, and even - for a while - years, where I hated my body, or wanted to change something about it. Frankly, I still do and probably always will. BUT. Over the years I've come to realize only that I alone have my body, walk around in it, lay with it, run with it, and sit with it. I'm the only one who knows where it's been, what it's done, and what it can do. I don't always love it. But I'm learning acceptance and slowly finding things that I find beautiful about it. So take heart from the fact that it's always a struggle, but that with time and patience you can find your body beautiful too.


Answer:

thank you, travelwithroses, you put that wonderfully! i love your point about you being the only one who has and always will have your particular body. you experience it daily, moment by moment.

recognizing that and trying to work towards a place where you can love and appreciate your body is something that’s so beautiful to me. 

also, i feel like we often feel bad or excluded from some body-loving-group because we don’t love our bodies 24/7… but really, i don’t know anyone that does! any little bit that you love your body counts, and is a good thing. 

thank you again for sharing this!

enjoy your body - kurt vonnegut chartreuseampersand:pooteeweet:artislovely:solipsiae:heyfatchick: (via bbwprincess: pluseyes: loveandzombies: lovelylulu :paladijm: fuckyeahhappy)

enjoy your body - kurt vonnegut

chartreuseampersand:pooteeweet:artislovely:solipsiae:heyfatchick: (via bbwprincess: pluseyes: loveandzombies: lovelylulu :paladijm: fuckyeahhappy)

i love my soul Hi, my name is vivian. i love my soul because it feels flexible as a rubber band. i always try to be open to lots of things that are different from who I am. but at the same time i love who i am, and i know who i am, and i embrace this. i love my soul because, lately, i’ve been given opportunities to delve into it, and read amazing literature, and learn more and more things about life and the things that make me happy. the things that make me unique {mentally.} watching movies, taking personal days, sharing ideas and stories and emotions with friends. There’s pain and there’s laughter and most importantly there is this moment, this moment that is passing RIGHT now, oh and there, it’s gone. But i’m proud to spend this moment, this fleeting, precious moment, writing to other individuals on tumblr, learning more and more about themselves. for me, and for my Soul, tumblr is not just a waste of time on the computer. Yes, it makes my eyes hurt because i sit in front of the hour for 4 hours. But i’m happy! i’m happy.  enjoy your moments, everybody!!!!!  Go do the very thing you want to do!!!!! love, blueberrypi this is inspiring and you are lovely! thank you! hearts hips hands #28

i love my soul

Hi, my name is vivian. i love my soul because it feels flexible as a rubber band. i always try to be open to lots of things that are different from who I am. but at the same time i love who i am, and i know who i am, and i embrace this. i love my soul because, lately, i’ve been given opportunities to delve into it, and read amazing literature, and learn more and more things about life and the things that make me happy. the things that make me unique {mentally.} watching movies, taking personal days, sharing ideas and stories and emotions with friends. There’s pain and there’s laughter and most importantly there is this moment, this moment that is passing RIGHT now, oh and there, it’s gone. But i’m proud to spend this moment, this fleeting, precious moment, writing to other individuals on tumblr, learning more and more about themselves. for me, and for my Soul, tumblr is not just a waste of time on the computer. Yes, it makes my eyes hurt because i sit in front of the hour for 4 hours. But i’m happy! i’m happy. 

enjoy your moments, everybody!!!!! 

Go do the very thing you want to do!!!!!

love, blueberrypi

this is inspiring and you are lovely! thank you!

hearts hips hands #28

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