New Year New You??? Regenerating our body image....
Annual Report/Resources
"Regenerative" as a term is often associated with health and wellness.
After all, the term "regenerative" itself is a term from the health industry - about how tissues in the body can come back together after an injury. It later became popular as a way to talk about "regenerative agriculture" - food systems that can replenish entire landscapes, not just "sustain them."
Either way: both our ecosystems and our human bodies are so amazing!
And yet, the health and wellness field has become a major industry: at 6.3 trillion in 2023, it was one of the biggest industries globally. It's always been high, but the COVID Pandemic really boosted it, as has an aging population and increased attention on mental health. In the United States, it is valued at 1.8 trillion.
January is big bucks for that industry - from your neighborhood gym and yoga studio to mega-health industries like Weight Watchers.
The end-of-year holidays tend to set up the health industry nicely: people tend to feel a little icky in their bodies, and often for good reason. Over the holidays, people tend to get less movement than usual, have unusual routines, eat rich foods, and extra gatherings often means extra stress. And then there's the sexy promise of a fresh new year in front of us, like a blank journal, a white canvas. Which is, of course, false.
You are probably familiar with the "new year, new you" messaging. It’s so alluring. Especially if you feel a bit "off" at the time.
And for so many people, "new you" is often equated with "perfect body." Which for many people is equivalent to various levels of weight loss.
Now: we are not here to give you any kind of medical advice!
But we do want to encourage a loving relationship with your body..... and with your ecosystem.
Which for many folks, means questioning diet fads and a lot of the messaging around "you will be better when your body fits a very narrow social mold" kind of thinking.
One of the people whom I really appreciate who is writing and talking a lot about questioning the wellness industry is Christy Harrison, RD. She shares her journey of going from being a "normal" registered dietician to being surprised and subsequently shifting her own analysis about the impact of dieting in her book, The Anti-Diet.
You might appreciate her podcasts -she actually has two: Rethinking Wellness (more recent- and she has a book and a substack of the same name); Food Psych (which she has been doing for many years)...They both have a LOT of rich conversations on them!
There is also a rich array of thinking around intuitive eating - here's one (of many) resources around that.
There are some interesting overlaps here with the larger culture of body positivity, which basically says, to start with self-acceptance of yourself as you are right now. Then you can think about "improvements".
This is not easy. For many people, this includes accepting and even grieving the loss of some kind of body fantasy.
And here are some questions you might appreciate mulling over....
How have your expectations of our values and your body, as well as other people's bodies, shifted over time?
How do you build a loving relationship with food, exercise, and aging?
And how can we all stop judging body sizes and shapes so much (our own, and everyone else’s)?
What does it look like for you to love the body you have, right here, right now?
I know this is not always easy. There's a lot of social messaging - from our families, our culture, even the medical profession - that don't always make this easy.
But moving into a better relationship with our body just as it is a step towards a kind of freedom that is not about "someday maybe I can be perfect and then everything will be fine." It's about being in the present, and learning to love what its, as well as what might become.
So here's to you, and your wellness journey, in all the many ways that might look!
And!!!!
Now that 2024 is behind us, we are excited to share with you our Annual Report. Please find it below. And there are some further resources as well!
Download: The Regenerative School's Annual Report
Join Circular Time
Circular Time
Time is not linear. Time curves.
So why are you still using a linear calendar and pretending that you can chart your life in a straight line?
Choose 1 date:
Saturday, January 4, 11 am to 12:15 pm EST
Tuesday, January 21, 12 pm to 1:15 pm EST
Wednesday, January 29, 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm EST
Additional resources
We Will Be Jaguars A Memoir of My People - By Mitch Anderson, Nemonte Nenquimo (Narrated by Christine Ann-Roche)
The End of Drum-Time A Novel By Hanna Pylväinen (Narrated by Philippe Spall)
Rest Is Resistance A Manifesto By Tricia Hersey Narrated by Tricia Hersey
The Land in Our Bones - Plantcestral Herbalism and Healing Cultures from Syria to the Sinai–Earth-based pathways to ancestral stewardship and belonging in diaspora By Layla K. Feghali