If You’re Thin and Feel ‘Left Out’ of Body Acceptance, You’re Missing the Point

By Melissa A. Fabello, Cathy Bouris and Kaitlyn M. Forristal

’ll be forthright: As a thin woman involved in body acceptance activism, I’ve had my moments when I’ve wished that conversations madeMORE ROOM for me

and my experiences.

Body acceptance as a movement floated into my life when I discovered feminism during the beginning of my eating disorder recovery. And I wanted so desperately to catch it like a butterfly and make it mine. I needed it. I realized, in fact, that we all needed it. And I threw myself into it with ignorant fervor, desperate to lavish in it and spread its gospel.

But in my joyous discovery of what would become a lifesaver for me, what I initially wanted from the movement was a centering on what felt relevant to my own struggles.

Particularly as a woman who is a size eight – considered plus-size by modeling standards – and isn’t the socially idealized “model thin,” I fleetingly felt like body positivity, as a movement, wasn’t really made for me.

Why can’t we have more conversations about women who aren’t fat, but who aren’t svelte either? I wondered. Where do we fit into this landscape?

Because what I was seeing on the surface in these spaces was the celebration of, still, bodies that didn’t look like mine. And when I looked to society as a whole and felt like I had to drop three sizes to be celebrated, and then looked to body-positive spaces and felt like I needed to add at least three sizes to be noticed, I felt invisible. And in my naïveté, I felt like that was inherently body-negative.

If “all bodies are good bodies,” I thought, where’s the focus on mine?

I’ve learned a lot more about the nuances of oppression since those starting days. And I’ve learned that as a movement created by fat women for fat women, it really isn’t a place for me to expect to see my experiences centered, even if I still can participate in and benefit from that.

But I still see this sentiment floating all around me: women of standard sizing wondering aloud why body acceptance feels hostile to them, trying to apply their understanding of oppression to prove “reverse discrimination,” frustrated that their attempt to center themselves and their bodies is met with derision instead of celebration.

Sometimes, still, I feel this emotion bubbling up in myself.

But the reality is that the body acceptance movement wasn’t created for us, fellow thin people. It wasn’t a place that was meant for us in the first place. And as frustrating as that can feel, it’s important for us to recognize that it doesn’t have to be centered on thin people in order to be useful – even to us.

So I asked two of my good friends (and favorite fat activists), Cathy Bouris and Kaitlyn M. Forristal, to join me in exploring this very question that gets asked so repeatedly: Does body-positivity really even care about thin people?

And here is what we came up with: four reasons why pushing for body acceptance movements to cater to thin people is not only senseless, but also hurtful.

1. Mainstream Body Positivity Already Does Include Thin Bodies

Thin people, your bodies are already represented.

Think about the popular body positive campaigns you’ve seen in the past year: Lane Bryant’s#PlusIsEqual and #ImNoAngel, or Amazon’s “I Wish I Could Wear” campaign. Or maybe even American Eagle’s male body positivity campaign that turned out to be a joke (because chubby guys liking themselves is funny – or something).

All of these campaigns include thin or average sized bodies. In many cases, it’s fat bodiesthat are the ones being underrepresented in these campaigns that are meant to celebrate body diversity.

Instead, the people who most need body acceptance see themselves represented by tall, curvy models with flat stomachs who wouldn’t be caught dead actually shopping in a store specifically targeted at plus-sized women.

These are models who have “curves in all the right places” – not unsightly stomach rolls or arm flab. Models like Ashley Graham, Stefania Ferrario (the driving force behind #DropThePlus), andRobyn Lawley don’t actually depict the reality of what most plus-sized women look like – and yet they’re who are being used to represent them.

In fact, ASOS recently slipped up and admitted on Twitter that their Curve models were usually a UK size 16 – which is a US size 12. Even the models used to sell plus-size clothing are barely plus-sized. On top of that, one of the worst kept industry secrets is that many of these models actually use padding to fit into larger clothes.

Most of the bodies that are featured, especially in media, as being body positive still fit into standard (or just barely plus-size) sizing. I mean, how often have you seen images of Marilyn Monroe used to make a point about body love? Her measurements were 36-24-34, making her similar in size to modern day starlets who are celebrated for their “unconventional” Hollywood bodies, like Jennifer Lawrence and Demi Lovato.

And all of those women are smaller than the average American woman.

Which begs the question: Where are thin women feeling left out of, exactly?

Thin people have noted feeling hostility toward thin bodies in fat acceptance spaces. But conversations about how you hold privilege and how that affects others isn’t hostility toward individuals; it’s anger at an oppressive system. And the truth is that thin people contribute to that system when they demand inclusion.

Marginalized people are entitled to spaces where they can discuss that experience without catering to hurt feelings. This is especially true when you consider that mainstream body positivity was born of fat feminist theory being repackaged and sold to the masses.

Being unable to participate in some conversations doesn’t equal not being included in a movement.

Also, very thin people feel that their “too skinny” social status is rarely addressed in body positivity. But there is a time and a place to have those conversations (namely, with others who share your experience).

Being asked not to make this argument during a conversation about fat experiences isn’t a sign that body acceptance isn’t “intersectional” or “inclusive” enough; it’s a hint that you might bederailing a conversation.

It’s okay to have that conversation. It’s not okay to force others to have it when they’re talking about a more marginalized experience.

Thin people aren’t being left out of this movement at all – they’re starring in it.  And so they’re upset every time the conversation isn’t about them. And that’s not the same thing.

2. There Are Harder Conversations to Have About Which Bodies Really Are Excluded

Meanwhile, there are bodies that are being left out of the movement.

And when folks push for more conversations around thinness (and generally, a very specific type of thinness at that – that of white, middle class, feminine, cisgender women) to happen, they’re further silencing the harder conversations we need to be having as a movement.

Because if your feminism isn’t intersectional, then who the hell is it for?

And the mainstream body acceptance movement has a long, long way to go to be inclusive of multiple marginalized bodies.

Body acceptance activists are frequently criticized (and rightly so) for excluding non-binary or agender experiences. Any time that we talk about how “men and women” experience body image issues, or when we talk about body image issues being indicative of binary gender expectations, we leave out entire groups of people.

The intersection of body image and transgender experiences is also incredibly nuanced – and decidedly different from how cisgender people feel in their bodies. With the potentially added experience of body dysphoria thrown into the mix, as well as the pressure to “pass” and howweight and body composition can play a role in that, we need to be talking about it. Instead, many of the most popular “body-posi” mantras leave trans experiences out entirely.

Mainstream feminism, on a whole, isn’t the best at remembering to talk about dis/ability. And mainstream body acceptance movements are no exception. The Body Is Not an Apology does a kick-ass job of discussing how body politics affect dis/ability.

And viral TEDxTalks about beauty by disabled activists like Lizzie Velasquez, Shelley Baer, Aimee Mullins, and Maysoon Zayid have made the rounds again and again. But we still actively participate in anableist “Love Your Body For What It Can Do/Healthy Is the New Skinny” culture that marginalizes people.

If you ask Google what it means to be a beautiful woman, the answer you get is overwhelmingly—well—white. And although we get a bit more diversified when we ask Google what a body-positive woman looks like, it’s by a small margin.

Whiteness, it seems, is a prerequisite for beauty, both inside and outside of mainstream body acceptance circles. And when media outlets practice whitewashing, women of color are referred to as “exotic,” and Black women are screamed at for celebrating their own beauty, we clearly have some work to do in including people of color in our conversations.

And fat people – not curvy or small-fat people, but fat people – continue to be left out of this conversation that they started. The way that body positivity has been commercialized, it doesn’t even include fat bodies.

Tess Holliday is one of the few, if not the only, plus-sized models who people can name who is considered fat, rather than curvy with the assistance of padding – and she’s notably absent from the larger body positive campaigns.

The commodification of body acceptance – advertising profiting off of the insecurities that they sold us by now selling self-love as the antidote – is a problem overall.

But it’s especially problematic when advertisers water down fat acceptance to make it more palpable to mainstream audiences – and then leave fat people out of its realm altogether, asZaynab Shahar brilliantly breaks down in this thread.

So, are bodies being left out of body acceptance conversations on the regular? They sure are. But they sure aren’t thin ones. And if you really care about inclusion in body acceptance, these examples (and more) should be where your attention is.

3. Thin People Benefit From the Eradication of Fatphobia

There’s a reason why a lot of racial justice work focuses specifically on anti-Black racism. And there’s a reason why feminist spaces need to focus on trans women.

It’s because centering the most marginalized people of any group will benefit the group as a whole in movements for justice. When we throw our effort into supporting the folks who aremost hurt by any given system, it shifts the status quo for all of us.

All people of color (and white people!) benefit from eradicating anti-Blackness. All women (and all genders!) benefit from tearing down transmisogyny. And all people benefit when we tell fatphobia to go fuck itself.

The truth is that some people are more hurt by any particular system than others are, due to the power structures that uphold that system. And in the case of fatphobic oppression, the power structure upholding it is the thin ideal.

All people are screwed by that – just like all people are hurt by any power structure. You, yourself, reading this, can probably attest to the myriad ways that the thin ideal and widespread fear and hatred of fat bodies has damaged thin people’s lives. Because it has.

The question is: Are thin people more or less hurt by that than a fat person? And why does that matter?

Stick with us through this awkward metaphor:

Let’s think of solving oppression as developing pain medication. Let’s say that, as a thin person in a fatphobic society, on a scale from one to ten, you experience three pain points. If we only ever develop a pain medication that helps up to three pain points, you’re saved! But what about everyone else?

Contrarily, if we develop a pain medication that will relieve up to all ten pain points, theneveryone benefits – including you!

So does it make more sense to focus our efforts on the people with three pain points, or the ones with ten? Does it make more sense to focus the body acceptance movement on thin people, who only experience the pain of fatphobic oppression to a degree, or on fat people, who receive the brunt of the oppression?

Thin people wonder how body acceptance can be useful to them if it’s heavily focused on fat people. The difference is that when body acceptance focuses on fat people, thin people benefit. When it’s centered on thin people, fat people get left behind.

4. We Can’t Validate Thinness As Social Capital (Yes, It’s Oppressive)

At the end of the day, when thin people say “More conversations about us, please,” they’re reasserting that their bodies are deserving of more attention.

They’re asking a group of marginalized people who have put a lot of work into a movement to focus on them more because they want to benefit from it, too. And that, in and of itself, is oppressive.

You can recite versions of mantras that were created by and for marginalized people all day long, demanding that more attention be paid to you if body acceptance really believes in self-love for all.

But it’s just another hurtful version of “What about the men?”

In the same way that feminism is for everyone, including men, body positivity is for everyone, including thin people. But when thin people center themselves – making their bodies the loudest and most important in the room – they’re using their social capital of thinness to reify oppression.

You’re co-opting a movement that was created by and for fat individuals. And when you do this, you take resources away from marginalized people and assert yourselves as the most powerful.

By demanding inclusion from a movement for marginalized people when you’re a member of the privileged group, you’re asserting your social power over the marginalized.

As a thin person, your privilege allows your voice to be heard much, much louder than the multitude of fat people that came before you. And when you use the platform that you’ve been allotted to speak solely for the hurt feelings of thin people, you ignore the experiences of fat people – and you concretize the oppression they face.

And that’s not a movement to be proud of.

So the next time you find yourself wondering why you feel left out of body acceptance, ask yourself why you need it in the first place. More than likely, it’s because you, like the rest of us, were taught to hate the way you look and to be fearful of having or actually being fat.

Body positivity and body acceptance are absolutely crucial to social justice activism and our work towards a more inclusive society. However, it is the rampant and systemic loathing of fatbodies that necessitate these as vital and radical concepts.

So if it’s fat that we hate so much as a society, then it’s fat bodies that need the most attention in movements working to fix that.

And that’s why it can’t focus on you.

The Difference Between Feelings And Emotions

 Understanding the difference between Feeling and Emotions can help you change unhealthy behaviors and find more happiness and peace in your life. Feelings and emotions are two sides of the same coin and highly interconnected, but are two very different things.

Emotions

Emotions are lower level responses occurring in the subcortical regions of the brain, the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortices, creating  biochemical reactions in your body altering your physical state. They originally helped our species survive by producing quick reactions to threat, reward, and everything in between in their environments. Emotional reactions are coded in our genes and while they do vary slightly individually and depending on circumstances, are generally universally similar across all humans and even other species. For example, you smile and your dog wags its tail.

The amygdala play a role in emotional arousal and regulate the release of neurotransmitters essential for memory consolidation which is why emotional memories can be so much stronger and longer-lasting. Emotions proceed feelings, are physical, and instinctual. Because they are physical, they can be objectively measured by blood flow, brain activity, facial micro-expressions, and body language.

Feelings

Feelings originate in the neocortical regions of the brain, are mental associations and reactions to emotions, and are subjective being influenced by personal experience, beliefs, and memories. A feeling is the mental portrayal of what is going on in your body when you have an emotion and is the byproduct of your brain perceiving and assigning meaning to the emotion.  Feelings are the next thing that happens after having an emotion, involve cognitive input, usually subconscious, and cannot be measured precisely.

Antonio D’Amasio, professor of neuroscience at The University of California and author of several books on the subject, explains it as:

Feelings are mental experiences of body states, which arise as the brain interprets emotions, themselves physical states arising from the body’s responses to external stimuli. (The order of such events is: I am threatened, experience fear, and feel horror.)

Dr.Sarah Mckay, neuroscientist and author of the Your Brain Health blog explains it as:

Emotions play out in the theater of the body. Feelings play out in the theater of the mind.

Feelings are sparked by emotions and colored by the thoughts, memories, and images that have become subconsciously linked with that particular emotion for you. But it works the other way around too. For example, just thinking about something threatening can trigger an emotional fear response. While individual emotions are temporary, the feelings they evoke may persist and grow over a lifetime.  Because emotions cause subconscious feelings which in turn initiate emotions and so on, your life can become a never-ending cycle of painful and confusing emotions which produce negative feelings which cause more negative emotions without you ever really knowing why.

While basic emotions are instinctual and common to us all, the meanings they take on and the feelings they prompt are individual based on our programming past and present. Feelings are shaped by a person’s temperament and experiences and vary greatly from person to person and situation to situation.

Your emotions and feelings play a powerful role in how you experience and interact with the world because they are the driving force behind many behaviors, helpful and unhelpful. It’s possible to react to emotions and the feelings they evoke which are guided by unconscious fear-based perceptions which you may not buy into anymore, yet you’re living your life, making decision and behaving according to these out-dated tendencies. Living unaware like this almost always leads to problems and unhappiness in the long run.

Putting The Difference To Good Use In Your Life

By understanding the difference between and becoming aware of your emotions and feelings, determining which is which and their root causes, and then inserting conscious thought followed by deliberate action, you can choose how you navigate and experience the world. Being able to do this means responding or reacting which can make the difference in a calm or chaotic life.

I don’t mean to imply that by becoming aware of emotions and feelings and learning to respond rather than react that life will magically become filled with rainbows and butterflies. I am suggesting that by learning the difference and changing your thinking and behavior, that no matter what is going on around you, you can maintain your balance, your sense of peace, purpose, and hope and move forward toward your goals.

For example in my 18 year marriage, my ex-husband held all the power and control, was emotionally cruel, and uncaring. In the years following our divorce, he continued the treatment by harassing me legally as he drug me in and out of court for a decade with false allegations of endangering the children, cohabitation, and more. I learned to fear him and his actions.  It got to the point where if I just saw an email from him in my inbox, my heart would start pounding, my breathing would become rapid and shallow, and I would actually start sweating. Then, I would soon feel dread, anxious, and worried.  My body was exhibiting the instinctual emotion of fear followed by the feelings I had learned to associate with him.

During the marriage and for years after, I reacted from this fearful place as the overly emotional, angry victim who fought back. As the years passed after the divorce, I slowly evolved, began to live more mindfully, and learned a different way. It took years, but I was eventually able to not knee-jerk react to his antics and to consciously and deliberately choose my feelings and behaviors according to who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life. When I mastered this skill, life calmed way down for me, and I managed to find peace and happiness despite the fact that he continued his attacks on me. (See blog:  Bad Things Do Happen To Good People)

While I was in the process of growing, it would frustrate me to no end because my heart would still pound upon just getting a message from him. I felt like my body was betraying me while, in my head, I knew better and remained calm and confident. My body still exhibited the emotion, but I inserted conscious thought and instructed myself as to how I wanted to feel and proceed.

In the gaps between emotion, feeling, and acting, we all have the power to change and direct our lives for the better. Understanding your emotions and managing your feelings with conscious thinking so they don’t hijack your brain followed by conscious action can actually change your brain through neuroplasticity, the scientifically proven ability of your brain to change form and function based on repeated emotion, thought, and behavior, and change your life.

Note – When researching this article I found that there is much differing, contradictory even,  information out there on the subject of emotions and feelings.  

Oprah Winfrey Helps Fund David Oyelowo’s Scholarship to Educate Victimized Nigerian Girls

British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo encouraged the creation of a scholarship to aid girls who have been terrorized and disadvantaged by gender inequality. Many Nigerian girls are being raped, kidnapped and – if they make it back home – shunned by their families. GEANCO Foundation has announced the first ever David Oyelowo Leadership Scholarship for Girls to help victimized young girls get an education.

“We cannot stand idly by while thousands of innocent girls remain under serious threat,” Oyelowo in a press release. “With our help, these bright and resilient girls can blossom into Nigeria’s most inspiring leaders in government, education, business, entertainment, and so much more. The way to combat oppression and injustice is to be intentional in calling it out and then seeking to affect sustainable and long-term change. That is what these Leadership scholarships are all about. We seek to nurture a generation of strong female trailblazers whose positive impact will be felt across Nigeria and around the world.”

According to Shadow and Act, the 40-year-old screenwriter and producer has long supported GEANCO. He was honored for his commitment to providing Nigerian youth with educational opportunities in 2015.

His commitment extends further with the Leadership scholarship. It will have initial financial support from famous sources. They include Oyelowo’s wife Jessica, Oprah Winfrey and pro football Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon. Capital group Janus Funds and entertainment company Participant Media will also fund the grant. Additionally, the actor will actively participate in providing funding, administration and promotion for the grant.

Three leadership scholarships will be provided for the 2016-2017 school year. Offers for subsequent years will be determined by the amount available and total funding received. Anglican Girls Grammar School in Abuja, Nigeria will educate this year’s recipients. The all-girls boarding school emphasizes science and math in its courses. It also provides a safe, nurturing environment for students. Other renowned schools will be chosen for future scholarship recipients.

source :-Atlantablackstar.com

Steps Toward Identifying Your Feelings (And Therefore Stopping Your Self-Silencing)

We all show some discretion when we go through the process of figuring out whether or not we should say what we’re thinking or feeling.

Most of us recognize that telling someone that we disagree with something they’ve said or done can hurt feelings, create tensions, or cause an argument that maybe we just don’t want to have.

This discretion, by itself, isn’t all bad. It allows us to maintain our relationships by choosing to keep potentially upsetting opinions to ourselves.

However, when it does become a problem is when the silencing of our own emotions becomes so subconsciously embedded that it impacts our ability to even identify what we’re feeling.

Personally, I have a very hard time inconveniencing anyone with my feelings or emotions.

This means that whether I’m angry, irritated, or even just hungry, I don’t want to bother anyone else with those things. And because I’ve internalized that my feelings are unimportant, I also have a tough time figuring out what I’m feeling sometimes, which further complicates my ability to emote.

This aversion to “inconveniencing” someone with your feelings is called “self-silencing.”

Self-silencing, a component of psychological self-concealment, happens when we decide that the potential fallout of how we feel outweighs whatever benefit there might be in expressing those feelings.

For me, telling someone that I’m hungry and that I need to eat is outweighed by my worry that they’re going to feel inconvenienced by having to stop for food. Often, I have to say the words“It’s okay to say that you are hungry” several times in my head before I can say it aloud.

While this may seem like a silly, trivial problem, it’s the mildest example of self-silencing that I, and many others, struggle with.

And on a societal level, this seemingly trivial issue can lead to more complicated and compacted problems. The act of self-silencing within marginalized groups points to a larger cultural narrative: The needs of the non-marginalized are secondary to those of the marginalized.

For example, according to Dana C. Jack, EdD, a professor at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University:

“Women’s inner arguments about how they should act and feel revealed a divided self that results from self-silencing in an attempt to preserve relationships. Inwardly, they experienced anger and confusion while outwardly presenting a pleasing, compliant self trying to live up to cultural standards of a good woman in the midst of fraying relationships, violence, and lives that were falling apart.”

This fear of outwardly presenting your inner emotions is experienced not only by women, but by many members of marginalized groups who are told that their opinions aren’t relevant, useful, or worthy of acknowledgment.

Further, the risk of violent reactions from openly expressing inner feelings or opinions causes many marginalized people to push the emotions so deeply into themselves that they become difficult to identify.

If you’ve spent the majority of your life being told that what you feel isn’t worth expressing, and could, in fact, get you into trouble, it can seem pointless to even try to figure out what you’re feeling.

However, I would argue that learning to identify what you’re feeling and what’s triggering that emotion is the first step toward unlearning self-silencing and therefore toward validating your own emotions.

So here are three processes that I have found to be helpful when I can’t identify what I’m feeling.

1. Take Inventory of What You’re Feeling Physiologically

Are you sweating? shaking? Does your face feel warm? Are you light-headed?

Most of the time, we’re feeling a jumble of different emotions at any given moment. It isn’t that uncommon to feel hungry and angry at the same time — or even to mistake one for the other.

In fact, emotions like fear, anger, and anxiety can have reactions in your body that are quite similar to each other. Generally, we can recognize some of the physical reactions that are fairlycommon to everyone: sweating when we’re nervous, getting goosebumps when we’re scared, or becoming short-of-breath when we’re panicking.

Even so, we each have telltale physical reactions to these emotions that can be very specific to our own bodies. The list of physical responses to stress is long and encompasses a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from headaches all the way to heart attacks.

The way that your body reacts to stress can fall anywhere within this range, so taking inventory of the ways in which your body physically responds to different emotions can help you better identify when you are feeling that emotion.

For example, if you start to notice that you get jittery whenever you’re anxious, the next time you feel jittery, but don’t know why, it might indicate that maybe you’re anxious about something and don’t realize it.

Being able to associate your physical response to an emotion enables you to start looking at your body and mind as connected to each other, and not as two completely separate parts of yourself.

2. The ‘Why?’ Test

Children do this constantly. Every few minutes, they ask “why” something is.

It doesn’t feel natural to ask this question of yourself, but it can help because the endless trail of questions can actually lead somewhere.

When you force yourself to dig deeper into what’s causing the emotion you’re feeling, you can often stumble on some things that you didn’t notice before.

It might go something like this: I feel like I want to cry right now. Why? Because I’m angry. Why? Because someone made a comment that was kind of offensive. Why were you offended? Because the comment was directed at people of color. Why did that upset you? Because I am a person of color.

And so forth.

This line of questioning can get you to the root of an issue so that you can address the cause of your feeling, rather than the feeling itself. In turn, this will help you avoid those negative feelings in the future.

It’s not easy. Pretty often, your mind will rebel against digging deep — and that’s okay. Sometimes you’re not ready to get to the core of what you’re feeling yet, and that’s fine.

Being able to “Why?” yourself until you get to the root cause of an emotion takes practice. It’s a skill that a lot of us have to learn because we’ve become so accustomed to thinking our emotions are invalid.

Fear of disapproval, or even just a lack of time to think about what’s really happening internally, are two reasons that we might avoid delving into how we’re feeling.

When we’re rushing to get somewhere on time, running errands, or meeting a deadline, it’s easy to push down what we’re feeling because it seems like we don’t have time to acknowledge those emotions.

However, taking the time to even ask yourself one “Why?” question is a good way to start thinking past the initial nausea, wanting to cry, or wanting to throw something across the room.

In the process of going through these questions, you’re allowing yourself to focus on a particular line of thought, and this in itself can have a calming and stabilizing effect.

Once you start doing the “Why?” test, you’ll find that over time it gets much easier to go through four or five questions in a shorter period of time.

3. Note Your Alarm Bells

Alarm bells — or triggers — can be people, places, subjects, smells, or sounds that emotionally impact you. Different emotions can be triggered by different situations.

One of the biggest triggers for many of us is hearing a song that brings back a good or bad memory. It might be the song that you were playing when you first met your partner or a song that one of your parents played over and over again when you were young. As a result, hearing that song can make you nostalgic, anxious, or even angry.
Another example for many people is being in a setting where you are the “Other.”Maybe you’re the only person of color, the only non-straight person, the only woman – whatever marginalized identity (or intersection of marginalized identities) that sets you apart from the majority of the peopleIN THE ROOM.

Situations like these are often triggering moments because they’re usually situations where you feel uncomfortable, but don’t know how to react to that discomfort.

While you can’t always know exactly when you’re going to step into an uncomfortable situation, the better you become at knowing your triggers, the better you get at choosing to avoid those triggers or otherwise figuring out how you’re going to navigate a triggering situation.

This is the final step, and perhaps the most important, because learning to identify your triggers gives you agency; it allows you to have some control over the way your emotions will impact your behavior.
These are just a few of the ways to start identifying what’s happening internally, and by no means the only ways, especially considering the fact that different people are triggered by different experiences and are in different places on the path to self-expression.

However, learning to at least identify those emotions and acknowledging that what you are feeling is valid is an important factor in learning to stop self-silencing.

What are some ways that you take inventory of your feelings or otherwise stop self-silencing in your own life?
BY MICHELLE DOMINIQUE BURK