Love From Maria

  ​ ​ S M XL A few years ago this woman, Taryn Brumfitt, did something remarkable. She posed naked, in all her imperfect, perfect glory. She posted a less than conventional before and after photo and she knocked the world on it's head, or at least mine. I count myself blessed for having seen her, those years ago, for having read her message and followed her journey. Just over a month ago I watched her documentary. A documentary that I watched grow and helped spread awareness of. Embrace.  Embrace is Taryn's story of self acceptance, happiness and love and it follows her journey around the world in search of why so many of us hate our bodies and value ourselves based on things like our weight, appearance or beauty. Now naysayers - I feel you. I live for healthier generations and getting people to move more. This is not a documentary encouraging people not to take care of their health. It is in fact, the exact opposite.  ...

Last week I heard an oldie but a goodie,  Who Would You Be  by George Canyon. The song has such a simple concept but like so many other times, I heard it just when I needed to.   This life can be so much, so busy, so fast - I can get caught up or buried in the daily bits that I forget why I do any of it in the first place. While the song was playing the words made me smile. I recalled a time before I was even married, talking to my friend Joselle, at work. We were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I remember shrugging and saying that all I really knew was that I wanted to marry Todd, have a family together and be happy.  ​ ​ S M L XL Well the years have passed and I feel so blessed to say those things have come true. And as I think about them and who I want to be, I don't think too much has changed. Although I didn't see it at the time, or maybe my scope was just smaller, I think who I would be isn't too far off from who I ...

Recently I've had deep, respectful, meaningful conversations with some important people in my life. Even though we may all have differing views we were able to share our thoughts safely. We talked about so many issues facing our society right now, we talked about the future for our children. About fairness, love, work ethic, government, kindness - we hit it all. We were able to respond with curiosity without once descending into argument, insult or disrespect. In the end, we were still friends, love never stopped being our central bind. Once again, our connections were deepened through sharing. ​ ​ S M L XL I am not sure how the others involved left feeling but for me there was a definite shift. Sharing our differing, or even similar, views challenged me to ask myself why I was answering the way I was, what are my reasons for feeling that way? What experiences have I had that lead me to think this? I find it astonishing how my answers would shift "in a perfect wor...