If you’ve ever felt that you weren’t good enough, pretty enough or just perfect enough in general (and lets face it, who hasn’t?), this is the perfect book for you!
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This is who I am by Rosanne Olson (Workman) is a gloriously refreshing and empowering collection of ordinary, yet extraordinary women who have stripped all to pose nude in order to inspire other women to make peace with their bodies.
Each woman in this book has her own unique story – ranging in age from 19 -95, with a variety of ethnicities, backgrounds and professions. None is a professional model, and all have bravely stripped, speaking unflinchingly about their bodies.
This book has left everyone here at nzgirl HQ feeling uplifted and inspired – we think they all look absolutely gorgeous! This is one fabulous step towards helping women feel great in the skin they are in, it gave all of us a little extra confidence!
We’ve been lucky enough to secure two of our favourite exerts from the book to share with you all! We’re sure you’re find them all as encouraging as we did…
We’ve got three copies of This is who I am to giveaway.Click here to be into win!___________________________________________________________________________
Faye, 38
I want to decorate my body with images that make me feel good when I look at myself. A favorite uncle of mine who disagrees with my tattoos likes to say that the body is a temple. I reply that my tattoos are the stained glass of my temple.
Because of my tattoos, I’ve been discriminated against socially, and when people look at me they can never guess what I do for a living. When you’re tattooed, you get placed in a category, and spiritual healer is not usually one of them.
I’m actually insecure about my body-not with my skin but with my shape. That shocks most people who know me. I’m perceived as a strong, confident woman. I was talking about my weight to a friend recently and she said, "When I look at you I don’t see an overweight woman, I just see Faye." She was surprised to hear that I feel so insecure about my body.
There’s one more thing that I almost forgot to mention-I’m a survivor of domestic violence. For more than five years I was physically and emotionally abused. I was kicked, my eyes were blackened, my head was put through walls and heaters. I was pulled around by my hair with my three-month-old daughter in my arms. I used to wear eye patches to cover the black eyes. I never honored myself enough to protect my own body. Now as a survivor I’ve put this behind me and am learning how to make sure it will never happen again.
Dana, 30I think magazines, and especially men’s magazines, put pressure on us to be "perfect." I was looking at Maxim magazine recently and came upon a perfect example of this. On the contents page there was a picture of an amazing woman in a two-piece bathing suit. Her bottoms were tight, cut in on the sides of the hips, causing the skin around the bathing suit to indent slightly. This woman was extremely thin and still had rolls from her tight bikini bottoms. In the print media, no woman ever has this. I was feeling great, as if there was some hope that it was possible to show what a real-albeit skinny and beautiful-woman might actually look like. Then I turned to the article, and there was the same photo, with the rolls digitally removed.
And there was the famous article in More magazine about Jamie Lee Curtis that showed the public what the magazines really do to celebrities. In the "before" photo she was wearing a sports bra and some shorts, just a normal-looking woman. The photo on the opposite page showed how she had been retouched to make her look younger and trimmer. All this digital retouching makes us feel that when we put on a bathing suit we’re too fat and that curves aren’t normal.
The media definitely influences how I feel about myself. It makes me work out more. That’s good in a sense, but I’d rather my motives be for reasons of health and strength.
Excerpted from THIS IS WHO I AM
Copyright © 2008 by Rosanne Olson
Used by permission of Artisan Books, a division of Workman Publishing Co., Inc., New York
All Rights Reserved
Published by Workman, distributed by Bookreps NZ Ltd and available where all good books are sold.
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