Category Body | Michelle Brewer

January 3, 2018January 11, 2018 by Michelle Brewer

Daring to Soar

Two New Years ago, I set an intention to write 100 blog posts that year. In retrospect, I see that the goal was ambitious. I do not want what I write to simply be stream of consciousness or quantity unpolished, unreflected upon. Still, there are ways with writing that I hold back that don’t help me.

I wrestle with blogging. There is a perfectionist in me that wants everything to be, well, perfect. That is not simply spelling, grammar, paragraphing. That is the easy part. It is more in striking the right balance between relevant and entertaining, serious and playful, logical and beautiful, pedagogical and vulnerable.

I realize in thinking about this that I am seeing blogging as more about appearance than essence. That is philosophy speak in my world for caring more about how it comes across to you than how it is for me. No wonder I was so struck in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic when she entreats us to create for the sake of creating. She decries that we have been socialized to see creativity as instrumental (Am I talented? Will people like it?) instead of expressive (How is it an expression of myself? How does it make me feel?). Gilbert believes we all have a human need to create and part of us atrophies when we shut that down. She laments that we need to stop thinking about the audience (or lack thereof) and start believing in the benefits for ourselves.

May 21, 2017May 29, 2017 by Michelle Brewer

Women as People

I think the greatest threat to women’s equality is any belief system that treats women like property and that holds women responsible for men’s sexuality. It is not just that there are terrible parts of the world where women are treated like property and we see terrible things. I think that “grab them by the pussy’ is just as bad.

I think that misogyny, anyone who fails to accord to women the full dignity of personhood and citizenship, that those are belief systems and practices that undermine our liberty. And that we have to be vigilant and intolerant about them.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be things. Girls weren’t expected to be ambitious. I was a girl, who was a person, who wanted to do things. All people are multi-faceted. We have sexual qualities. We have mental qualities. We have roles we want to play in terms of reproducing the species, which is an extremely important thing to do. But any belief system that tries to define us by that and not by our full personhood, that holds us responsible for how men behave sexually, those are big threats to women.

Kim Campbell
12 May 2017

in Body / Feminism / Kim Campbell 0 comments

May 16, 2017September 17, 2017 by Michelle Brewer

It’s My Body. Period.

It happened yet again. A lovely, bright, charismatic young woman came to see me the other day for counselling about her relationship to food and her body. For someone’s first session I always get her story, of course. This woman started off by recounting that her issues with her weight began at age 12. I made a note of this as a point I wanted to return to. Engrossed, she carried on. When her narrative reached its natural conclusion, I began my active engagement. My first question: “I’m curious. How old were you when you got your first period?” “Twelve,” she answered. I was not surprised.

I was 13 when I got my period. It was January of Grade 8. I had started Grade 8 at 98 pounds. By the time I Grade 8 had ended, I was 136 pounds. Quite a change. Wait, wait! I know what you are thinking. With puberty, you gain weight. That is absolutely true. Curves, padding, breasts. All good for pregnancy. But for me it was something more than that. For most of the women who come to see me it is something more than that too. And we hate ourselves for it. Which begs the question: What is so wrong with a woman’s body?

in About Michelle / Body / Emotional Eating / Food / Internalized Oppression / Menstruation / Period / Protection / Puberty / Sexualization / Shame / Social Transformation / Trauma / Weight Gain / Women 2 comments

July 18, 2016August 26, 2016 by Michelle Brewer

My Year of Blogging Boldly, Part One: The Dude

Nearly two years ago, I came across a man’s picture on a dating profile that stopped me. He was attractive enough. And I liked what he had to say. But there was something about his eyes that caught me. They had depth. They looked like they had seen and understood pain. I think that made me feel safe.

I reached out to him at the time, sending a note. Unusual for me as I rarely make the first move with online dating. In fact, I put up barriers to make contact with me a challenge in a bid to weed out insincere people. But something about him captured me. Alas, he did not respond.

I hardly ever go on that website now. But did on a lark late one night a while back as stolen moment of distraction while I was getting through a pile of work. He too was online. I would have been prepared to leave it at just noticing his presence there except that I’d seen him a couple days before at a movie. That had got me wondering about him. So when I saw him on at the same time, I said hello and asked him about what he’d thought of the film.

in About Michelle / Body / Food / Geneen Roth / Mindful Eating / Mindfulness / Retreats / Vulnerability 2 comments

May 4, 2016February 1, 2023 by Michelle Brewer

My Year of Blogging Shamelessly: Part Two of Six

One woman’s journey from her body to her soul letting her relationship with food show the way.

My mum had had a handful of boyfriends since her divorce. Not a high number for a single woman, but for a girl who missed her dad, who liked the men her mum was with, and who was devastated every time one of her relationships ended, it was too many. It was like having my already tentative heart opened only to have to close it again—hardened with a new layer of scar tissue each time.

To make matters worse, my dad was not someone I could rely on emotionally. I learned in adulthood that he spent grade five and grade eight in care with the Catholic Church in Moose Jaw and in Edmonton. I have heard stories that my grandparents drank a lot and partied a lot, and were desperately poor. My dad won’t say much about that time except “you knew which priests to stay away from.” But his elder sister recounts memories of neglect at home and being left for long periods of time in the convent. On the occasions when she was finally picked up by her parents, she would arrive home only to meet new siblings.

My dad is a much better parent to adult children. I get that. And in my youth, when I needed him most, he was carrying a lot of shame from my mum’s leaving him. That likely only exacerbated the scars from his own parents’ eventual divorce. One thing I knew then, my mum was all I had.

in About Michelle / Anxiety / Betrayal / Body / Dieting / Hunger / Numbing / Vulnerability / Weight Gain / Worthiness 13 comments

May 1, 2016June 16, 2018 by Michelle Brewer

My Year of Blogging Shamelessly: Part One of Six

One woman’s journey from her body to her soul letting her relationship with food show the way.

I was in the middle of getting my hair done at a salon (a luxury I treat myself to every week) when my phone rang. I wasn’t surprised as it was the opening night of the film festival I was mounting in honour of International Women’s Day—a huge event I’d created on my own for a cause I am passionate about. The caller identified herself as being from the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster, and asked if she was speaking to the Michelle Brewer who was responsible for the event. I replied that she was. She then asked me if I spoke French. I paused. I have worked hard at my French—including having lived two and a half years in immersion in Québec City. In fact, I can usually even pass as francophone for the first few sentences—that is, until my lack of vocabulary, my English mind moving faster than my French mouth and the letter R betray me. Still, out of love for the film festival and being a proud Canadian, I took a deep breath and responded oui.

in About Michelle / Body / Brené Brown / Connection / Daring Greatly / Food / Vulnerability / Weight 2 comments