The Body Is Not An Apology, Book and Workbook

Description

The Body Is Not An Apology, Second Edition employs radical self-love to aid healing wounds inflicted by violent systems. The second edition came to fruition in February of 2021.

In a revolutionary departure from the corporate self-help and body-positivity movement, Taylor forges the inextricable bond between radical self-love and social justice. Firstly, we must recognize that we are indoctrinated into a system of body shame. This very system profits off of our self-hatred. When we ask ourselves, “Who benefits from our collective shame?” we can begin to make an important distinction. We must find the line between the messages we are receiving about our bodies or other bodies and the truth.

This book moves us beyond our all-too-often hidden lives, where we are easily encouraged to forget that we are whole humans having whole human experiences in our bodies alongside others. Radical self-love encourages us to embark on a personal journey of transformation. It emphasizes thoughtful reflection on the origins of our minds and bodies as a source of strength. In doing this, we not only learn to reject negative messages about ourselves but begin to thwart the very power structures that uphold them.

Systems of oppression thrive off of our inability to make peace with bodies and difference. Radical self-love dismantles shame and self-loathing in us. Additionally, it has the power to dismantle global systems of injustice. When we make peace with our bodies, we have the capacity to truly make peace with the bodies of others.

As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world–for us all.

Readers of The Body Is Not an Apology have been clamoring for guidance on how to do the work of radical self-love. After crowdsourcing her community, Sonya Renee Taylor found her readers wanted more concrete ideas on how to apply this work in their everyday lives. Your Body Is Not an Apology Workbook is the action guide that gives them tools and structured frameworks they can begin using immediately to deepen their radical self-love journey—such as Taylor’s four pillars of practice, which help readers dismantle body shame and give them access to a lifestyle rooted in love. Taylor guides readers to move beyond theory and into doing and being radical self-love change agents in the world.

“In the Your Body Is Not An Apology Workbook, you will be asked to draw, color, doodle, talk to friends, take risks, and perhaps step outside of what feels like your natural gifts and talents,” Taylor writes. “I encourage you to release the need to be ‘good’ at what you are doing and instead strive to be authentic. Perfection is the enemy of radical self-love because it is an impossible illusion. When the voice of perfectionism chimes in, take a deep breath, remember that the work is about the process, not about the product, and give yourself permission to be fabulously unapologetically imperfect.

Based on the New York Times bestseller The Body Is Not an Apology, this workbook is an action guide to help readers practice the art of radical self-love both for themselves and to transform our society.

Sonya Renee Taylor is the founder and radical executive officer of TheBodyIsNotanApology.com. She is featured on HBO, BET, MTV, NPR, PBS, as well as CNN. Additionally, Taylor is in the New York Times, New York Magazine, USA Today, Huffington Post, Vogue Australia, and many more.

160 Pages, paperback.

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