I often wonder what it would be like if
we could see ourselves actually see
ourselves the way our grandmothers saw
us
mine was a ravishing redhead from
Brooklyn and she thought I was the most
beautiful and very very special and as
the young kid I felt that the kids at
school however they seemed to disagree
from the time I was 8 until the time I
was 30 I was what the world saw as the
fat kid which to them meant I was less
than the worst moments were those
dreaded walks from the back of the
classroom to the front to get the
bathroom key it took 8 seconds I timed
it every time 8 seconds when I was left
vulnerable to the bullies who would hide
their insults in their coughs not so and
I would act like their jabs didn’t
matter and then cry in the privacy of my
bathroom stall eight years ago after
finding myself unable to walk up a
flight of stairs without stopping to
check a pretend text message really so
that I could catch my breath I switched
my focus from vanity to self-care and I
lost nearly a hundred pounds
and that was when the world started
treating me differently I can’t say I
was surprised by that shift but what
really threw me for a loop was that it
was so unsettling as my weight came off
men would hold doors for me and women
would compliment my dress listen after a
childhood of being bullied and a young
adulthood of being overlooked when the
world started acknowledging me I
questioned everything there was this one
time I was living in lower Manhattan
getting my mail from one of those tiny
tin boxes at the bottom of the steps of
my walk-up when my neighbor whom I had
seen like a hundred times but who had
never introduced himself to me I never
introduced myself to him he stopped
sorting through his junk mail long
enough to look at me you look amazing he
said I said thank you and he continued
no really you look incredible how much
weight did you lose
can I ask and that was the moment that I
realized that for all I had lost there
was something so clear that I had gained
namely this cool kid status that I had
been seeking and craving and wanting for
years so why did it feel so bad it took
finally being accepted for me to
recognize that being accepted it didn’t
really matter that much to me anymore
even as I stand here now thick and
grabbable and real I can tell you that
your opinion of my looks it doesn’t
really impact my opinion of myself at
least not usually I am getting better at
naming the times when it does and then
when the moment came that I stopped
allowing other people’s perceptions of
me to define me something shifted
with uncomfortable and I started to
realize the ways that my perceptions of
others was making me to find them
sometimes based on the very things that
I had spent so long trying to escape how
they looked their bodies and since I
couldn’t get out of this judgment loop I
decided to go with it and every time I
would recognize that I was judging
someone else they’re so big they’re so
small they’re so tall they’re so short
stop I would stop myself and I would say
self do you feel healthy and grounded
today and if not why not listen at the
tattooed of vegan lesbian animal rights
activist with a fairly substantial
obsession with my rescued pit bull and a
rather loud habit of top dancing across
the room I know what it means to piss
people off just by being me
but it’s ironic really because what I
want to stand for is compassion for
myself first and then for all of those
other individuals humans and nonhumans
whom we so easily cast aside the ones we
marginalize the ones we choose not to
see the ones we don’t call beautiful for
me it took finally seeing myself as
beautiful for me to realize this until
and unless we shift our focus and we
change our filters of ourselves we will
not be able to show up authentically we
will live in a whirlwind of assumptions
about others and we will never grow it’s
really this simple the way we view
ourselves is born from a conscious
choice to accept and even love what is
and then then to relentlessly challenge
ourselves to reset that judgment as
compassion
it begins with waking up every single
morning and every single morning making
the conscious choice to no longer
believe what someone somewhere along the
way told us we should hold as our truth
nobody knew that better than my grandma
as her life was nearing its end she lost
her ability to use her limbs and my
grandmother had to spend the rest of her
life in a wheelchair now my grandmother
she had powerful thoughts about identity
she was really the first person I knew
who had an identity that was
unwaveringly authentic and so she didn’t
let it get her down when people began to
dismiss her when I would walk her in her
wheelchair and they would look at me she
would look right at them and answer for
herself that’s because my grandmother
answered to herself for my grandmother
nobody was going to define her for her
and I don’t want anyone to define me for
me either that’s my job so join me
let’s all challenge ourselves to be
unwaveringly authentic like grandma
let’s begin by boldly rejecting the
bullies and having compassion when we
recognize that sometimes the bully is us
we each had someone who knew we were
special let’s believe them let’s make
that part of our truth and when we waver
in that belief the trick is to allow
compassion for ourselves first and then
for all of those other individuals the
ones we don’t see to unlock our true
identity thank you
[Applause]
we could see ourselves actually see
ourselves the way our grandmothers saw
us
mine was a ravishing redhead from
Brooklyn and she thought I was the most
beautiful and very very special and as
the young kid I felt that the kids at
school however they seemed to disagree
from the time I was 8 until the time I
was 30 I was what the world saw as the
fat kid which to them meant I was less
than the worst moments were those
dreaded walks from the back of the
classroom to the front to get the
bathroom key it took 8 seconds I timed
it every time 8 seconds when I was left
vulnerable to the bullies who would hide
their insults in their coughs not so and
I would act like their jabs didn’t
matter and then cry in the privacy of my
bathroom stall eight years ago after
finding myself unable to walk up a
flight of stairs without stopping to
check a pretend text message really so
that I could catch my breath I switched
my focus from vanity to self-care and I
lost nearly a hundred pounds
and that was when the world started
treating me differently I can’t say I
was surprised by that shift but what
really threw me for a loop was that it
was so unsettling as my weight came off
men would hold doors for me and women
would compliment my dress listen after a
childhood of being bullied and a young
adulthood of being overlooked when the
world started acknowledging me I
questioned everything there was this one
time I was living in lower Manhattan
getting my mail from one of those tiny
tin boxes at the bottom of the steps of
my walk-up when my neighbor whom I had
seen like a hundred times but who had
never introduced himself to me I never
introduced myself to him he stopped
sorting through his junk mail long
enough to look at me you look amazing he
said I said thank you and he continued
no really you look incredible how much
weight did you lose
can I ask and that was the moment that I
realized that for all I had lost there
was something so clear that I had gained
namely this cool kid status that I had
been seeking and craving and wanting for
years so why did it feel so bad it took
finally being accepted for me to
recognize that being accepted it didn’t
really matter that much to me anymore
even as I stand here now thick and
grabbable and real I can tell you that
your opinion of my looks it doesn’t
really impact my opinion of myself at
least not usually I am getting better at
naming the times when it does and then
when the moment came that I stopped
allowing other people’s perceptions of
me to define me something shifted
with uncomfortable and I started to
realize the ways that my perceptions of
others was making me to find them
sometimes based on the very things that
I had spent so long trying to escape how
they looked their bodies and since I
couldn’t get out of this judgment loop I
decided to go with it and every time I
would recognize that I was judging
someone else they’re so big they’re so
small they’re so tall they’re so short
stop I would stop myself and I would say
self do you feel healthy and grounded
today and if not why not listen at the
tattooed of vegan lesbian animal rights
activist with a fairly substantial
obsession with my rescued pit bull and a
rather loud habit of top dancing across
the room I know what it means to piss
people off just by being me
but it’s ironic really because what I
want to stand for is compassion for
myself first and then for all of those
other individuals humans and nonhumans
whom we so easily cast aside the ones we
marginalize the ones we choose not to
see the ones we don’t call beautiful for
me it took finally seeing myself as
beautiful for me to realize this until
and unless we shift our focus and we
change our filters of ourselves we will
not be able to show up authentically we
will live in a whirlwind of assumptions
about others and we will never grow it’s
really this simple the way we view
ourselves is born from a conscious
choice to accept and even love what is
and then then to relentlessly challenge
ourselves to reset that judgment as
compassion
it begins with waking up every single
morning and every single morning making
the conscious choice to no longer
believe what someone somewhere along the
way told us we should hold as our truth
nobody knew that better than my grandma
as her life was nearing its end she lost
her ability to use her limbs and my
grandmother had to spend the rest of her
life in a wheelchair now my grandmother
she had powerful thoughts about identity
she was really the first person I knew
who had an identity that was
unwaveringly authentic and so she didn’t
let it get her down when people began to
dismiss her when I would walk her in her
wheelchair and they would look at me she
would look right at them and answer for
herself that’s because my grandmother
answered to herself for my grandmother
nobody was going to define her for her
and I don’t want anyone to define me for
me either that’s my job so join me
let’s all challenge ourselves to be
unwaveringly authentic like grandma
let’s begin by boldly rejecting the
bullies and having compassion when we
recognize that sometimes the bully is us
we each had someone who knew we were
special let’s believe them let’s make
that part of our truth and when we waver
in that belief the trick is to allow
compassion for ourselves first and then
for all of those other individuals the
ones we don’t see to unlock our true
identity thank you
[Applause]
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