Belong (Stripped Down Acoustic)

The Belong Spring/ Summer Campaign has arrived and we are here to remind you of your greatness underneath the layers. This campaign is centred in simplicity. Your worth is more than the clothes you wear, the job you hold and the money you make. Your value is far greater the your likes and views. This season is about the stripped down (acoustic?) versions of ourselves and dare I say, we are even going to get loud?

Do not comment on our size

Do not comment on our body changes

Do not comment on what we are eating

Do not compare us like a before and after

Instead,

Ask us about our wishes, hopes, and dreams

Ask us about what makes us feel the most alive

Ask us about what lights us up and breaks our hearts

Ask us how we hope to make an impact in this world

You’ll quickly learn that our bodies are the least interesting thing about us

Wear what feels good

Wear what fits

Wear your human suit, unapologetically

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR MASTERPIECE

Written by: Glennon Doyle*

* Yes, Glennon Doyle is our guest writer because this piece is BRILLIANT. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

Your body is not your masterpiece — your life is.

It is suggested to us a million times a day that our BODIES are PROJECTS. They aren’t. Our lives are. Our spirituality is. Our relationships are. Our work is.

Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it’s all you’ve got to offer the world. Your body is not your art, it’s your paintbrush. Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life — where others can see it and be inspired and comforted by it.

Your body is not your offering. It’s just a really amazing instrument which you can use to create your offering each day. Don’t curse your paintbrush. Don’t sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush. You’re wasting time. You’ve got the one you got. Be grateful, because without it you’d have nothing with which to paint your life’s work. Your life’s work is the love you give and receive — and your body is the instrument you use to accept and offer love on your soul’s behalf. It’s a system.

We are encouraged to obsess over our instrument’s SHAPE — but our body’s shape has no effect on it’s ability to accept and offer love for us. Just none. Maybe we continue to obsess because as long we keep wringing our hands about our paintbrush shape, we don’t have to get to work painting our lives. Stop fretting. The truth is that all paintbrush shapes work just fine — and anybody who tells you different is trying to sell you something. Don’t buy. Just paint.

No wait — first, stop what you are doing and say THANK YOU to your body — right now. Say THANK YOU to your eyes for taking in the beauty of sunsets and storms and children blowing out birthday candles and say THANK YOU to your hands for writing love letters and opening doors and stirring soup and waving to strangers and say THANK YOU to your legs for walking you from danger to safety and climbing so many mountains for you.

Then pick up your instrument and start painting this day beautiful and bold and wild and free and YOU.

Love,G