MissBimbo.com

Maybe you have heard of the newest web sensation? Sweeping through France and Britain, the ‘fashion game’ MissBimbo.com offers girls as young as seven years old the opportunity to create an online profile and build their own Bimbo. Members are then responsible for feeding, clothing, enhancing and caring for their Bimbo. Options include diet pills (recently removed as a result of negative publicity), sexy lingerie, meal logs (with helpful instructions for calorie reduction) and cosmetic surgery.

 

The young, French, male creator of MissBimbo.com has a little sister in the fourth grade. When asked by a reporter how he would feel if someone called his sister a ‘bimbo’, he replied, ‘I wouldn’t like it.’ But he appeared to have no comprehension of the term’s potential impact on other young members of his site. In the USA alone, 80% of fourth graders fear ‘getting fat’ more than their own death or that of their parents. 40% of fourth graders have already begun a diet as a means of coping with this fear. Statistics in Canada are almost identical.

 

I have to confess that it always makes me a bit nervous to use this column as a forum to discuss trends such as MissBimbo.com – I do not want to give even more publicity to these types of for-profit, esteem-damaging enterprises. Rather, it is my hope that readers take the information in the spirit in which it is given – as a call to action, a plea for proactive protest leading to positive change. Clearly, our fourth graders deserve a better legacy than planning the rest of their lives around a number on the scale. But then again, so do the rest of us!

 

Stop and consider for a moment what, if any, impact joining or even stopping by to visit MissBimbo.com could have on you or your loved ones – male or female. What message are we sending to our own generation, and the ones to come, by continuing to endorse or participate in negative gender stereotyping for a profit? How will even the most casual encounter with a site such as this color our sense of ourselves in days to come? Is it really worth it to take that risk?

 

Joining MissBimbo.com is no different than grabbing a copy of the latest so-called ‘fun and fluffy’ magazine to kick back and relax with. 70% of female readership for magazines like Cosmopolitan and Shape report a reduction in self-esteem within 30 seconds. 50% of female readers report wanting to lose weight as a result of viewing such magazines, although only 29% are actually overweight. ‘How low can we go’ might work as a childhood party game. But it is not a worthwhile use of a life…especially when we know and can do much better.

 

Or do we? We will only know for sure when knowing translates into doing. Twenty five times more people suffer from eating disorders than are HIV positive. More women die each year from eating disorders than from breast cancer. Sites like MissBimbo.com are not just a vague threat to our collective self-esteem. They are known killers.

 

It is time to fight for our lives. It is time to take our self-esteem, and our power to choose, and use them as a powerful weapon against the war-for-profit raging against our bodies, minds and lives. It is our life. How are we going to use it? What legacy will we live by, and leave behind?

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

 

 Shannon

Success = Getting Back Up Again

I am privileged to travel quite a bit during this season of each year to share my story of recovery with college students. I never leave an event without fielding at least one question on the topic of ‘what does recovery really mean?’
 
My definition of humanity – of being a human being – of the human condition – is that we all have something. Behind our masks, underneath our strategically chosen clothing and in the shadows of our carefully selected words, we all struggle. We all have something that, without which, we imagine we could be bigger, better, brighter. I used to walk around secretly convinced that there was a much more wonderful me struggling to get out, and that I was blocking her way!
 
I didn’t know then what I know now, which is that recovery means nothing more nor less than getting back up again each time we suffer a setback. This is how it is done. This is how everybody does it. There is no one person who gets a secret ‘how to’ manual for living a successful life that the rest of us are denied. We are all in the same boat – all learning and growing by trial and error together.
 
True recovery looks like this - we get knocked down, like a fighter in the ring, and refuse to accept temporary defeat as life’s final answer. We retreat to a safe corner to strategize, acknowledge our learning curve, discover from our weaknesses how to get stronger, and then return to the ring to do battle again. With true recovery, not only do we refuse to accept the agony of a temporary so-called ‘defeat’, but we also train ourselves to perpetually look forward to the exultation of eventual true victory, IF WE DO NOT GIVE UP.
 
Success = GETTING BACK UP AGAIN. Period, the End.
 
Yes, I still struggle. Like my hero John Nash (for more on Nash check out the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’), I too still see visions – of a smaller me, in a more allegedly ‘perfect’ form – and voices – of a past thinner me, chastising the fully-real me for making healthy, life-affirming nutritional choices. I still have to choose EVERY DAY, just like Nash, to ‘refuse to indulge my mind’s love for patterns’ in order to retain access to the REAL life I lost once and never want to lose again.
 
Every day, I make a new choice to continue to commit to and maintain my own recovery. I accept that I, too, have something – my something is not worse nor better than the something of the person standing next to me. It is just my own. It is the personal tempering fire that gives me the opportunity to refine my preferences and evolve into the human being that I have the potential to be in this lifetime. It is my experience that our struggles not only make us strong, but they illumine us from the inside out with the reflected glow of that inner struggle and make us luminously BEAUTIFUL.
 
So the next time you are tempted to let life get you down, or to get down on yourself for having challenges in life that take you more than one hour, one day or one year of life to overcome, remember that this is what being a human being is all about. This is the human condition. You, too, are a human being, having a human experience, confronting the unique challenge and choice to discover for yourself what TRUE beauty looks, feels, acts and lives like.
 
Recovery is worth it. YOU are worth it. Whatever happens, remember – JUST GET BACK UP AGAIN. This is your ‘key to life’ for recovery success. Remember, we all have something. You are NOT alone – in fact, you are in very good, and BEAUTIFUL company!

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!

A Very Good Year

Winter has always been a rough season for me. I am not a ‘cold’ person. I get colds like clockwork throughout the winter months of each year, but I certainly do not enjoy them. Nor do I enjoy the icy winds, the overcast skies, the threat of rain (or worse!)….or the traditional hanging of holiday decorations. Quite the contrary - if I miss the family Christmas festivities again this year due to illness, it will be for the third year in a row. Bingo!

Luckily, I live in Houston, a city of extremes. It is either summer or winter here…very rarely do we find ourselves on the receiving end of anything in between. Lately, given as how it is almost February, summer is approaching once more. I have been taking daily walks with a friend, and I can almost feel the Vitamin D soaking through my pores, straight into my veins and down to my core. With every sunbeam life seems brighter.

Thank god. Because I was the cocky one who was jumping about on December 31, 2007, proclaiming that I was just sure that 2008 was ‘my year’. 2008 was going to be a good year, I told anyone who would listen. 2008 was the charm. Not three, not ten, not thirty, but thirty-seven years old was the lucky number for me.

So far, I have to say that my projections might have been just a shade optimistic.

Not to say that 2008 has been a bad year so far – I actually think that we outgrow the usefulness of words like ‘bad’ and ‘good’ right around the second grade. Rather, let’s just say that I was expecting 2008 to be a, well, less challenging year than it is showing itself to be. Even good challenges are still challenges. Even good stress is still stress. And I have had stress of every shape and size and color - in spades - since January 1, 2008.

Which is why I was so surprised today to find myself gazing at my own reflection in the mirror, noticing the delicate tiny furrows around my eyes, the pursed lips, the glow of exhaustion, and thinking, ‘For the first time in my life, I think I might actually look beautiful.’ I caught myself admiring my high cheekbones, strong brown eyes, flecks of grey in and amongst the many-hued strands of gold and red and brown around my temples….and I said to myself, ‘I have never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now.’

For those who know me well, they know that this kind of self-dialogue is not an everyday occurrence. Over the years, as I have recovered from my eating disorder, I have allowed myself to become as conditioned as the next woman to believe that I am not beautiful until somebody else says I am. I have trained myself to wait hopefully, longingly, obediently, for those words, like a dog at dinnertime hungering for that day’s portioned treat.

Until now. Maybe 2008 is my year after all. What is it about watching myself hold my head high in uncertain times, march forward through murky fear, persevere when the big questions hang like storm clouds above my head, that opens my eyes to a me – a beautiful me – I have never seen before? Where have I been all my life? Why now, why after all this time….

Why ask why. I am learning to say ‘thank you’ instead. ‘Thank you’ to all those who have carried the torch for me until this day, who bore the burden and joy of reminding me of my beauty when I needed to know and couldn’t see it for myself. ‘Thank you’ to those who have endured the pain of feeling so un-beautiful right before my eyes, until I could own my own pain as well and begin to heal. ‘Thank you’ to myself, for having the courage to believe that I could one day feel differently about myself – to see a different girl in the mirror, a beautiful girl.

Today, take a new look in an old mirror. Challenge yourself to really SEE yourself with your own eyes. Undress your beauty down to its elements – your strength, your courage, your perseverance, your intelligence, your power, your compassion, your hope. Peer up and out from deep within, starting with your spirit up into your heart, through your mind and out of your body. Gaze with genuine amazement and admiration upon your own reflection, keeping before you the awareness of all that you have come through, endured, and overcome, and all that you still long for, dream of and believe in.

What 2008 has taught me so far is that we are never more beautiful than when we are under the gun, stepping up to the plate, performing minor (and major) miracles on our own behalf, working patiently, tirelessly and faithfully to save, replenish and restore our own life.

You are beautiful. I am beautiful. We are beautiful. And on that note, I have to say – it is looking good that 2008 is going to be our year after all – a very good year!

Warmly and with HOPE,

 Shannon

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!

Beauty Undressed

 

This season, clothing designers are giving a respectful nod to the maternity set. I have heard interesting commentary from my women friends on this trend. Those who are pregnant have expressed gratitude - they say they have not had to buy maternity wear yet this year! Those who are single have expressed relief. One friend in particular commented, ‘when I wear these styles, I can breathe a sigh of relief and just let it all hang out’ - all said as she was pointing to her toned and tanned midsection.

This year, the fashion pendulum has swung back around toward the opposite extreme from where it fell last season. Jeans have gone ‘hi-rise’. Shirt lengths have dropped to mid-waist, and sometimes mid-thigh. In place of the skinny mini and skinny jeans, we have boot-cut and flare. Midriff-baring tops have at last fallen out of favor in deference to the ‘tunic’. And suddenly, on the literal heels of last year’s platform stilettos, ballet flats are back in fashion.

Now, I will admit that I have little real interest in fashion, or in its trends (anyone who has had even a cursory look at my wardrobe can attest to that). But I have plenty of emotional baggage left over from my years of exposure to the fashion industry’s chaotic whims, and that at least entitles me to vent!

Since this is the first Beauty Undressed column, allow me to introduce myself. I am a recovered anorexic and bulimic. By ‘recovered’, I mean that I have ceased to use my disordered eating behaviors to cope with life’s challenges and choices. I consider this to be my life’s work - the ongoing achievement of a lifetime that I will always be proudest of. However, it is a daily discipline to maintain my recovery, one that requires continual vigilance on my part. I have only to walk out my door, turn on the television, go to the movies, talk to a friend or even drive down the street in order to encounter all sorts of images and ideas that encourage me to give the eating disorder another chance.

It is for this very reason that I am up in arms about the latest fashion trend. As consumers, we are being pulled about relentlessly like salt-water taffy, snapped mercilessly in two like a rubber band that has been stretched beyond bearing. One season we are asked to squeeze all parts of ourselves into short and shorter, tight and tighter. The very next season we are encouraged to let it all go with the flow - the flowing fabric, that is. Meanwhile, the diet and weight management industry has ballooned in kind into a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year enterprise…all of which just confirms that we are in store for even more of the same in years to come.

Last month in Cosmopolitan magazine, I encountered the ultimate indignity. Dubbed ‘DoctorsSayYes.net’ (please do not go there and make me regret advertising it!), this Cosmo-endorsed partnership of plastic surgeons claims to offer free consultations and guaranteed financing to all first time customers for any cosmetic procedure. If you read the fine print on the site, you will notice that the consultation is only free if you give the green light to the procedure. If you decline to go under the knife, you will be assessed a $49.99 office visit fee (which also begs the question of why the Cosmo ad states that the consultation itself is a ‘$250.00 value’?)

Beyond that, I personally must question the medical integrity of any consortium of practicing physicians, board-certified though they may be, who claim that ‘absolutely no one will be turned down’ for any type of procedure that is requested. But even beyond that, I simply cannot stomach the idea that beauty is only an incision, or a loan, away.

We are not fixer-uppers. Far from it. We are JUST FINE just as we are. We are beautiful JUST AS WE ARE. It took me twenty long years of my life to begin to believe this. And get this - I found the proof I was looking for deep INSIDE of me, and not on the surface where I had been encouraged for so many years to look for it.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever spied someone from across the room and thought to yourself, ‘that is the most attractive person I have ever seen. I MUST meet this person!’ only to realize after conversing for a few moments that they were not as attractive as you had at first perceived? Conversely, have you ever met someone whose physical appeal was subtle initially, but in conversation, their attractiveness suddenly became as vibrant as the fire of a hundred rising suns? 

This is because the bulk of what makes us beautiful or attractive to someone else arises from within. Others respond first to our energy and spirit, then to the power of our mental thoughts and ideas, and finally, to our physical expression in face and form. We respond to ourselves in exactly the same way in our natural state. We are TAUGHT to experience ourselves from the outside in - it does not come naturally.

You will find your unique beauty only when you undress your concepts of what beauty is and where it resides. When you realize that the fashion industry has no more substance than the emperor walking down the street in his new clothes, you will cease to lend your support and endorsement to a way of life that kills twelve times more young women each year from self-induced starvation than any other single cause of death.

In that moment, you will wake up, RISE up, OPEN your mouth and USE your powerful voice to DEMAND your right to experience beauty wherever, however and in whomever you choose to perceive it. We live in a beautiful world, full of unrepeatable, irreplaceably beautiful people, places and things. What a waste of a life to miss out on our opportunity to experience this for ourselves!

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!

Petition: I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders

 

With every New Year comes another chance to change the world - one life at a time.

Please take a moment to review the petition below, and LEND YOUR VOICE! Every single signature counts. Every name speaks of hope, of community, of shared strength.

You can add your name, and your DREAM, HERE

I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders

Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream so powerful it survived him. Today, his dream continues to change lives around the world.

I, too, have a dream. I have a dream that (I believe) is explosive in its potential to change, and save, lives. I have a dream that (I hope) will survive long after I am gone. I have a dream that should and MUST survive for the sake of all those who have already passed on for the lack of it.

I have a dream of healing that edges out nightmares left over from half a lifetime spent battling anorexia and bulimia. I have a recurring dream of hope that haunts me in the best possible way. Every time I look in a mirror, I have flashback dreams to a time far past, and still yet to come, of catching sight of my own image and LIKING what I see.

I have a dream of a day when little girls will walk down the grocery store aisles with their moms, choosing healthy, delicious foods without looking at the fat and calorie content on the labels.

I have a dream of a day when the bodies of athletes, dancers, actors and models will actually look as diverse as those of their audiences, and we can see and celebrate ourselves in each other – comfortable, healthy, curvaceous, empowered, REAL. I have a dream of a day when all eating disorder treatment facilities will be turned into restaurants – such is the demand for wholesome, nutritious food that is generated by those who have graduated from within their walls.

I have a dream of a day when the sixty billion dollar-a-year weight management industry goes out of business, and all monies formerly spent supporting it will instead go to FIGHT the damage it has done to our bodies, minds and spirits.

I have a dream of a day ahead when ‘Eating Disorders Awareness Week’ is no longer needed, and ‘Love Your Body Day’ happens not just once per year, but EVERY day of our lives. I dream of a day when ‘size-blindness’ goes global, and we can finally access the tremendous beauty available to us in ALL of its many forms!

I have a dream of holidays yet to come when family, fun, friendship, fellowship, gratitude and generosity push food back into its rightful and proper place – three squares or six snacks a day, no less, and no more.

I have a dream of a day when I can sit down to brunch with my girl (or guy) friends, and look around the table to realize that NONE of us has suffered from an eating disorder!

I have a dream of a day when a comedian makes a joke about ‘skinny jeans’, and no one in the audience knows what s/he is talking about.

I have a dream of a day when I will not be afraid to reproduce, and thus risk passing the genes for my eating disorder, which were passed to me, along to my daughter or son.

I have a dream of a day when I will wake up in the morning and smile radiantly at myself in the mirror, absolutely confident that who I am, and what I have to offer, is exactly perfect - just as I am.

And I have a dream of a day when everyone - and I do mean EVERYONE - who suffers from any shape or size of eating disorder IMMEDIATELY receives the comprehensive, ongoing treatment they NEED and DESERVE.

Yes, I have a dream. And I know I do not dream this dream alone. I know that I dream it alongside husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends, sisters, brothers. I know that even the seemingly most self-assured amongst us secretly dream it alongside those who openly battle for their lives.

I know that we each, and all together, deserve the fulfillment of this dream….….but I also know that, as of yet, it remains unclaimed.

If you wish to lend your POWERFUL voice to dream this dream together, sign your name below.

Then, pass it on, and on, and on.

Warmly, and with HOPE,

Shannon

Once again, I invite you to add your name, and your DREAM, HERE

Braces, Headgear, and…Eating Disorders?

 I run an online support community called Behind this Mask: there is someone real for MySpace.com - for those of you with an interest in joining, all you need is a free myspace.com account, and you can visit the Key to Life MySpace page  to send me an add request.

Recently - this morning in fact - one of the group members posted about her recovery, and how hard it is to accept her new body shape and size, post-inpatient treatment. I remember (sans the inpatient treatment, of course) this process all too well. And I will tell you, as I told her, that it took a loonnnnnnnggggg time for me to accept my new body shape and size - and it really wasn’t until just recently that I finally achieved the ability to give my poor battered body the support and love it has always deserved.

To be honest, one day here not too long ago I just woke up and - poof! - I was looking at, feeling about, and treating my body totally differently, and seeing it as more beautiful than not, more acceptable than not. One day, all my concentrated years of efforts simply PAID OFF. I am really not kidding (I kind of wish I was so I could give you more factual details of how this would be possible).

But I can only imagine that the same will be true for us all, and have met many people for which this expectation has also held true - it just takes the time it takes to turn the ship around. In the meantime, this is the beauty and the value of building a recovery community for ourselves. We then gain access to constant reminders, from those just a bit (or a lot) farther up the path than we are, of the wonderful relief, release and new life that waits for us up ahead.

In the meantime, as I am sure anyone engaged in sustained recovery work knows, reshaping a lifetime of thoughts and impressions doesn’t happen overnight. You must, just like I did, set your mind and heart on full recovery - no matter what - and accept nothing less than that for yourself. The mental schism between where you are coming from (where death itself might seem a welcome release from the constant painful chatter of the ED mind) and where you are headed (that very same welcome release, through your diligent, daily efforts to achieve recovery) is growing wider and wider.

So grit your teeth and do whatever it takes to bear the transition pangs. Have you ever had braces? I have … and rubber bands, and headgear … man that hurt! For FOUR YEARS! My whole mouth was traumatized. But now those growing pains are a dim memory, and I have a wonderful lifetime’s worth of beautiful, straight teeth yet ahead of me to show for it.

You will, too - if you just KEEP WALKING FORWARD.

Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com

The Key to Life: A Beautiful Mind

If you want to know how I healed from my eating disorder, go rent ‘A Beautiful Mind’, starring Russell Crowe. This movie will take you to the depths of the un-recovered places within you, and then bring you back out again, gleaming with hope. I am determined to meet John Nash and his wife Alicia someday and thank them for their courage. Even though I was already well past the worst of my eating disorder by the time the movie came out, watching John’s story helped the fighter in me to finally gain some of the long-overdue recognition I owed her.

I have always maintained that it takes finding your ‘key to life’ (there may be more than one) before true healing becomes accessible. This is because of the mental illness nature of eating disorders - the whispery, amorphous voices inside the head that control us totally, without seeming to bear much influence at all. It is easy to tell ourselves that such quiet voices couldn’t have malicious intent…just like John’s imaginary roommate’s imaginary young niece couldn’t be anything but real - after all, she cried real tears!

So the ‘key to life’ is the battle cry - for me it was my music. The eating disorder affected my health so severely that I had to drop out of music school and give up any hope of a career doing the one thing I loved. So I began to fight for my life when the one thing that mattered to me more than my eating disorder was taken from me - by my eating disorder.

But I was still left with those voices….oh, those voices. The voice that told me I was fat. The voice that told me I deserved to die, and that losing my music was just desserts for the hell I had put everyone around me through. The voice that told me to push all my friends away so that it and I could get closer. The voice that ‘comforted’ me when I was starving, by telling me that it would all be worth it - that I’d see its wisdom, in time.

I never saw. The torture never ceased. In time, I recognized the voice for what it was - an ‘imaginary friend’ that was busy, quietly destroying everything that mattered to me, while it whispered to me and danced before me to keep me distracted from what was really going on.

John learned to wake up. He used his beautiful mind to distinguish the difference between the real and the unreal in his life, and then he used his beautiful heart to choose what mattered most to him and do whatever it took to reclaim his REAL life. We can do the same. I did it. You can too. Watch the movie - learn his story. I promise you will not regret it.

 Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com

Song: ‘This Mask’

Click HERE to listen to the blog theme song, ’This Mask’, by Shannon Cutts

Good News!

 In and amidst all the trauma, turmoil and tragedy, there is good news to be had - and you can be the first to find it, here amongst the courageous, as we band together to take our lives back from eating and related disorders! I recovered from a fifteen year (yes, that’s right - fifteen year) battle with anorexia, bulimia, depression and anxiety disorder. What is more, I recovered without ever once being offered the expertise of a professional treatment team. A miracle? Possibly. A repeatable miracle? DEFINITELY.

If I could hang in there long enough to find my ‘key to life’, the one thing that mattered to me more than the eating disorder, then you can too. There is more to life than ‘thin’. There is more to hope than ‘thinner’. There is more to YOU than the eating disorder can ever know, explain, or contain.

Check back often for inspiring tips to guide you, and your loved ones, as you walk in my footsteps back to health and life again. Questions? Just ask. Comments? Post away. Got something to offer? We would love to hear from you.

Because, remember - Behind this Mask: there is someone real. YOU.

And you, like me, are beautiful, irreplaceable, and utterly unique.

Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com