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an invitation to join the Circle

By Rosie Molinary on August 3, 2018

Today I am inviting you to become a Circle de Luz mija, a member of our giving circle that supports higher education for Latina girls through scholarships. Circle de Luz is a Charlotte-based non-profit with a mission to radically empower young Latinas by supporting their transformation through extensive mentoring, holistic programming and scholarship funds for further education. Circle de Luz does its work by selecting a small cohort group of Latinas in seventh grade whom we then follow until high school graduation. During the six years of the program, we offer the girls holistic, dynamic programming and thoughtful mentoring. In addition, we guarantee each girl a minimum of $5,000 scholarship when she graduates from high school and pursues further education.

As a mija (which is a Spanish word of endearment for girlfriend), my investment is in the future education of a group of young women who will be the first in their families to pursue further education and, in many cases, will be the first in their families to graduate from high school. My annual contribution of just $100, in partnership with others who choose to become mijas, fund the scholarship the program participants will receive when they graduate. Circle de Luz mijas can come from anywhere in the world and have any background. The Class of 2024 will hail from Eastway Middle School in Charlotte and our goal is to support the future dreams of 8 young women through that class. Right now, we have received enough commitments to invite 5 girls to join Circle de Luz. We need 30 more mijas to offer this opportunity to 8 girls.

The 6 years of dynamic programming we offer our members sets them up for success as they complete high school and tackle post-secondary education. The scholarship support we offer, made possible by the giving circle, gives them desperately needed funds to begin their college journey.

Are you ready to make a commitment to education, access, equity, empowerment, and upward mobility? The commitment to Circle de Luz can be, simply, a financial one; however, if you live in the Charlotte area (our mijas come from over 25 states and 4 other countries!), there are also opportunities to join the girls for programming or to share your skills with them by offering a workshop if you so choose. If you want to join us in standing for education and empowerment, I hope you’ll complete this Letter of Commitment and return it as soon as possible.

Joining a group of people from around the world to empower young women as a part of this circle is one of the most powerful ways I make a difference in our community. I hope you’ll join me!

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Why Struggle?

By Rosie Molinary on July 23, 2018

My fundamental belief is that every single one of us here on purpose. We all have a powerful gift (or gifts) that we are meant to give this world and our lives are meant to be the realizing of expressing those gifts out in the world. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that, too often, it is our relationship with ourselves that gets in the way of our ability to live our purpose and so my work has been focused on helping people have positive, healthy relationships with themselves so that they can go out and do what they are meant to do in this world and help it (the world) and us as we move towards collective healing.

One of my favorite ways to do that work these days is in retreat with individuals who are profoundly working on their self-care so that they can more powerfully live their purpose. Recently, at a self-care retreat for non-profit Executive Directors, one of the participants shared that as part of her self-care plan she was going to start running, even though she really hated running.

The group’s reaction to this plan was instant and visceral.

“Why do something you hate?” We all asked. Self-care, we insisted, shouldn’t feel like punishment.

A few weeks later, I was talking to the would-be runner in a follow-up phone call and she shared something that has been on my mind ever since.

“What was your biggest takeaway from the retreat,” I asked.

“I realized I don’t have to be miserable,” she said. “I remember I was saying what some of my self-care goals would be for that week, and I said I was going to run even though I hate it and everyone was like, ‘Why would you do that if you don’t like it’ and I just realized that I don’t have to do anything that makes me unhappy. Why struggle? I just have to be conscious about struggling- and choosing to not struggle because it is not supposed to be that hard.”

For a moment after she said this, I was just silent, thinking about all the ways that I choose to struggle because I think struggle might be virtuous. Not the struggle that is the path towards a goal that you really want (waking up early to create or working an extra job to pay for a dream or whatever) but the struggle that we choose because we want to make things hard for ourselves, because we think that we deserve hard for hard’s sake, because we’re inflicting a little bit of punishment on ourselves.

Ever since that conversation, I’ve had struggle on my mind- trying to consciously observe what is going on with my struggles when I face them. I am asking myself:

Is this a struggle that I am actively choosing because I want what is on the other side of it or is this a struggle that I am inflicting because there is a part of me that believes that thieving from joy and ease is virtuous (spoiler alert: it’s not). And every time I realize that the struggle is born from a place of lack, I am actively letting it go.

There is just so little time and just so much that I want to be doing and I can live more of my purpose in my world if I am not constantly sending myself to faux-timeouts with struggles that I am manufacturing. And I know that I am not alone. Is there a way that you are forcing struggle on yourself these days? And is there a way that you can let that struggle go and invite more flow into your life rather than resistance?

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An Invitation to Spark Your Systems

By Rosie Molinary on July 20, 2018

Does your to do list overwhelm you? Are there not enough hours in the day for all of your competing responsibilities?

Are your organizational and time management systems no longer working for you?

Do you want to make room in your life for more of what you want to be doing but aren’t sure where to start?

Would you like to be more intentional with how you spend your time and energy?

Are you ready for a new way of approaching your time so that you can approach your purpose with fresh passion?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it is time to organize your life (and time) with intention as your guide, and Spark Your Systems can teach you how.

At Spark Your Systems, you will learn a system for managing life while embracing wholehearted living. You’ll leave with clarity about your values + priorities and with a time management and personal organization system in place that you can use every single week to help you discern what commitments are right for you and then create a workable action plan for meeting your own expectations when it comes to managing your time and responsibilities. Ultimately, this system will help you achieve more of what’s important (to you) while not losing yourself in the process.

Join me August 4^th from 1 pm to 4:30 pm at Hygge West (2128 Remount Road in Charlotte). Registration is $50 and includes pre-work (you will get an email from me about a week before the workshop with your pre-work and instructions for what to bring), snacks, and some take home resources.

Space is limited so register now.

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The Kids are Alright Spring 2018

By Rosie Molinary on May 14, 2018

At the end of each semester, my body image students write a process paper where they synthesize their learning- both personal and academic- for the semester. These papers are always a delight to read and there is so much wisdom in them that I just have to share a fraction of it (with my students’ permission, of course) with you. Here, some wise words from my students this semester. May they give you hope and inspiration the way they did me.

I am worth so much more than what I used to think I was worth. I have realized that all of the negative words ever said to me by other people were not because of me but more of a self-reflection on their part. I have learned that I am not the problem. Society and bad influences are the problems, and that Is how I know I have made a change in the way I view certain situations. I no longer blame myself. I am no longer mad at my body, but appreciative of all the things my body has done for me

Isabel

♥

For me, my number one take away from the class is that there is a difference between using your body and truly embracing your body… I have been simply using my body, I have just been walking around, not taking care of it, not truly one hundred percent loving it. Now, I am making strides towards this and boy have I come a long way from the beginning of the semester. I am a lot more open to talking about my body and my love for it and, on days when I struggle, I feel okay to bring it up and I know that I can bring myself back out.

Myrti

♥

Bacon writes that “[e]very culture has its own standards of beauty, which change over the course of time… [b]eauty standards reflect the political and economic interests of the time.” My question is, how and/or why do we let this “standard” be so incredibly decisive if it’s this elusive and fluctuating? Why in the world would I give this much power to the cycle of a trend? To follow these weight trends would be a constant health roller coaster of squats to make you thick and diets to make you slim; this isn’t healthy. What is healthy for one body certainly does not lay beneath any form of “standard.”

Xan

♥

We should not let the media define what beauty is but we should define beauty for ourselves. The media used to portray beauty in one specific way which was unrealistically stick thin, white, tall, and long hair which is not practical for the average person. Beauty is whatever YOU decide you want it to be. The media is all for making money; they even willingly admit it, they are selling you a dream. They know it is not possible to achieve the “look” that they are putting out there but they know women, as well as men, are going to try their best to imitate the “perfect look”.

Carmen

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Illuminate Our Way… a letter to my students on the last day of class

By Rosie Molinary on May 7, 2018

Here is the truth that, even if you walk away with nothing else from this class, you must know:

You are not broken.

Or maybe the truth is really this:

We are all broken.

Brokenness, I have come to realize, might be the most basic stroke of life. We get sick. We lose people we love. We have a vision, and life gets it twisted. A hurricane, tornado, an earthquake comes. Somebody leaves. We are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dream doesn’t come true. Somebody needs us in a way that makes us have to pause our own wants. Life, as it does, happens.

But the reality is that our brokenness is actually the fundamental foundation to our unrelenting beauty. We are, each one of us, an exquisite piece of stained glass, the elements of our life coming together in a riot of color that inspires, informs, absolves, calms, questions, creates. And as we study that stained glass, as we try to memorize every element of what is, we cannot predict the way the light will shine through us on any given day, at any given hour. All we can know is this: we are even more brilliant and radiant because of what we have experienced and not in spite of it.

There was a time when I thought the greatest betrayal I would ever experience was the partner who didn’t fully love me; who so profoundly couldn’t stand to be alone that when he wasn’t with me, he had to find another. And, yet, what I know now is that my staying was the betrayal, my accepting less than was the loss. The pain that I felt, I came to realize, wasn’t from his neglect but my own. I had to learn to see myself in the mirror, to buy my own flowers, to think of myself in the littlest moments, to set both the literal and figurative table for myself, to feel a responsibility for meeting my own needs, to show up for myself so that I could teach others how to walk beside me, to remember that at every given moment in my life (and in the end) I will be all that I have and, given that absolute truth, I deserved to be cared for and protected by me.

You deserve this too.

And so here is what you must do: believe in your originality. Know that what makes you YOU is not what limits you but what illuminates you. Who you are, the way that you are configured, what you have experienced, and how you show up are a gift to this world. You have a purpose that is profoundly, uniquely your own and this world needs you, just as you are, for its own healing.

Our scars reveal our character. They show our strengths and not our weaknesses and the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the capacity to honor the journey that we have taken, to honor all that life has taught us, to aim each day to do good rather than be willing to do harm to ourselves. Our brokenness is nothing to be ashamed of; it is our music and our light. When we no longer feel like we must disguise or repair our cracks beyond all recognition is when our light begins to shine its brightest.

You are not broken.

You are brilliant.

Turn your light on, dear heart.

Illuminate our way.

♥

At the end of each semester, I write my students a letter that is unique to their class. This was the letter for my body image class this semester.

Want to read some past letters?

Go. Spill Your Magic.

Stay woke, dear heart.

The struggle is for you.

You can change us.

The world is aching for you to show up.

The world needs your lightness

We hunger to be known.

Answer the call into your own greatness

Radiate Love

Do the world’s work

And here is the letter I share with them on the first day of school.

Posted in Beautiful You, Food for Thought, Giving Up Beauty | 1 Response

Announcing Mend… because you were never broken

By Rosie Molinary on March 5, 2018

Ready to quit focusing on what you think is broken and, instead, see how incredibly whole and worthy you are?

I am so excited to announce Mend, a new virtual course on practicing radical self-acceptance and body kindness that I created with my friend, Rebecca Scritchfield, the author of Body Kindness. Join us for six weeks of soul restoring guidance on self-acceptance and body kindness so that you can begin again as your most trusted ally. Through online modules packed with video and resources, a private Facebook group, and a live call, Rebecca and I will help you truly begin to heal your relationship with yourself so that you can feel the power of wholehearted living, self-trust, and self-compassion as you realize that you were never broken.

We start March 14th so don’t wait to sign up! This investment in your self could profoundly, positively, powerfully change everything.

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Living Your Word

By Rosie Molinary on January 22, 2018

Happy New Year!

I hope that you have found the space in this new year to discern what you most need from 2018 and to begin to make decisions that support it. Perhaps you defined that need through a word for the year that could serve as litmus test for you as you make choices and create the year and experiences you most want to have. If so, I wanted to share my own journey to living my word in 2018 in hopes it might offer you support as you navigate your own experiences.

After spending plenty of time reflecting on 2017, I realized that what I most profoundly needed at this time in my life was deep nourishment. The last few years have left me physically and emotionally exhausted and leached my effervescence. My energy levels were really low though I would “mind over matter” my schedule anyways. In conducting my own end of year and new year reviews, I found that what I most needed at this moment was stillness, depth, clarity, and a sense of wellbeing. My word for the year? Nourishment.

To really understand how I might realize a sense of nourishment, the first thing I did was write a list of desires for 2018 and then I followed that by a list of intentions that took those desires and more directly stated them.

For example:

Desire- Craving actions derived from a surety in my bones.

Intention- Living with wholehearted energy across the spectrum of my life (for those of you who have been following my work for a while, one observation I had was that I was getting away from practicing my Wholehearted Continuum consistently).

Once I had my list of desires and intentions, I made a list of concrete actions that could offer me a profound sense of physical, emotional, and professional vitality. While some of those actions were longer term goals (finish a book proposal for example), some of them were behaviors that I wanted to be doing on a much more consistent basis so I created a daily habit tracker (just a simple grid with the habits I desired on the left and then columns for the days of the month down the right) so I could check them off as I practiced them. Some examples of habits that made the list: at least 7.5 hours of sleep, journaling, reading, movement, 8+ Fruits/Veggies, creating time margin (i.e. did I have some breathing room in my day or make decisions that will allow me breathing room in the future?), creating (art or writing), learning something, quality time with others (as opposed to profound productivity all the time). While about 16 habits were listed, my goal has been to check off at least 8 a day. My intention is to examine the list at the end of each month and then create the next month’s habit tracker based on what I’ve learned and am moving towards.

And though the year is still new, already I feel a profound sense of relief at the new (slower) pace I have set for 2018. I know I have said this before but the irony of being more present is that you have to show up (to/for) less (places/responsibilities) to show up more. While in some ways, my world is becoming smaller; it is beginning to feel more expansive and that feels like a profound relief.

So, if you are looking for ways to support living your word in 2018, here’s what I suggest:

Write a list of your deep desires for 2018.
Given those desires, pen a list of intentions to more concretely guide you.
Shape those intentions into some concrete actions that would help you experience what it is you seek and consider creating a daily, weekly, and/or monthly tracker to keep an eye on how you are living your intentions. Remember everything can be edited; you don’t have to hold onto any ideas that don’t serve you.
Use your word as a consistent litmus test. “Will this allow me to feel ___________ (nourished, in my case)?” can be a powerful guiding question as you move through your day and choices.

Wishing you a profound sense of nourishment and whatever else you seek in 2018.

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Welcoming 2018

By Rosie Molinary on January 1, 2018

Happy New Year, sweet friends.

Above, you’ll see my wish for you (for us) for this new year.

If you are looking for some powerful ways to deliberately bring 2017 to a close and welcome 2018, I wanted to share a few processes that might serve you.

An End of Year Personal Summit

A New Year Personal Summit

Choosing a Word for the Year

As for me, my summiting has led me through a few fine finalists for word of they year like Transform and Vitality but, ultimately, I have landed on Nourish for my word of the year (because the action that I most need to take is nourishing some areas that I have deemed most important and those choices will ultimately lead to transformation and vitality in the ways that I seek). What I have found in recent years as I have navigated profound grief, significant life changes, and way too many responsibilities, is that way too much that I value is actually withering and that I give my energy away to too many things that aren’t actually meant for me. This year, I am focused on nourishing that which I can best serve and nourishing myself and my loved ones so that we may all be delighted and sustained.

Are you choosing a word for the year to guide you? If so, what’s your word and what do you need from it?

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Go. Spill Your Magic… a letter to my students on the last day of class

By Rosie Molinary on December 18, 2017

Fam,

We can say that right? That’s how we are, isn’t it?

At the end of all this talk about bodies and the business of beauty, about what we feel and what we want to feel, about what we control and what is out of our control, isn’t the most profound thing we’ve come away with after a semester of walking together completely unrelated to our bodies? Isn’t the most profound thing what we created for ourselves and what we created together?

Here is what I saw and felt each week when we gathered together: over and over again, during every single class—from snack time to lecture, from discussion to welcoming guests—you practiced and lived the two most fundamental truths, the truths that if we embraced as global practices would change everything: you were true to yourselves and you belonged to each other. Here is the truth that it sometimes takes us our whole lives to learn: in the end, all we really have isn’t the stuff we acquire or the accolades we receive or even how we look. What matters—all that matters- are the relationships we have created with ourselves and the love and belonging we offer each other.

Not the superficial type of belonging to ourselves that is still trying to convince us of our worth but the kind of burgeoning self-acceptance that is beginning to really own the truth that we are worthy and enough just as we are. And not the “Hey, I have a class with them” type of belonging to each other but the kind of deep belonging that made you have to snap your fingers when someone said something that you just felt in your soul, the kind of deep belonging that said made you stay up late at night or wake up early in the morning to cook elaborate snacks for your classmates to show your appreciation, the kind of deep belonging that let you tell that secret, the kind of deep belonging that reassured each other across space, the kind of deep belonging that meant you took out your phones and showed each other pictures of your dogs, the kind of deep belonging that listened, rapt and then nodded in recognition.

You saw yourselves. You began to hear yourselves. You decide to make way for something different in your relationship with yourself.

You saw one another. You heard one another. You understood, even if it wasn’t your same story.

And here is what I want you to know.

This magic that you created in your soul and in this classroom was special. But it wasn’t special because it has to be rare. It is special because so rarely do we dare to source it out of ourselves and offer it to both ourselves and to others. The world and our wounds have scared us away from that. And then you walked into this space, this sanctuary, that you each committed to making safe and holding sacred for not just others but yourselves; when we did that together, we created a world where we each could be who we unequivocally are. This was our formula: decide that this kind of space is what we wanted, offered ourselves in a way that created that kind of space, received what others were offering, and repeat.

So here is what you most know; what I want your growing self-acceptance to reassure you, you are worthy and enough and necessary and you have so much of that magic inside of you that you could make this world shine if you dared. And we are ready for you—for each one of you—to dare. You need your daring and the world needs your daring, too. Go and fill the world with your magic, recreate this space and experience and feeling everywhere and, always, first of all, for yourself.

If this classroom taught you anything, let it be that your unique gifts are a necessity in this world, let it be a delight in your magic, let it be the courage to let this magic out wherever you go, thereby offering your gifts to the world and helping it heal.

You are here on purpose, dear one. And your magic, your purpose has been glimpsed here. Know that it has not just been seen, it has been appreciated, it is necessary, and you both belong wherever you end up and can offer belonging to all those you encounter.

Go. Be brave. Feed your soul. Feed each other. See. Hear. Listen. Understand. Knit us together. Heal our souls. I believe you. I believe in you. Spill your magic.

♥

At the end of each semester, I write my students a letter that is unique to their class. This was the letter for my body image class this semester.

Want to read some past letters?

Stay woke, dear heart.

The struggle is for you.

You can change us.

The world is aching for you to show up.

The world needs your lightness

We hunger to be known.

Answer the call into your own greatness

Radiate Love

Do the world’s work

And here is the letter I share with them on the first day of school.

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The Kids are Alright Fall 2017

By Rosie Molinary on December 11, 2017

It dawned on me that while people do in fact experience moments or thoughts of discontent with their bodies and image as a whole, it is not and should not be okay to feel that way. I realized that society has conditioned us to search for flaws in our physical and emotional being, and to essentially change who we are to fit the “norm” and “ideal” manufactured by companies and industries looking to make money. We are told we should love our hair, skin, and personalities for what they are- but fed propaganda that tells us otherwise. The beauty industry churns out ads that tell us “sure, you’re pretty, but if you use X skincare and makeup you’ll be beautiful and everyone will want you!” Realizing this is a reality and not an abstract idea was absolutely infuriating and disheartening. I am a self-proclaimed feminist, and feel as though I have a positive body image- yet I still feed into the cycle of buying expensive products to conform to the manufactured “ideal woman.” I examined my own motives for buying into that image- and I’ve found that I spend much less money on the latest hair products, skin care, and ignore fad diets more than ever. I evolved my thinking from an individual perspective to more of a collective one, and spend less time nit picking at things I don’t like about myself. I instead spend time picking apart the negative feelings I have about my body, and reconfiguring them into a positive way. I’ve conditioned myself to be more accepting of my body and my personality, and am unapologetic. I make an effort to project that onto others; I no longer laugh when people make fat jokes, or comment on someone else’s body. I correct my friends when they make negative comments about their body, and I try to encourage them to evaluate why they feel the way they do. Megan

One thing I really love about myself, and it is something I have had to learn to do, is I say what I mean. Women tend to beat around the bush when it comes to men in fear of saying something that is to upfront for them and will cause them to run away. I don’t care if they run. My body is not your privilege, and it never was. What happened to me wasn’t theirs to take. My body isn’t anyone’s but my own, meaning I dictate what it does, where it goes, and if it is with anyone, who. Jordyn

When someone compliments you, you have the chance to bask in the light, and accept it without saying anything. When someone makes a negative comment about their appearance, you have the chance to help bring them up and let them know that what everyone else sees is in fact beauty. When you place your negative self-views on others, you can potentially hurt them for a lifetime… It is pertinent that we know how to correctly compliment others, help keep the beauty remarks flowing, and believe in ourselves from day one. Caroline

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