Body Image with Poet, Advocate and Speaker
Maria R. Palacious

JA: Maria, I know you are an advocate for women’s issues and disability education. I also know you are an enchanting public speaker and write beautiful inspired poetry. Can you share with us a little bit about your passions?

MRP: My passions are intense and many. From my love for words to my love for people, from the tip of my fingers to the core of my very soul, my passions involve creating and sharing. It is the cycle of that which gives birth to everything else. We are constantly creating whether we know it or not. We are creating our own lives and the energy that embraces them. When love and hope are part of what we create, love and hope returns to us. Then we turn around and share the blessings which then come back to us in greater abundance. My passions are born from rising above the fear and the pain, from learning to love life and the magnificent creation each one of us really is. We are all created to the image of perfection. It doesn't matter what we look like. We are the image of love, a divine creation, a being of light. And as a being of light, myself, my greatest passion is to share my personal blessings with others through the power of my words.

 

JA: When I asked to interview you for this newsletter, you said that you’d love to focus on body image. Why are body image issues important to you?

MRP: From the time a young girl is old enough to recognize her own body, she begins to compare it to what the media and other distorted views of beauty suggest the female body should look like. We live in a society where the image of physical beauty has driven young women to anorexia and other conditions which directly relate to body image. Generation after generation, Barbie's subliminal message of unrealistic beauty burdened little girls psyche with a sense of imperfection, a sense of insecurity, a sense, of failure. And it is from childhood that we carry that twisted relationship with our bodies. We're always too fat, too short, too thin, too dark, too plane, too something. We all seem to hate our noses and our breasts, our hair and our tummies. We practically dislike our bodies in general because we don't look like the super model who starves herself to be able to look that way. Women have fallen prey of a male oriented version of beauty, one that media has taken and slowly sipped into our culture until it further poisons the relationship with our bodies. Body image is, in fact, a serious problem among women. Statistics have shown a drastic increase in non-emergency plastic surgery procedures over the last decade. Changing our bodies when we are not satisfied with them has become a common thing. Unfortunately, the superficial changes we often make our bodies endure in the name of beauty, are just that: superficial. True beauty is found from self-acceptance and self-love. It is the uniqueness of each one of us what really constitutes beauty. Body image is really the reflection of our soul. You are beautiful! Each one of you out there. Project your own personal beauty and love yourself for you ARE a Being of Light.

 

JA: How can poetry and the spoken word impact body image?

MRP: Any type of creative energy has the power to reach that space within ourselves with which we identify. Spoken word is a form of art that brings voice to poetry which otherwise would sit on the page waiting to be picked up by somebody. My poetry often touches on issues surrounding body image and over the years, many women have come to me simply to tell me how a certain poem has made them think about their own bodies and their own relationship with themselves. I personally use the spoken word art a tool of empowerment and a channel of hope. I know to so many poets, spoken word is also very cathartic. "I used to hate my body....." one of my poems opens and the honesty of that opens a whole new chapter with your own body. (To see this piece, please visit youtube and look for a poem by the name of Testimony by Maria R. Palacios Sins Invalid 2008)

 

JA: Why do you think that so many women have such a difficult time loving and accepting their bodies?

MRP: We have been taught to hate our bodies, to think of ourselves as incomplete next to men. We must recognize that body image comes from all kinds of sources and that women's issues in general are a global concern. We can not forget that in other parts of the world women are still set on fire, mutilated, tortured, abandoned, raped, slaved, killed in the name of honor. We are taught to be dirty, unholy, sinners, Eve is the one to be at fault. The sins of humanity fall on a woman's weakness. We are taught to conform, to settle for what others want. We are taught to be good daughters and good wives and good mothers --nothing wrong with that, unless it is not what you want to do. Women, as strong as we are, we have been taught to not see it, to not see the true beautiful independent creatures we really are. We have been taught to not love our bodies. We have been taught to feel imperfect.

 

JA: Do you have any advice for people who struggle with their body image?

MRP: The road is not easy. Self Love comes with a lot of practice and positive body image comes from self love. The first thing we must do is have an honest encounter with our bodies where love, forgiveness and acceptance become the essence of a new relationship with ourselves. We must also be willing to let go. The serenity prayer is a great example.....change the things we can, accept the things we can't and the wisdom to know the difference. In loving and accepting my body, for example, I will never be able to change the fact that I can't walk. Polio is permanent and irreversible. I have never walked and never will, but I love myself madly and deeply therefore my body and what the mirror says to me are words of love and beauty, empowerment and hope. The key to positive body image is to take charge of your life and your body. If you need to lose weight, if you need to exercise, if you need to eat healthy, if you need to quit smoking....whatever issues you face in the relationship with your body, let love be the force that leads you to the accomplishment of your goals. Part of self love is directly related to how we treat our bodies. When you love someone you want what is best for that person. Do the same thing for yourself. Love and nurture and spoil yourself. You deserve it.

 

JA: I know we both have a passion for the artist Frida Kahlo. What inspires you about her and her life relates to body image?

MRP: Frida Kahlo's passion came from the expression of her pain. She was an empowered woman who'd rather paint her sorrows than let them ferment into self-pity. Despite living in pain, Frida Kahlo lived life intensely even when she didn't agree with her body or necessarily took good care of it. Frida did not love her body. She felt betrayed by it. Her body failed her and the pain, fear, and resentment towards her body is the spinal cord of her art. Like Frida, I have experienced over thirty surgeries, the body cast, the rack, the hospital rooms. Like Frida, my art is often a reflection of my own experiences. Like Frida, I have struggled with my own relationship with my body. The difference between us, however, like one of my poems to her says:.....while you chose to let go, I still choose to hold on to life.

JA: How can our readers reach you Maria?

MRP: Please visit me at myspace/goddessonwheels or myspace/mariarpalacios I can also be contacted by email at palaciosmaria66@yahoo.com

JA: Thank you so much Maria! I hope people get an opportunity to hear you speak. I know it will change their lives!

MRP: THANK YOU!!!!!!