Emelina Minero

This New Year’s resolution is 31 days long; will you take the challenge?

YOU ARE not good enough. You are a second-class citizen. These are the messages you get when you look through Facebook ads, magazines, billboards, watch TV and go to the movies – In order to be loved, you need to change your body.

But it’s not true. What if I told you that in order to be at your healthiest and your happiest that you had to stop focusing on your appearance? Likely, you’d think me crazy, radical or impractical.

Would you die for the perfect body?

According to the Succeed Foundation and the Centre for Appearance Research at UWC Bristol, 48% of gay men would willingly give up a year of their life to have their ideal body, and ten percent of gay men would exchange 11 years of their life for the perfect body.

Is that more culturally acceptable than changing the focus of the most common New Year’s resolutions: losing weight and staying fit?

Brandon Ambrosino, author of The Tyranny of Buffness, an article in The Atlantic, wrote about the unrealistic and unhealthy body image that gay male culture perpetuates.

“I didn’t know I was skinny-fat until my Russian boyfriend told me so,” said Ambrosino.

“I did, however, suspect something was wrong with my body the first night I stayed over his house … I went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. Sure, I was a professional dancer, and I did yoga, and went running, and watched what I ate. And yes, I was probably in pretty good shape. But I didn’t look good enough.”

Developing an eating disorder, wanting to lose weight, build muscle, modify your body – these issues do not discriminate against sexuality, gender, race or any identifying factor.

These issues impact everyone, and here’s the kicker – your weight and your body are not the problem. They’re a scapegoat for the deeper issues you are discontent with: whether that be stress from work or the faulty belief that you are not good enough due to past trauma.

The answer isn’t dieting, steroids or over exercising. The answer is self-love.

A lot of people think self-love sounds hippy-dippy, too abstract or it makes them uncomfortable, but doesn’t living in a culture where people prize their appearance over their lives make you uncomfortable?

Michelle Minero, MFT commented on our culture’s need to change our bodies in her book Self-Love Diet: The Only Diet That Works.

“If you have ever hated your body, ever wanted to lose weight or believed that if you lost weight you would feel better about yourself, you have mistakenly thought that your problem was your body. It is not. Changing your outsides has never been the solution. The problem has been your inability, up to this point, to understand that you are not your body, to know without a doubt that you are good enough, precious and lovable exactly as you are in this moment.”

“Any problems you may have with accepting yourself and your body is a reflection of hurtful experiences and faulty beliefs that can be reversed through the process of living the Self-Love Diet,” said Minero.

What is the Self-Love Diet? In short, it’s regularly offering yourself love. In full, it’s regularly offering yourself love in all aspects of your life: your spirit, body, thoughts, emotions, relationships, culture and world.

This January, instead of having an appearance focused New Year’s resolution, I challenge you to join the 5th Annual 31-Day Self-Love Diet Writing Challenge.

It’s an online event hosted by the Love Warrior Community, an online community that uses creative expression to foster healing, self-acceptance, body acceptance and self-love. The Love Warrior Community is co-founded by a mother-daughter duo, out lesbian and LGBT journalist Emelina Minero, and her mom, Michelle Minero, a marriage and family therapist who specialises in eating disorder recovery.

Every day throughout January, the Love Warrior Community shares a Self-Love Diet writing prompt on their Facebook event page, and invites you to use January and your New Year’s resolution to develop a daily self-love practice.

Last year, 100 people participated, submitting over 500 self-love posts from the UK, the US, Australia and Costa Rica.

This year, people have already started to share their self-love intentions for 2015.

“My self love diet goal is to stop the negative and destructive self talk,” one person shared.

Another shared, “My personal challenge is to STOP, and take a few moments each day for me! Mentally, emotionally, and/or physically! Need to take care of me.”

Will you make self-love your New Year’s resolution for 2015?

To join the Facebook event to get started, click here:

A lesbian film starring Katherine Heigl and Alexis Bledel portrays a same-sex wedding in the theaters.

Katherine Heigl: Photo by Tiffany Laufer

It’s surreal that a lesbian lead role in a movie with a theatrical release is a big deal, but it is.

Following The Kids Are All Right and Pariah, Jenny’s Wedding is contributing to our film history, and with the global debate around marriage equality, this is a monumental moment in film history for the queer community because this film is portraying a same-sex wedding. All that being said, this film isn’t just about being gay. Yes, the film spotlights a lesbian lead character, and yes, the film revolves around her wedding, but Jenny’s Wedding has depth and a storyline that goes beyond sexual orientation.

Jenny’s Wedding is about Jenny, played by Heigl (Gray’s Anatomy, Knocked Up), and her journey with coming out to her family and getting married in her rural, conventional hometown. The film explores what happens when we’re confronted with something outside of our norm and how that confrontation makes us reevaluate our lives and ourselves. Jenny’s Wedding explores the evolution of her relationship with her family after coming out, and the personal growth and journey that each character goes through in result of Jenny coming out.

Katherine Heigl and Alexis Bledel: Photo by Tiffany Laufer

Jenny and her family are conventional people who don’t like standing out, and through this experience they’re all ousted outside of their comfort zone together as Jenny’s wedding puts her homosexuality front and center in a town with a non-existent LGBT culture. Their way of life and who they are is being questioned. To save their relationships, and to continue to grow strong as a family, they all need to look at themselves and push past their personal limits in order to live outside of their comfort zone, and eventually to expand and change their comfort zone.

Jenny’s Wedding is an independent film that will have a theatrical release, but it’s not your average queer indie film. The movie is being created and supported by a lot of individuals within Hollywood.

It’s the brainchild of screenwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue who penned Beaches, White Oleander and Veronica Guerin. The film is loosely inspired by her niece coming out to her family, and is written, directed and co-produced by Donoghue.

The film is also produced by Michelle Manning, who produced many films, including Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, and Gail Levin, who was the casting director of many films, including Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and We Bought a Zoo.

The talent is also reflected on camera with an incredible ensemble cast, starring Heigl as Jenny, with Bledel (Gilmore Girls, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) playing her fiancé, and with Tom Wilkinson (John Adams, The Debt), Linda Emond (Across the Universe, Julia & Julia) and Grace Gummer (Zero Hour, The Newsroom) playing Jenny’s family.

As with a lot of independent films, it’s also a low budget film, and they’re raising money on Indiegogo to fund the soundtrack, which is an essential aspect of any film. They have partnered with From the Heart Productions, Inc, which makes your contribution tax-deductible. Also, a portion of your contribution will be donated to PFLAG Cleveland, a nonprofit organisation based in the states that both rallies together and supports parents, families and friends of LGBT people to support the LGBT community.

You will also get perks from your contributions, from a digital download of the film, to the DVD/Blue-Ray Combo Pack, to autographed memorabilia from the set.

Jenny’s Wedding is going to have a positive impact on the LGBT community, as well as an impact on how heteronormative society sees same-sex couples, same-sex weddings and LGBT people.

Through this Indiegogo campaign, we have an opportunity to be a part of this change (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-the-filmmakers-of-jenny-s-wedding/x/486617).

For selection of campaign videos, CLICK HERE: