Are You Listening, Oprah?

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Sue Shanahan

“Everyone is different: different shapes, sizes, colors, beliefs, personalities, and you have to celebrate those differences.” – Kelly Clarkson

Over the years, I have learned so much from Oprah Winfrey. I felt a kinship with her from the day she began her show in Chicago in 1986. She was so real. Plus, she was a woman of size (like me). She was someone who was approachable, not above me. I could relate to her love of books, spiritual matters and the desire to be thin. I shared her anguish about not being a size six. I went on every diet she did. It was hard not to notice Oprah’s weight yo-yo during the reign of her talk show. If she wasn’t pointing out her failures, the media was.

After the Oprah Winfrey Show ended in 2011, whether she was fat or thin went under the radar. Without being on T.V. Monday through Friday, it was hard to know what shape Oprah was in, which was fine with me. I had been doing some serious soul searching about my size. I needed a break from constantly monitoring my eating and exercising. It was robbing me of the joy of living in the now. It didn’t do any good long term anyway. I wondered if I was fighting nature? Could I have been born this way?

Last December, I watched a once again curvy Oprah being interviewed by Barbara Walters on her “Ten Most Fascinating People of 2014” special. Oprah may not be at her “best self” weight, but she is as beautiful as ever in my eyes. Barbara asked her to complete this sentence, “Before I leave this earth I will not be satisfied until I…”

Oprah responded with, “Until I make peace with the whole weight thing.”

Barbara sounded shocked when she said, “What? That’s still on your mind? I was expecting something deeply profound.” Oprah assured her that yes, she had to make peace with the “ whole weight thing.”

What petite Ms. Walters didn’t understand was Oprah’s wish is deeply profound. As a woman who has struggled to be thin her whole life, it would be such a gift to me if she accepted herself. Maybe Oprah and I, along with countless others aren’t meant to be a size six. What if we are fine the way we are? Maybe the bodies our souls inhabit aren’t what the culture has deemed desirable, but does that make them wrong?

Today, at 59, I have still not won the war with fat and am waking up to the notion that maybe this is who I am. There is more and more scientific evidence that says being fat doesn’t necessarily mean one is unhealthy. Maybe the media and the fashion police are wrong. After all there was a time in our country’s history when people were made to feel less than because of the color of their skin. Looking at nature I see that there are all different shapes and sizes in the animal world. Could human beings be made the same way?

“If you are who you were meant to be, you will set the world ablaze.” – St. Catherine of Siena

Oprah’s continual references to her issue with her weight has only helped to make her a target by mean spirited people. The distress she feels adds fuel to the shame women carry about their bodies. Think about celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg. I find it interesting that the press never remarks about her size. I have a pretty good idea why. Whoopi knows she has it going on. She knows her light shines from the inside out so it’s a waste of time to try to mold herself into a standard dictated by fools. Because her body isn’t an issue with her it’s not an issue with anyone else. I think it is time for women to embrace their bodies. I don’t want to waste another minute rejecting what I was born into. My body is a temple, and the same goes for you, Oprah Winfrey. What would the world do without you? You have a big purpose and your soul lives in the perfect house to manifest it. If you accept yourself, just as you are, you will give permission to womankind to do the same. That would be a gift passed down from generation to generation. And what do your sisters think about your body inching above your “goal weight”? It’s the better to hug us with, my dear.

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Plastic Has No Heart

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Sue Shanahan

Keeping it real: Three Friends in a Hammock © Sue Shanahan 2000

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” – Amy Bloom

Lately, I’ve been conscious of a trend that makes my heart jump for joy. Have you noticed that more and more ordinary people are on TV and in the movies? For too long there’s only been room for Hollywood glamour. That standard was allowed to exist by a world that sought happiness from the external. As a young girl, I was indoctrinated and blindly aligned myself to that belief system. But not anymore. I, along with many others, have outgrown that life-view. Welcome tall, short, fat, thin, young, old and every color. Welcome me. Welcome you.

It’s hard to believe that when I began my career as an illustrator, I couldn’t find work because the people in my drawings looked too “real.” I was advised to stylize my children like the Gerber Baby because more women would relate to it. Can you believe that? I was exasperated by the assumption that only blue-eyed Caucasian babies were relatable. There was and is a place in the world for every mother’s child.

Fast forward to today. My illustrations, featuring children of all shapes, sizes and colors, are viewed as politically correct and affirming. Plastic surgery and the coloring of grey hair are being reconsidered by strong women in the limelight. The doors for self-love and self-worth are now open wide enough for everyone to fit through. We are fine just the way we are.

“When you’re always trying to conform to the norm, you lose your uniqueness, which can be the foundation of your greatness.” – Dale Archer

I would go so far as to say that embracing “who we are” is what helped launch Pharrell Williams’ song, Happy, into the stratosphere. That tune went nowhere until its video was released showing people of all ages, ethnicities, and body types dancing to it. To add to the explosion Pharrell’s fans posted videos from across the globe grooving to his song. Happy became a celebration of life and the beauty of humanity.

And what about Colbie Caillat’s song, Try? Its video blasts Photoshop and the unrealistic beauty standards put on women and girls. During the film, Colbie removes her hair extensions and her make-up bit-by-bit. At the end, what’s left is someone we can connect to. You see it’s nearly impossible relating to someone who’s body is decorated and molded. There is no heart in plastic. Being who we are is where our power lies.

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How can I be Plus Size and Invisible?

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Sue Shanahan

I am a plus-sized woman. There is no hiding that. Although being large was the bane of my youth, at 58 I’ve come to terms with what is. I’ve spent a large portion of my life on a diet merry-go-round that only made me dizzy. It was a cycle of being horrified by what I saw in the mirror, restricting my eating and then slowly going back to my old ways and previous weight.

Sometimes I wonder, “What if there is no changing my body?” For years I’ve tried to shrink myself to a more acceptable size without any long term success. Could I be predisposed to be this way? That seems like a real possibility when I look at my family tree. I come from a long line of big women. I recently came across a photograph of my great-grandmother in the 1930’s. Her life was filled with hard physical labor and unprocessed food. She lived today’s formula for being slender. Yet despite all of that her body was fat, and I’m built just like her.

“And I know my creator didn’t make no mistakes on me. My feet, my thighs, my lips, my eyes, I’m loving what I see.” ~India Arie, Video

Perhaps being ample sized isn’t optimal, but I’ve come to the conclusion that just may be who I am. I’m in the process of doing an, “I love myself” experiment. Instead of looking in the mirror in disgust, I bless my body. I wear the beauty of my ancestors. I affirm that my physicality is the perfect vehicle to manifest my life’s purpose. Not only do I have the soul of an artist, I have the fine motor skills to transcribe my vision onto paper. My eyes and brain work together perfectly to mix the subtle colors I envision for my paintings. My body is healthy and energetic. I have good skin and pretty eyes. Most of all, I’m grateful that it had the miraculous ability to grow and give birth to my three children.

So far my self-love experiment has been very healing. I’ve found the voice in my head is much more cruel than the outside world – for the most part. The other day while having lunch with a friend, I felt a sting from her words that I’ve experienced from others before. Lizzie (not her real name) revealed to me that she was worried about her daughter. She was afraid that her little girl would grow up with Lizzie’s sister’s metabolism and not hers. Lizzie, an effortless size four was horrified at the thought of her daughter ever having bigger hips and a curvier derrière. I assured her she had nothing to worry about and our discussion moved on to other matters.

When I returned home, I couldn’t shake my feelings of low self-worth. When Lizzy confided in me, she totally disregarded that I embody the destiny she dreads for her daughter. Instead of speaking up on my own behalf, I pushed down my outrage. No wonder I felt bad. I couldn’t understand Lizzie’s unawareness of how her concerns would affect me. She was so considerate in other areas of her life. How come she couldn’t see the body I live in is what she considers a fate worse than death? In my silence, I had sold myself out.

“I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I remember watching the The View when it first aired. Joy Behar ridiculed Ted Kennedy’s paunch by showing a picture of him boating shirtless. Plus-sized Star Jones sat next to Joy as she got her laughs at the then senator’s expense. I couldn’t believe it. How could Joy not comprehend that the cruel humor she poured over Ted Kennedy washed over Star too? I left a message about Ms. Behar’s insensitivity on the telephone hotline The View had set up at the time. To the show’s credit, I never heard any of their hosts engage in that kind of crassness again.

Looking back, I wish I had had the clarity to stand up to Lizzie’s remarks that diminished me. This kind of of prejudice is oh-so-subtle but still hurtful. It is part of the overall marginalization of women of size. If it happens again, I will shed some light on how her lack of consideration makes me feel. I am no longer bound to a body standard that is eerily close to a Barbie doll. I want to be seen and appreciated for who I am. Being plus-sized does not mean I’m invisible or, deaf either, for that matter.

My daughter and plus-sized me.

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Being Beautiful is Not a Profession

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Sue Shanahan

You’ve Always had the Power

I learned very young that a woman’s power came from her looks. Specifically, my beauty, or lack there of, was how my worth was measured. The straightness of my nose and thickness of my eyelashes were important but useless if I wasn’t skinny. Tall and sturdy for my age, I took on the onus of “the fat kid” long before the title fit. My mother, with her movie star looks, was ashamed of me. She saw me as extension of herself.

My first attempt at weight loss was in the fourth grade. I had the brilliant idea of slicing my stomach with a razor and squeezing the fat out. Of course, I never could go through with it. Every night as I lay in bed, the success of my day was measured by how little I ate. The obsession to be thin had already taken hold.

When puberty hit, my weight soared out of control. The pressure to be perfect was overwhelming. I looked at the models in Seventeen magazine and knew I could never measure up. It wasn’t until years later that I learned the models didn’t measure up either. They had been airbrushed to flawlessness in their photos.

When I turned sixteen, my mother typed a rite of passage letter to me and signed it with, “Love, Mom.” What struck me the most in it was her advice to “marry a man who is going places and will take you with him.” I had learned the only bargaining tool to hitch that ride was my looks. And what I saw in the mirror told me I was doomed. I decided I’d better develop my talents.

My story does have a happy ending. At 23, I married a man who loved me just the way I was. Whenever I questioned how he could be attracted to me he said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I thought that was his way of saying I love you in spite of how you look. Today I know better. My husband was way smarter than the media gave most credit for. He could see past the images that beauty advertisements were trying to force down our throats. After 34 years of marriage, he still loves my soul and my own brand of gorgeous that encapsulates it.

Over the years, with a concentrated effort, I’ve undone much of the damage to my body image. Movies like Miss Representation have helped. Most recently a wonderful blog post by Kasey Edwards affirmed my belief that the way most women see their bodies is an illusion. Our perception has little to do with how the world sees us.

I’ve come to peace with my mother and her inability to accept the body I was born into. I see now that like me, she was a victim of “lookism.” Born in the 1920’s, a bride in the 1950’s, she was a product of our culture. In her own convoluted way, she was just trying to keep me safe. She was passing on the societal expectations she had learned from her own mother.

Yes, at times, I still fall back into feeling horrified by the way I look. Recently, I saw a picture of myself that made me cringe. Instead of taking the feelings to heart, I now compare them to how I feel hearing a recording of my voice. Like most people, I don’t like the way I sound, but don’t take the foreignness of it to mean I’m flawed. In the same way, I no longer take my reaction to a photograph of myself to heart either. It doesn’t mean anything. My initial discomfort doesn’t stem from how I look but comes from the disconnection I feel of looking at a shell. The “real” me is formless.

Our world is evolving and so am I. The best gage of my self-acceptance is my daughter and the women my sons chose to marry. All three are stunning, accomplished women. They exude self-confidence and embrace who they are. No matter how thin or pretty, they would never think to add the superficial to their list of achievements. They where brought up knowing their power isn’t on the outside but lies within, being beautiful is no longer a career path.

After seeing my art on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Annie commissioned me to illustrate the above portrait of her as Glinda the Good Witch and her daughter as Dorothy. She wanted her little girl to know she had the power inside herself to make her dreams come true.

My mom (second from left) at a luncheon shortly before she married my dad.

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There Is Nothing Better Than Being Yourself

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Sue Shanahan

“Allow your body to be exactly what it’s naturally supposed to be, and embrace it.”

-Portia de Rossi from The Conversation on Lifetime TVThere Is Nothing Better Than Being Yourself

When my daughter Bridget began going to Junior High it became achingly apparent that she had entered the world of “looksism.” How she looked on the outside was now more important than her beautiful mind and gorgeous heart. My reaction to her new way of moving through the world was to illustrate the above poster. Who decides what beautiful is anyway?

I like to think my art was the beginning of Bridget’s questioning and rejecting what the media was thrusting upon her. Today she is all grown up and secure in who she is – inside and out. She works in television as an anchor/reporter and it’s a joy to watch her confidently share her gift with the world. I want all girls to feel like that. 🙂

* What makes us beautiful? If you have a moment share your thoughts.*Bridget helping my little dancers get ready for the photo shoot.Molly, Amy, Ali and Malina, in all their glory.A pensive Molly. I love the soulfulness in her eyes. Mo is my niece and a lovely young actress now. Soon she will be off to LA to pursue her dreams.In this shot Malina is sweetness personified