embody Learning to Love Your Unique Body (and quiet that critical voice!)

This book’s message is rooted in the belief that people inherently possess the wisdom necessary to make healthy choices and live in balance. It emphasizes that self-love, acceptance of genetic diversity in body size, celebration of the unique beauty of every individual, and intuitive self-care are fundamental to achieving good physical and emotional health.

Embody guides readers step by step through five core competencies:
– Reclaim Health
– Practice Intuitive Self-Care
– Cultivate Self-Love
– Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty
– Build Community

Anyone can practice these fundamental skills on a daily basis to honor their innate wisdom and take good care of their whole selves, and research indicates that this work significantly improves people’s ability to regulate eating, decreases depression and anxiety, and increases self-esteem.

Rather than receiving a prescriptive set of rules to follow, readers are guided through patient, mindful inquiry to find what works uniquely in their own lives to bring about — and sustain — positive self-care changes and a peaceful relationship with their bodies.

Connie Sobczak is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, poet, and leader. Her life’s work is creating a world where people live in love with their bodies. In 1996, Connie and Elizabeth Scott, LCSW co-founded The Body Positive, a non-profit organization that has helped thousands of children, teens, and adults turn away from body dissatisfaction and self-criticism to engage in living fully with joy and purpose.

Connie brings a personal history with body hatred and eating problems to her work. Both she and her sister, Stephanie, suffered from bulimia as teens and young adults. Though Connie’s eating disorder derailed her college and career plans in electrical engineering, she ultimately conquered her body hatred and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Her sister was not so lucky—Stephanie died at age 36, leaving her two young children without a mother. Sobczak founded The Body Positive in honor of her sister, and to ensure that her daughter, Carmen, and other children, would grow up in a world where they could focus on changing the world, not their bodies.

Connie continues her fight to rid the world of body hatred through her films, writing, Be Body Positive workshops, and peer-led Body Positive programs for students from middle school through college.

Connie’s video for adult audiences, Discover Your Healthy Weight, was a grand festival award winner in the 2009 Berkeley Video & Film Festival. She was a 2008 semi-finalist for a Volvo for Life award honoring "real-life heroes." A California native, Connie currently resides in Berkeley with her husband; they have one daughter.

Foreword by Elizabeth Scott
Introduction: Welcome to The Body Positive
Chapter One: The Be Body Positive Model
Chapter Two: Competency 1: Reclaim Health
Chapter Three: Competency 2: Practice Intuitive Self-Care
Chapter Four: Competency 3: Cultivate Self-Love
Chapter Five: Competency 4: Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty
Chapter Six: Competency 5: Build Community
Chapter Seven: Now What?
Acknowledgments
About the Author