The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Taylor explores the third peace: making peace with one’s body. Attaining radical self-love is possible, she says, because it is one’s inherent sense of self. Rediscovering it requires a process of dismantling societal conditioning through curious interrogation of one’s beliefs.

Taylor reminds the reader that even though their mind may be filled with harmful thoughts about their own body and other people’s bodies, fortunately, they are not their thoughts. Rather, everyone’s thoughts are heavily influenced by a combination of their experiences, trauma, and input from the external world. It can be helpful to remember that a person is not the same as the thoughts they think.

Taylor shares four “pillars of practice” that can help people “access a new way of being in the world”: “taking out the toxic,” “mind matters,” “unapologetic action,” and “collective compassion” (70).

In exploring the first pillar, Taylor proposes distinguishing between one’s “inside voice” and “outside voice” (71). In other words, one should determine which messages come from within and which messages are internalized from the outside world. She recommends eliminating media consumption that does not align with one’s radical self-love values.

Taylor moves on to the second pillar, which recognizes the importance of the mind.