TOOL 8
make a new story
Our body shame is a story whose chapters began being written in some of our earliest memories. Body shame is not a thrilling page-turner but a grueling text of embarrassment, judgment, and grief. Our story made us believe we would never have love, we would never be good enough, we would always be rejected. Decades later we find ourselves still stuck, the body-shame story on loop in our minds. Here is the awesome truth: we do not have to keep that story. We absolutely have the power to turn in that cheap and tawdry tale and make a new story.
Access Your Origin Story
Body shame is most frequently attached to an experience in our youth—a message we received as children or young adults that had us believe that something was wrong with us and our bodies. Connecting to our earliest memories of body shame gives us a starting point for creating a new tale of power and possibility in our bodies and our lives. In many ways this tool asks us to take on the Ghanaian principal of Sankofa—that one must go backward to go forward. In the space below share your earliest memory of body shame.
Where were you? 
What was the experience?
How did it make you feel?
What story or stories (a core belief or beliefs) did you create about yourself because of this experience?
In what ways is the story still with you today?
How does it inform your choices or your behavior?
How would your actions or feelings change if you were free of that story?
Throw it out the window! Let’s create a new story to replace it.
Remember your mantra!
Locate Your Points of Power
Take a moment to reflect on your early childhood experience of shame. Can you identify four traits that made you powerful or unique at that time? List them below.
Using the four traits you listed above, consider how you might respond to your body-shame origin story differently today using the power of your insight and your unique gifts. Rewrite the experience below.
You can use the exercise above whenever you find yourself buying into a negative story. Use your mantra, power traits, and your insight to make a new story to replace the negative one.
Activate Your Inner Child
What appealed to us as children reading fairy tales was the unconstrained power of imagination. We could be a princess, a powerful wizard, or a talking dog. Our possibility has no boundaries. Making a new story returns us to unbounded possibility. Allow yourself the magic of a radical self-love possibility with no boundaries! When answering the next set of reflection prompts, fully embody your childlike imagination.
If you were an animal, which one would you be? Real or fantastic, anything goes!
If your life were a fairy tale or superhero movie, what kind of superhero would you be?
What are your superpowers?
Who are the villains you successfully defend against?
Make a New Story— Mad Libs Style!
Using the following Mad Libs template, have a partner write down your responses to the list of descriptions below. Your partner will use your completed list of words to fill in the Mad Libs story. Once the story is complete, your partner will read it aloud to you. You will then read the story silently to yourself. Lastly, you will read the story aloud to your partner. If you feel judgment, simply notice it and release it. After you complete the activity, take two minutes to reflect with your partner about the experience. Finally, complete the post–Mad Libs reflection exercise later, in private.
NEW STORY 
1. Your name ________________________________
2. Noun that describes something special/magical/powerful __________________________
3. Positive adjective __________________________
4. Body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love ____________________
5. Same positive adjective _____________________
6. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love _________________
7. Name of a gift, talent, insight, or ability you would like to have _______________________
8. Same positive adjective _____________________
9. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love ____________________
10. Verb phrase describing what you feel called to do for those you will serve/your most important job ______________________________
11. Noun describing whom you feel called to serve _____________________________
12. Same verb phrase describing what you feel called to do for those you will serve/your most important job _____________________
13. Same noun describing whom you feel called to serve _________________________
14. Same verb phrase describing what you feel called to do for those you will serve/your most important job _____________________
15. Same positive adjective ______________________
16. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love _________________
17. Same noun describing whom you feel called to serve _________________________
18. Same verb phrase describing what you feel called to do for those you will serve/your most important job _____________________________
19. Same positive adjective _____________________
20. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love _________________
21. Negative adjective _________________________
22. Negative adjective _________________________
23. Your name _______________________________
24. Same noun that describes something special/magical/powerful _________________________
25. Same positive adjective _____________________
26. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love _________________
27. Same noun describing whom you feel called to serve _________________________
28. Same verb phrase describing what you feel called to do for those you will serve/your most important job _____________________________
29. Same positive adjective _____________________
30. Same body part/part of your identity you struggle to radically love _________________
• • • A NEW TALE TO TELL • • •
Once upon a time in a far-off land, I,
1. ___________ (your name), was a powerful and divine
2. ____________ (“magical” noun) with a/an
3. ____________ (positive adjective) 4. ____________
(body part). This 5. ____________ (positive adjective)
6. __________ (body part) gave me the ability of
7. ____________ (desired ability). I used my
8. ___________ (positive adjective) 9.____________
(body part) to 10._______________ (your calling).
One day, after great debate, the powers of the great land decided that I must go to the land of humans to help
11. _______________ (whom you can serve)
12. _______________ (your calling). The powers of the great land assured me that I was the only one capable of achieving this mighty and unique task. And with that I set out on my journey to the land of the humans.
In the early years, I remembered
my mighty and unique calling to help 13. ____________ (whom you can serve) 14. ____________ (your calling).
But as I got older, the memory of my task began to fade. The powers of the great land knew that they needed to remind me of my mighty and unique task by restoring to me my 15. ____________ (positive adjective)
16. ____________ (body part) so that I could use it to help 17. _______________ (whom you can serve)
18. _______________ (your calling).
When I first received my
19. ____________ (positive adjective) 20. ___________ __________ (body part), I was devastated. I thought it was
21. __________ (negative adjective) and 22. ___________ (negative adjective). Slowly, however, the powers of the great land restored my former knowledge, and I remembered that I am 23. ____________ (your name), a powerful and divine 24. __________ (“magical” noun).
My 25. _________ (positive adjective) 26.____________ (body part) is part of my mighty and unique task to help
27. _________________ (whom you can serve)
28. _______________ (your calling).
Today I know I am alive, I am free, and I am enough.
My mighty and unique task requires me to radically love all of me. I am grateful for my 29. ___________ (positive adjective) 30. ______________ (body part) for aiding me on my journey and reminding me of my highest calling.
All of me is powerful and divine.
After reading the story with your partner take five minutes, in private, to write down your reflections.
How did it feel having someone read your new story to you?
How did it feel to read it for yourself?
What part of the story resonated for you? What part of the story did not?
Do you believe a different story
would be more powerful for you?
If so, write it down.
