All Bodies are Good Bodies

Posted on by Kenni Thornley

I wanted to talk about something that’s near and dear to my heart, a little something I call body love. I recently started watching these YouTube videos called “Style Like You” where people get vulnerable mostly about body image issues and how they overcame them, or their positive beliefs about them. Their tagline is “in your body is a good place to be.” So naturally I thought about it.

When I was young I was in an accident that left me with some physical impairments. I began to not be able to do things like I once had, and that eventually led to me not liking my body. Not because of the way it looked, but because of what it was no longer able to do. Once I disliked my body in one way it became easy for me to dislike it in all ways. I’ve only recently begun to fall in love with my body and what it can do for me because of this concept I want to share with you.

It’s my understanding that a huge percentage of women and men dislike their bodies, or wish they could change them to something the world has deemed attractive. Now firstly, whoever set the standard for male and female physical attractiveness and then said, “that’s it, that’s what you have to look like in order to be physically attractive,” was wrong. There’s one part in the Human Art lecture that I adore–my mom brings to your attention that we’ve lost the ability to look at human beauty objectively. She points out that in art, nature, and pretty much everything other than

 Heart graphic from pngtree.com (text was added by author)

humans, we don’t put beauty in a box. She says, “we don’t start a hike by saying, alright there’s only one really good looking tree up there.” It’s true, beauty is in all shapes, sizes, colors, and at Human Art what we call designs.

As a society, we really believe in no fat, no rolls, and close to no appreciation for wide hips, and dad bods. We’re definitely moving in the right direction, but there are so many different shapes and

sizes that are still feeling insecure. The skinny thing stuck so hard we had to create a category of modeling for women that weren’t eating orange peels and water for every meal. And we don’t even have one for men. Its an epidemic! If there is one thing Human Art has taught me and one thing I know to be true, it’s that ALL BODIES ARE GOOD BODIES! All bodies are capable, all bodies are masterpieces! So the next time you look at yourself in the mirror I want you to see yourself through Brook Thornley’s colored glasses, and say out loud, “YOU’RE A MASTERPIECE!!”  I want you to love your tummy, I want you to dance around, I want you to eat what you want, and wear what you want, and take care of yourself all the time. Because you deserve it. When you look in the mirror, instead of critiquing yourself, I want you to see the lives you impact, how much you have to offer, and I want you to realize how beautiful you are, just the way you are! It’s less about what you look like, and all about what your body can do and who you uniquely are that’s beautiful.

-Kenni

Teen Human Art-My Dream For Us

Posted on by Kenni Thornley

Teen Human Art, almost like Teen Vogue but where each of you is the cover model—the most jaw-dropping awe-worthy model.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in the light and love of co-founders of Human Art Brook and Rod Thornley. Being their daughter I grew up always knowing my worth and the worth of other people. “Everyone’s a masterpiece” might as well have been my first words. I followed my mom from place to place as she single-handedly showed so many people their divine worth. And was in awe at watching my father punctuate her love of people with correct principles and skills to keep people secure and confident. They brought a whole new meaning to “dynamic duo”, teaching true attractiveness paired with the skills to maintain that security in yourself.

Not only was I raised to have unconditional love run through my veins, but I was taught to see people a little differently. I saw people and their personalities as Blackened, Whitened, Saturated, and Grayed. I saw unwavering beauty in every single person because they all emanated the characteristics of these four harmonies. Just by knowing these concepts there wasn’t a single soul that wasn’t individually beautiful. The ultimate optimism. Can you imagine how different things would be if everyone saw people through my mother’s eyes? Seeing everyone for who they are and their individual traits that make them attractive to others.

As I got a little older I wanted just that; for everyone I met to see themselves the way my mom saw them. And as I went through junior high and now going through high school its very shocking to me how self-deprecation is like a trend. Almost as if its lame to love yourself. If you weren’t exactly like all your peers, you weren’t enough. Which is just plain not true. I won’t lie to you, even growing up in the self-love environment I did, I fell into this trap. Comparison was like kryptonite and I knew I wasn’t the only one. My friends would speak out loud how much they wanted to be something or someone else. It has reached such a level in our generation where pure self-love is becoming extinct.

My dream for me personally and for all people is to work on getting back to the outlook I had as a child, seeing others without an influence of society’s limitations. Seeing people for only their individual true attractiveness. Whether it be raw realness, childlike liveliness, unwavering elegance, or thorough clarity. Being who you are and loving it is so attractive. In my experience people who love and accept themselves are more prone to love and accept other people for exactly what they are. We are enough. Everyone is a masterpiece.