My Journey of Learning to Truly Love My Body, Amidst “Skinny Culture” & Burnout

"Skinny Culture” Is Anti-Woman Anti-Health. Anti-Nature.

And it’s not always a conscious decision to “look” a certain way. Sometimes, it creeps in quietly through burnout, grief, trauma, and unhealthy relationships.

With the growing cultural obsession surrounding GLP-1 medications, it feels as though skinny culture is making a comeback. The problem isn’t people accessing medical care that genuinely improves their health. The problem is a society that continues to equate thinness with virtue and treats women’s bodies like trends to chase rather than relationships to cultivate.

When I was signed with modeling agencies, there was a constant pressure to lose weight, often encouraged in unhealthy ways. Survival mode can wear a pretty dress.

Thin didn’t mean healthy. Beautiful didn’t mean well.

Fast forward to 2023, and I was the same weight I had been as a professional model: completely unintentionally. The common denominator wasn’t discipline or wellness. It was the fact that I was disconnected from my body, my worth, and what healthy actually felt like.

Due to career burnout and an abusive relationship, I was down to 125 pounds and suffering from stress-induced psoriasis. My body was in severe survival mode. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t rest. All of my energy was consumed by simply trying to make it through the day.

Fast forward to now.

By reconnecting with the Divine Feminine and honoring our need as women for rest, cycle awareness, nutritious food, pleasure, creativity, and boundaries, my entire relationship with my body has changed.

In 2025, I quit smoking cannabis and completely immersed myself in my Empress EmbodimentTM practice, channeling the archetype’s message of self-love, discernment, creativity, fertility, and deep self-respect.

Learning what safety felt like, in relationship with myself and with others, allowed my body to soften out of survival mode.

My cycles became regular.

My hormones stabilized.

My body softened into itself in ways I hadn’t experienced before, enjoying curves I’ve never had before and feeling like a woman in ways I never have before too.

And my relationship with my womb has become a driving force behind my creative direction and life purpose.

I know my body is strong. When I decide to have children, I trust that it will be capable of growing healthy babies and carrying me through pregnancy and delivery. I work out my abs not just to feel confident and look good, but because strength will support me through labor, postpartum, and the many physical demands of motherhood.

My body is mine.

And it’s also exciting to know that one day it will help create a family with the man I love.

I must love it.

My breasts are not just meant to look attractive in a swimsuit; one day, they will nourish our children.

My hips are not just strong for exercise; one day, they will bounce a toddler to sleep.

My knees will bend down to tie tiny shoes, pick up and carry a sleepy baby to bed, and hold them in my arms.

Listening to my body allows me to live in my Empress energy: connected to my needs, honoring my desires, and trusting that I deserve both.

Even though I look and feel my healthiest, sexiest, and most womanly, I still receive strange comments, primarily from other women, about how my body isn’t “good enough.” Ironically, the criticism now is that I’m still “too skinny.”

That’s when it became clear to me that the issue was never really weight.

Women’s bodies have become public projects:

Too thin. Too curvy. Too muscular. Too soft. Too young-looking. Aging too quickly.

In a culture that profits from our insecurity, we have a responsibility to heal our own internalized misogyny and become aware of the projections we may unfairly place onto other women.