Rewrite Beautiful has inspired, supported, and encouraged me throughout my recovery from a deadly eating disorder. I have become a more confident, positive, and resilient person throughout working with Rewrite Beautiful. If there had been something like this when I was in high school or a little girl, I could have prevented years of struggle, depression, and destructive behavior. I am able to find peers to relate to, whom share their recovery with me and enable me to grow. This has changed my life and impacted my life in such a positive way. I love Rewrite Beautiful and everything it stands for. Beauty comes from within and living in our society, it is easy to forget how being kind, creative, and strong should be what we strive to be!
Rewrite Beautiful is an amazing organization that wants to help girls change the way they see beauty in themselves by focusing on strength, kindness, and creativity. It is a beautiful way to help girls fight eating disorders and find value in themselves that exceeds their looks and bodies. By showing girls that beauty coms from within and from your actions, they can hopefully see how unique and inspiring they all can be because they all have a story that could teach us something different. I was inspired by the way the team wanted to focus on everything beautiful about people aside from how they looked, and this truly made me happy and hopeful for generations to come. Ambition, persistence, and achievement do not come from how pretty and thin you are, it comes from the strength and creativity you have inside, and this is what rewriting beautiful is all about.
Rewrite Beautiful is an amazing nonprofit that utilizes a ground breaking approach to educate youth about eating disorders and inspires all those involved to rewrite their own definition of beauty through the creation and sharing of street art. I am extremely fortunate to be a part of their amazing mission to prevent eating disorders and help those who are suffering to find the true beauty in themselves. Every time I attend or am involved with one of their amazing workshops I feel incredibly inspired and know that the work we are doing is helping to reshape the definition of beauty for the youth of America. It is also my hope that in these workshops we are helping to prevent the development of an eating disorder by talking about what eating disorders are and how they can help those that might be suffering.
I am in recovery for an eating disorder that began when I was 17 years old. Teenagers and children face so many more challenges and pressures than I ever did at their age and I can only imagine how difficult it must be to grow up in today's America without turning to some type of self destructive behavior such as an eating disorder. Rewrite Beautiful dares to remove the social stigma of eating disorders at their workshops by getting all those who attend to look at the beauty in themselves in a completely different way while also educating them about eating disorders. The participants of their workshops are free to talk about their fears and insecurities as well as ask questions about eating disorders which will help to bring awareness and remove the social stigma that eating disorders have attached to them.
If I can prevent only one person from developing and suffering from an eating disorder then I have not suffered in vain. It is through Rewrite Beautiful that I know I can do this. We are saving lives and helping America's youth develop a new sense of self love and respect.
Rewrite beautiful is an organization that is near and dear to my heart. From a personal level my involvement is that of inspired friend, and colleague. As an advocate my role is that of speaker, and contributor (when my schedule allows). And, most importantly, as a woman my role is that of honored and humbled onlooker and supporter.
Why has it taken so long for something like this to exist? Well the answer is really quite loaded and not simple at all; it takes a woman who reads between the lines and can write the words that should have been there, a natural born leader who is also a generous human and revolutionary thinker. A woman with fire and passion and just enough anger to put her foot down to create a better tomorrow. It takes a level of selflessness and acceptance of the "unknown" and a continual series of leaping in to the abyss of faith...And that's what rewrite is!
Rewrite beautiful is a stand, an action, a campaign! A redefinition of all that some know and an education for those who are in the dark altogether. Rewrite Beautiful is an inspiration to me and gives me hope that the women who follow in our collective footsteps will not be blindly lead in to understanding the idea of "beauty" in only one way, when the experience can be redefined and individual.
Irvina and the whole rewrite crew make me proud to be a woman, proud of my past - the darkness and all of the light that shines in it's contrast. It's a revolutionary approach to creating a world that is better for all and the team are visionaries and a perfect blend of grace &pizazz! I have been honored to be invited along for some of rewrite's events as an artist and speaker and what I can tell is that anything I have "given" was quickly outshined by what I have received! Rewrite is the way to a brighter future for so many so GET INVOLVED!!!!
Katie Rose Wingert