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29 September 2011 ~ 10 Comments

Pin Positivity

Eating Disorders motivation

I love Pinterest!  I think it’s a lot of fun to “pin” ideas that I find inspiring without having to necessarily accumulate all the clutter of actual paper.  It’s convinced me that I could possibly build some of my own furniture (or… uh, make my husband build it, “It will be soooooo easy, just get to work while I go run!”) and helped me realized that I have no way of defining anything I like as a specific “style.”

I have created a board for things that inspire me:

Source: wordboner.com via Jill on Pinterest

I have created a board for things that promote positive body image:

But there are times things I see on there make me a little sad.  I follow a lot of people that post inspiring things, which is NOT what makes me sad.  What makes me sad is the postings with such negative messages.  People create whole boards about “Clothes I Would Wear if I was Skinny” or “If I Had Good Hair” or “I’ll Never Have This.” There are boards that are meant to be “inspiring” about fitness and health, but the messages are so negative in nature it really makes me wonder why our society is so messed up to think these are truly inspiring things.

I realize that I’m extra sensitive to these messages, having battled an eating disorder and still trying to not let those thoughts rule my mind.  But the whole world is messed up; we’re demonizing inanimate things, assigning moral values to items that truly have no reason or need to have those types of connotations and we’re doing it all under the guise of inspiration and motivation.

I make no claims in knowing how to fix it, but what I can do is voice my opinion and try to educate others that some of these messages aren’t particularly healthy.

But to leave this on a lighter note, I do like that Pinterest can make me laugh.

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bethany actually

I have not gotten into Pinterest, but I can see why others like it. And it's been sending my blog thousands of hits a month because someone somewhere pinned my homemade vanilla post and it keeps getting repinned, so I certainly don't have anything bad to say about that! ;-) But yeah, I hear you on wishing others would understand what kinds of messages they're reinforcing with the body hate. Even if they're not judging others, they're judging their own value based on their appearance, which is kinda messed up. (Do you read Dances With Fat? Love her.)

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Lindsay

Well a lot of the fashionable things I've seen on there are $$$, so I don't see anything wrong with the can't-afford boards. I deny that small detail and pin $2200 cashmere vests anyway. Haha. Yeah I'd never pay that! But you are right about the skinny boards. There are some good pins though -- a young girl on a scale and "don't let her grow up thinking it has to be this way" and such. I did make a "pinterest makes me fat" board... But it has all junk food on it. I swear I browse pinterest and I just want to eat delicious baked goods! Lol That last pic is spot on. We have been soo creative this week! :)

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Jill

Okay, I agree with you about pinning things that are kind of "dream on" type things, but at least it's not a board themed under "I'll never afford these cause I suck" kind of title! And your "pinterest makes me fat" one is done in humor, so I can let that slide too... because I hear you, there are some crazy tempting looking desserts on there! I just rely on you to be creative, sometimes I have to really reign myself in so I don't just repin every home post you do! ;-) I almost put that in this post... that I just let Lindsay be creative for me!

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Susie

I love Pinterest! I luckily have not seen any negative pins, but feel sorry for the people that would deem that kind of stuff pin-worthy.

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Jill

I'm glad you haven't seen those... It is a lot of effort to put time into pinning stuff that is not really pin-worthy in the first place!

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cognitive dissident

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is less-than-inspired by some of the negative "inspirational" pins. To me, running is about having fun--not being worried about how many calories are being burned. (If anyone is interested, I have a running board at Pinterest...)

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Jill

Following you! And I agree... if that's your sole focus when it comes to running, it won't stick with you!

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Joey

Great post!!! It is really sad how much negativity we allow ourselves to fill our minds with and tell ourselves that it is motivation. I think I'm going to collect my favorite positive motivational/inspirational quotes and put them around my house and on my mirrors. Never hurts to be reminded several times per day! :)

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Jill

I like having positive messages/quotes around the house. You can even write on your mirror with a dry-erase marker and change up the quotes!

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Trackbacks

  1. Power Pillowcase Giveaway | Jill Will Run says:
    September 30, 2011 at 7:03 am

    [...] want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates.Powered by WP Greet Box WordPress PluginIn light of yesterday’s post that prominently featured Pinterest, I’m going to giveaway something that I found and pinned [...]