Hi friends! 

Anybody else have a really rough year?

No?

Good for you.

Mine has been particularly painful and whenever I get to that place, one thing that never fails to get me through is: books. At a certain point, I can’t “yoga it out” anymore and books/stories are there to help me make sense of the world by stepping into other people’s worlds. The titles I have chosen for this book club are favorites I have read through the years that explore an important topic: “loving yourself” versus “loving the way you look.” We’ll tackle girl bosses, models, actresses, comparison culture, clothes, money, makeup, just to name a few… I’m hoping this can be like a Sex and the City episode but instead of the main concern being boys, it’s our bodies.

The first book will be Emily Ratajowski’s memoir, “My Body”

First came MeToo, then Babygirl. It seems women want to be respected, but also, not too respected. EmRata is such a great symbol of this complexity: be sexy, but not too sexy. Her memoir is entertaining, easy to read, and challenges us to listen to someone known for their beauty to see them as someone, who too, has brains.

Particulars: we’ll meet in-person in Williamsburg for three Thursday nights

November 6, 7:30-9pm

November 13, 7:30-9pm

November 20, 7:30-9pm

Location: a wine bar, to be announced

Fee: just buy a drink please (non-alc options are available) ♡ This helps secure us a table. I’ll consolidate our orders into one bill, pay for the bill, then you can Venmo me your order amount after

Potential Qs

But Anika… I don’t really care about beauty or fashion

Even better, I say! Whether you consciously care about things like clothes or not, the reality is, you participate in fashion every day by getting dressed in the morning. Whether you wear makeup or not, you participate in the most basic form of beauty if you brush your teeth and wash your face in the morning. Whether we like it or not, we are subject to standards of fashion and beauty. Coco Chanel once said, “Beauty, what a weapon.” It is my personal mission to help you understand this weapon so you can wield it, not be enslaved by it.

Why this, why now? There are more pressing concerns out there

The most pressing concern, in my opinion is, discernment. Did you ever leave a workout class feeling like your best self, only to log into social media after and revert back to, “I’m not enough”? If you’re like me and love to workout, this is a complement to your regular workout session. Workouts target muscles like core, glutes, etc. This book club helps exercise DISCERNMENT MUSCLES to target comparison culture. Books are the key to exercising discernment as they allow space for us to hear our own thoughts and voices versus the internet’s.

What’s the format like?

Read, talk, listen. Each meeting will focus on unpacking specific book chapters. I’ll email out chapter instructions and the meeting location beforehand. If you can’t make it to one meeting, I’ll send out prompts for personal reflection. I am in the midst of exploring the best class structure, my hope is that your participation will help me get there: what resonated, what didn’t, how I can improve… After the last session, I ask that you fill out a feedback form.

This is not a public event yet, so if you’d like to bring someone along, please run it by me so I can plan for ample seating. 

Oh and can you tell me more about your background?

Glad you asked! This effort is an amalgamation of my 15 year career in publishing/branding/product development and my 10 year (combined) personal practice of dance/yoga/somatic intuition. And the most important qualifier is: I’m a woman. I’ve gone through the weeds of loving my body/hating my body, friendship break-ups, rejection, discovering make-up in my thirties… This piece of writing on my own body sums it up.