I'M BACK ON MY FEET! (like, literally!) #eatingdisorderawarenessweek

I want to dedicate this post the the #eatingdisorderawarenessweek because there is so much involved here.

As those of you who follow me already know, I am what you'd call a "late bloomer" -but this is not due to a late discovery of my passion for dancing. It's because of pressure, wrong body standards and lots of mistakes along the way. At the age most little girls start wearing those cute ballet slippers, I was told I didn't have the "right body", that I was too big, that my legs were not enough of this but too much of that. And I believed that. I wasn't just right for that. And that was it. And as we people are basically made of clay, I spent the test if my life shaping my entire self around this thought. That means, not only the idea of getting close to a ballet studio scared me to death, but I perceived my body as a ste of wrongs that were keeping me from so many things. This, on top of the regular pressure of beauty standards and, lately, of acting beauty standards. Now, it took me a lifetime to realize it, and i hope, I really do hope this little words of mine will get to your heart. Don't. Don't do this to you. Don't become the person other people see in you instead of the person you want to be. Because, with very few exceptions, that person they want you to be has so, so less potential than you do have. Don't shape yourself into a lesser version of who you want to be. And if you fail along the the way, it's fine, but you will still be so much more thank the crunched, squeezed, version of yourself they showed you. Now, speaking of the exceptions. I have had a little tough minute with my first pointe shoes, so much that I started circling back to the "I'm not right for this" thing. I am big girl, maybe I'm just too heavy? Then Joan Liu - dance and wellness looked at me and with her sweet smile and and iron eyes told me "I don't allow any of my students to say that". So I stopped saying it to myself. AND TODAY I WALKED AND EVEN HIGH-FIVED HER WHILE STANDING ON POINTE ON MY OWN! Stand on your two feet everyone out there. It's so much better from up here. Thank you always Andrea Galatà for being one of the exceptional exceptions. Love you all, #agirlfromtheislandinnewyork