Me + Coffee
Hello! My name is Nancy Guerrera.
My last name, “Guerrera” means female warrior in Italian and, let me tell you, I have spent a lot of time in my life fighting the wrong battles. Mostly they were against me and my body and in the name of conformity to dominant culture’s norms and mythologies.
Everyday Daredevil is a moniker I began using several years ago to encourage myself toward risk in my everyday challenges being a woman in a fat body in a world that abhors fat women. Each day I wake up and make art, value my voice, and love and advocate for myself as a fat person I’m resisting harmful patriarchal norms and that makes me (and you) an Everyday Daredevil.
It was over a year and a half ago when I turned 50 that I reclaimed the identity of artist (you can view my artwork here: nancyguerrera.com). I’m wildly intuitive, a dog lover, a solid air guitarist who’s willing to play air keys or air drums if the band needs it. I love color and texture and design. I like working with my hands. I’m an aesthete. Perimenopause is kicking my butt lately with all the changes it brings. I’m both gregarious and introverted (or maybe just that’s being an INFJ?). I have a lot more questions than answers these days. This get more true as I get older.
self-portrait, mixed media 2020
These days I embrace fat as part of my identity. fat People are damn talented and creative whether that was mirrored back to us or not. I think we’re here to rock the world. I didn’t always believe that.
My first official diet began when I was 8 years old but I “knew” there was something wrong with my chubby body since as long as I have memory because I was taught that in myriad ways. Throughout my life I was a chronic dieter. I struggled with eating disorders that were not recognized, cyclical depression, anxiety and, because no one around me countered the notion of thin supremacy or thin as the “normal” body, I also deeply believed the standard harmful garbage ideology served up that if I could just lose the weight and keep it off, my life would really begin (that later morphed into falling for healthist garbage rhetoric).
Because dieting teaches us not to inhabit or trust ourselves (along with other oppressive authoritarian systems and some family-of-origin stuff) I was always searching outside for what I was meant to be and waiting for someone to tell me. I was a chronic people pleaser and all of my satellite dishes were turned outward trying to figure out who I needed to be in order to get the love.
Growing up in this paradigm, I didn’t exactly develop a strong Self and always felt like an alien figuring out how to be a human. I became a “wanderer” looking high and low for where I fit in. I’ve lived in a number of cities, had a number of different jobs, attended lots of training programs and have gotten lots of certifications….
Having difficulty figuring out what I wanted to do and all the dieting are intimately related. It’s not just the ways that dieting forces self abandonment it’s also because fat women don’t get much positive mirroring from dominant culture.
I grew up wanting to be and do the things I saw thin (“normal”) women doing like dancing, making art, playing music, singing on stage, designing clothes, roller skating, acting and so much more but all around me people and society made it clear that those things weren’t for me - unless I could get small.
It seemed everywhere I looked, thin women were the only women I saw doing things that were considered valuable or commendable. When I looked out in the world, I didn’t see my fat self celebrated anywhere so I desperately tried to make my body small and wondered what I “should” do or “could” have and trying to make myself happy with that.
Fast forward: In 2017, I stopped dieting and trying to control my weight after spending a metric sh*t ton of money on a coaching program to “finally end my issues with eating once and for all”. It’s high control & restrictive “protocol” turned into the last eating disorder I am ever going to suffer from. I developed serious health issues from this “healthy lifestyle” and almost didn’t survive it.
Post-dieting, a different kind of work began. I had to figure out how to undo my own attachments to thinness as superior, relate to my appetite, food, eating, movement and exercise outside of weight loss, let go of others opinions about my body, figure out how to live on the receiving end of weight stigma, build the Self and coping skills I needed to create a sense of home in myself, learn to accept my body at whatever size it wanted to be and so much more. I’m a work in progress.
With education and support from a wonderful HAES aligned therapist; anti-diet coaches (Isabel Foxen Duke & Christy Harrison), nutritionist Glenys Oyston of Dare Not to Diet, Feminist teachers/scholars, many fat positive “influencers”, activists, writers, I began to build the self-esteem I could never create while I was still dieting and thinking that my body size was wrong. AND living as a fat person means having to navigate nonconsensual weight stigma daily - which isn’t always easy.
(*I’m also protected by many systemic privileges that make my life easier to navigate as a fat person too, please read my values page which speaks more about that.)
As I broke up with dieting and began healing my relationship to my body, my headspace slowly became clearer. I wasn’t spending time or energy trying to control my weight which meant I had more energy to do things that meant more to me. I tiptoed back to gently pick up and embrace so many parts of me that I had left along the roadside - things that young fat girl wanted to do and try and be.
Without all the dieting I realized just how hugnry I was for creativity and art!
It was and sometimes still is scary to let myself embrace that hunger! This is Everyday Daredevil work because it does take courage to be with the fears that fatness in a fat stigmatizing culture brings. It’s not just about giving yourself permission to create, or be visible it’s about doing everything while fat. That can change a lot of things about how you’re seen and treated. Fat positive friends and community and all kinds of supports are key.
When I picked up my lost art school dreams and began giving myself permission to make art and find my artist’s voice again, I found myself a home and that art supported me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I realized Art WAS my place and where I belonged. I often say art is home for your wholeness or art is a home for your whole self because you can show up any way you are with anything you have going on and your page won’t judge you.
Your canvas (or other chosen medium) is always willing to hold anything you want to express and share from your most painful moments to your wildest joys and scariest curiosities. Your art practice can be a place to be seen and held and to work through and discover so much about yourself. This is especially critical if people haven’t been a place of trust. It can be all for you! It doesn’t have to be a career move or turn into products to sell.
Art can be a space for you to explore and test things out and be “not good” - to challenge perfectionism and needing to create results. It has helped me grow in self trust and self love and it’s my most cherished relationship. It is both a resource for me and a connection to source. And, if you’ve read this far. I’m wondering if art may be what you’re hungering for too?
Fat women’s voices matter. Fat women’s dreams, desires, hungers, thirsts, intuition, urges, drives, joys, natural rhythms - all of these things matter. Life is both too long and too short not to do what brings you alive.