The Little Book of Body Confidence by Judi Craddock is a body image wisdom manual. The subtitle, “52 ways to feel good in your body,” captures the layout of the book — 52 concise and clear messages that can be read and absorbed one at a time, possibly one per week for a year.
As Craddock puts it, “Whatever you verbalise, you internalise, meaning that what you say repeatedly becomes part of your belief system. If you keep saying unkind things about your body, you’ll negatively impact your body confidence.” The Little Book of Body Confidence offers an opportunity to replace negative and false belief systems with encouraging truths about our value as humans. I highly recommend this book.
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image, intuitive eating, and spiritual living. Body is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sandpiper Books. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter. Instagram: @seanmcoons.
From The Burden of Better: “High self-esteem and low self-esteem are two sides of the same pride coin. Comparison isn’t a result of low self-esteem; it’s a shallow understanding of grace.” Heather Creekmore has produced a book that is packed with profound insights about the nature of comparison and the path to freedom. If you enjoyed her prior book, Compared to Who?, you’ll love this new book, which has the same relatable approach, offering touching and often hilarious real-life stories that shed light on the topic. Heather is open about her own journey in a way that helps you learn how to draw important lessons from daily living.
The message of the book is more timely than ever, with media (and especially social media) constantly bombarding us with a false vision of who we should be. Heather cuts through the noise and offers the truth, providing a guide for contemplation and action the reader can follow to experience the full power of the Gospel.
If you want to learn “How a Comparison-Free Life Leads to Joy, Peace, and Rest,” read The Burden of Better by Heather Creekmore.
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image, intuitive eating, and spiritual living. Body is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sandpiper Books. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter. Instagram: @seanmcoons.
A long time ago in a bizarre land far, far away called Hollywood, I played bass in a band called Santí — Latin rock with a blend of Spanish and English lyrics. The band was fronted by actor-turned-singer Santiago Douglas (a.k.a. Santí). Santí got us a lot of fun gigs in LA nightclubs and a couple on television. He even landed one of our tunes in a movie, Freezerburn. I don’t know if the movie was good (pretty sure it wasn’t) — Santi and I skipped out of the premiere after about a half-hour, but we stayed long enough to hear the tune, which was playing on a transistor radio in a scene taking place in a short-order kitchen. Now that’s what I call making it to the big time!
Patrick Butler
To prepare for my participation in this band, my musical mentor, jazz/rock/funk/Celtic guitarist Patrick Butler, led me through a crash course in Latin folk music. I learned some of the basic chord structures and scales, and Butler took me on a field trip to see legendary conguero and bandleader Pancho Sanchez perform.
During this time, I composed three songs with the hope of getting my goods onto the Santí setlist. I did not succeed in this grande goal, but one of these tunes, which had the working title “El Canción,” always seemed to have potential to me. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) thought the main Gypsy Kingesque lick was pretty slick and I liked the lyrics. A mere sixteen or seventeen years after I composed the initial version of the song, I brought the tune to my band, The Möbius Trip, and we knocked it out, complete with the new title, “El Velo.” I made the controversial decision to sing lead on this one. We could have gone with Aaron Baker, the band’s vocally gifted singer, but I thought it was finally time to dazzle the world with my .75 octave range. Aaron generously sang harmony, adding the multidimensional mellifluicity our fans have come to expect over the years.
I have written before about a powerful musical portal called the Space Station. It has been described, by me, as a “euphoria factory” producing “psychedelic, frenetic, angelic exhalations.” As you might remember, Butler loaned this pedal to me years ago. I supposedly “abused” said pedal while it was in my custody — so much so that the expression pedal produced an irritating squeak whenever it was depressed. Well, as destiny would have it, Butler’s abused Space Station is now my Space Station, squeaks and all. The first thing I did when we were reunited was lay down a couple tracks on “El Velo.”
. . .
In the early 1980s, music fans hungered for a video from rock legends Van Halen. Finally, the band released its first offering for the MTV generation with “Jump.” Fans were not disappointed. The Möbius Trip found itself in exactly the same situation and decided we need to join the modern times (of the 1980s at least). (Yes, I am comparing us to Van Halen. Tune in next week when I’ll be comparing us to The Beatles.) For this momentous creation, we called in our children to co-star in the video and enlisted Aaron’s wife, and my friend, Noel, to be our cinematographer.
So, here she is, folks. We hope you enjoy “El Velo.”
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image, intuitive eating, and spiritual living. Body is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sandpiper Books. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter. Instagram: @seanmcoons.
A huge thank you to The Christian Post and Tom Freiling for inviting me to contribute a chapter to their new book, The Right to Believe: The New Struggle for Religious Liberty in America. I packed my chapter, “Sheep in the Midst of Wolves,” with extra helpings of sass. Let me know what you think. The Right to Believe is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other places books are sold.
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image, intuitive eating, and spiritual living. Body is available for purchase at Sandpiper Books, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter. Instagram: @seanmcoons.
I’m honored to partner with Mirror-Mirror Eating Disorders to produce the story “Living in a Room Full of Mirrors,” an article exploring cultural dysfunction related to #BodyImage and #EatingDisorders.
Read the full story here:
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image, intuitive eating, and spiritual living. Body is available for purchase on Amazon, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter. Instagram: @seanmcoons.
I had a great time speaking recently to Heather Creekmore on her podcast, Compared to Who? Heather is author of Compared to Who?, an excellent book exploring body image and comparison issues of all sorts.
My recent appearance on Heather Creekmore’s Compared to Who? podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts. We discuss the intersection of body image and faith as well as my new book, Body.
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image and intuitive eating. Body is available for purchase on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter.
I was honored recently to sit down with Michael Hixon, arts and entertainment writer for The Beach Reporter, to discuss my new book, Body, or How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight. Read the full story, “Body image focus of Redondo Beach author’s first novel,” here.
#bodyimage #intuitiveeating
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image and intuitive eating. Body is available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter.
I’ve been reading The Christian Post for years, so I’m especially thrilled they published my story today. Titled “Diets Are #FakeNews,” this story offers some thoughts about how the weight loss/entertainment complex impacts body image and mental health, as well as a prescription to reset your body image.
Sean Coons is the author of Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, a faith-based comedy exploring body image and intuitive eating. Body is available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. SeanCoons.com. Twitter: @seancoons. Facebook: @seancoonswriter.
Today is the day. My novel, Body: or, How Hope Confronts Her Shadow and Calls the Flutter Girl to Flight, is published.
Purchase body from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, my publisher Black Rose Writing, or at our official book release at Sandpiper Books in Torrance this Saturday, November 23rd.
I am overjoyed to have the privilege of sharing this book with readers. May you be entertained by the story and inspired by its ideas.
If you read Body and enjoy it, please help it be successful by writing a review anywhere it is sold as well as spreading the word to your social media network.
Thank you to all who have helped to bring this project to life!
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Body is an inspirational-fiction comedy exploring body image and intuitive eating.
Hope is deep into the journey of the hero–she just doesn’t know it yet. She loves her family, HATES her body, and fools herself into thinking all will turn out well in the end–that is until her latest attempt at a crash diet unleashes mayhem in her life. Enter Joy, a quirky spiritual mentor driven by a mysterious past. She offers not an elixir of man, but Truth from above–ancient secrets revealed in steps leading back to the ultimate source of identity Hope so desperately needs to achieve harmony between her body and mind.
A movement is coalescing in reaction against the unrealistic body image promoted by the entertainment and weight loss industries. Figures such as Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, and Taryn Brumfitt (Body Image Movement) are garnering mass media attention exposing body-shaming as a cultural toxin–one that is leading to eating disorders and other mental illnesses for younger and younger people. Body takes this message one step further by offering a path to reset body image and establish a body-respecting approach to diet and exercise. Body is a humorous novel, but it is also a self-help guide: By learning from the three women in this story–one in her teens, one in her mid-thirties, and one in her mid-fifties–readers can see themselves, explore their relationships with their bodies, and begin their own journeys to healthy eating and body image by following the seven principles laid out in the story.
Read this book, and you will never see your body the same again.
#bodyimage #intuitiveeating
Sean Coons is an award-winning novelist and musician. Learn more about Sean’s writing and music on his About page.