This past weekend, I was in South Beach, Miami attending
Mama Gena’s Worldwide Sister Goddess Weekend. I felt like I was magnetically pulled there. I somehow found myself on Mama Gena’s website back in July and saw the blurb about the weekend. I clicked the link and signed up without a moment’s hesitation – not knowing really anything about it nor anyone who would be there.
I drove across Florida with butterflies in my stomach, feeling this intense resistance going on inside of me – knowing that I had been divinely called here and feeling so much fear at the exact same time.
I have never experienced anything like it before in my life. Hundreds of bold, sexy, adventurous, outrageous women all committed to living a life unleashed and out loud. These chicks – young and old, tall and short, thin and chubby – every one of them totally owned their bodies, beauty and sexuality like no other woman I’ve ever met.
At the close of Saturday morning’s session, there was a catwalk exercise and each of us had to strut our stuff down the aisle with no other purpose but to use all we’ve got to turn on all the other women who flanked the runway. The energy in the room was electric and there were a handful of women who rocked that runway topless!!!
Turned on?? Um. Yeah. Transfixed and quite honestly, jealous as hell. There was a part of me that was thinking “who the hell do they think they are?” But there was the other, bigger part of me that thought they were the bravest broads I had ever met. The thing of it is… not one of them had “the perfect breasts” as deemed ultimate by the standards set forth by our culture (and the porn industry). But every single one of those women, owned the beauty of their own breasts.
We left that session with an assignment to go to the beach and write our desires into the sand. That afternoon, while walking to the beach with two other “sister goddesses,” the skies opened up and it started not just raining – it was freaking pouring! I wanted to turn around and run back to my hotel, but Sister Goddess Jessie took charge and said “It’s only water and we’re already wet. We’re doing this!” Yikes! We carried on with our mission and kept on going, as if we were being called to the ocean’s edge by a force of nature.
Hunched over in the rain, we each scribbled our wishes into the wet sand and no sooner had I written one, when a wave would come along and take it out to God. The very last desire that I wrote was ‘To have the courage to go topless someday.”
All my life I’ve been ashamed of my tiny tits and have been taunted and teased about the size of my breasts since the moment they started to develop. It’s as if they started and then suddenly stopped and forgot to keep going! They’ve been called mosquito bites, while others suggested that all I really needed were 2 little round band-aids, or maybe just a little Clearasil to take care of my “pimples.” Once in Junior High School, a boy, ensconced in the protection of a group of guys all huddled near their lockers, called me a
Carpenter’s Dream as I walked down the hall. I found out later that it means –
flat as a board and easy to screw!
But it wasn’t just mean kids that made fun of me. When I was 15 years old, my mother was taking us out to dinner and I came downstairs wearing a dress and feeling rather fancy. My mother took one look at me and said, “Can’t you stuff? I don’t want to be seen with a flat-chested daughter.” Then, to add insult to injury, she rolled her eyes and acted all annoyed with me because
I couldn’t take a joke! She died the year after that, long before I had found my voice and the courage to tell her how much that hurt.
How on Earth was any guy gonna love me, if my own mother didn’t think I was good enough? I had been programmed to be ashamed of my own body and the full meaning of Carpenter’s Dream eventually manifested in my behavior with boys. Because I was “flat as a board,” I didn’t want guys to feel me up, so I would push their hands lower and thus gained the reputation of being “easy to screw,” which only added to my shame.
So being with with hundreds of women who unabashedly loved themselves and flaunted their bodies both ignited a hidden longing within me to do the same, and simultaneously touched upon a deep grief and sadness for all the years that I hadn’t loved myself and my own body.
Seconds after I wrote that last bold desire in the sand, to “someday” go topless, and the next wave grabbed it and offered it to the Universe, Sister Goddess Jessie, totally unaware of what I just wrote, turned to me and said “Will you hold my stuff? I think I’m gonna jump in the ocean topless!” She handed me her hat, necklace, sunglasses and then her bikini top, then turned and plunged into the water.
There I stood, feeling like a butler, holding all her shit, while she was baring her beautiful breasts, bouncing and bounding into the sea. I thought to myself,
What the f^&% is wrong with this picture? Are you gonna just stand there and watch someone else do what you just said you wanted to do “someday?”
When Jessie waded out of the water, I plunked all her stuff into her arms and said, “Now it’s my turn!” I had on a one piece bathing suit and wasn’t anywhere near ready to go totally commando, so I pulled my top down around my waist. For the first time in my life, I didn’t cower, but turned to both women and let them look at me. I realize that for some, this might seem rather insignificant, being that the beach was totally deserted due to the rain. I mean it’s not like I strutted my stuff down a crowded beach. But to me, this was one of the scariest and bravest things I have ever done.
Sister Goddess Glenda gasped and said “Oh my God. They’re beautiful. What have you been hiding them for girl?” I smiled, turned and dove in head first into the ocean!
When I came out of the water, both of my new sisters applauded me and I squealed with delight and felt a new sense of freedom. Then Glenda said, “Well, shit. I’m not gonna be the only one who didn’t go for it!.” And then added, “But I’ve always hated my boobs. They’re just so big.” She too was wearing a one piece bathing suit, and as she peeled down her top, it was my turn to gasp. They were big, black and beautiful! She was baring her breasts and we were bearing witness and honoring each other – exactly the way we are.
Not one of us had “the perfect breasts” but everything about that moment was perfect.
When I came home from this magical weekend, I knew I had to write about this experience. Yet, as the week waned and the energy of the weekend began to dwindle, I felt myself retreating back into my self-imposed restrictions. I’ve had teachers and guidance counselors complain about me saying the words “boobs & tits” on stage. What kind of reaction would I get from an article like this?
And then this morning, while journaling and writing about my hesitation, I asked for clarity and guidance and this is what came through me:
Oftentimes the only way to affect change within the safety constructs of a culture, is to shake the foundation. It takes a bold gesture to cause others to question the restrictions that they have bought into, without ever really looking at them. Before you came into this human form, while you were still in spirit – you said “YES” to being one of the ones who would boldly do the shaking.
So you stand in a place of awareness today – seeing clearly for the very first time, how you unconsciously accepted and acquiesced to the limitations of society’s standards and the opinion of others. Without being aware of it, you placed yourself in a confined space of acceptability.
As you boldly step forth into this new realm of liberation and freedom – the vibrational shock waves will be felt and will be the very thing that begins to awaken others from their own unconscious acceptability and conformity.
I’m not suggesting that we all whip off our tops and strut around naked, nor do I have a desire to join a commune or go topless all the time now. But what I am suggesting is that we all become more aware of the conditioning that has been placed upon us by others and from our society that tells us we need to look a certain way in order to be good enough.
Consider this:
The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) publishes annual cosmetic surgery statistics from the year before. In 2012, 0ver 330,000 women underwent this procedure and breast augmentation is the most popular cosmetic surgery in the United States.
and…
- Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers.
- About 1 in 8 (12%) women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime.
- The American Cancer Society’s estimates for breast cancer in the United States for 2013 are:
- About 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women.
- About 64,640 new cases of carcinoma in situ (CIS) will be diagnosed (CIS is non-invasive and is the earliest form of breast cancer).
- About 39,620 women will die from breast cancer
Do you think maybe there’s a connection between hating our own breasts and the manifestation of an epidemic disease that targets and destroys that which we hate? I wish I had written this article in October (being Breast Cancer Awareness Month), but even more so, I wish I had learned how to love my breasts a lot sooner.
Imagine a world where women loved and honored themselves and their bodies – just the way they are.
Imagine a world where women stopped looking at their bodies as fixer-upper real-estate and spent more time cultivating their inner power.
Imagine a world where women could bare witness to the perfection and beauty in each other. To gasp in wonder and exclaim to her sister goddess, “Oh my God! They’re beautiful. Why have you been hiding them girl?”
Imagine a world where we wouldn’t censor, criticize and chastise each other for owning our beauty or for saying words like “boobs, jugs, hooters and tits.”
Imagine a world where “the quest for the perfect breasts” begins and ends by looking in the mirror and saying “YES! This is me… perfectly imperfect… I am enough… and I AM MAGNIFICENT!”
So what about you? Have you ever been teased about your body or shamed for being you? What’s your boob story? Share it with your sisters in the comments below and let her know she’s not alone. Be the bold and brave one who was sent here to shake the foundation of of our society’s standards of beauty.
