Leaping Fearlessly

Disclaimer: When I set up my blog, it was this post I wanted to write, these thoughts and many more that led me to think about "Leaping Fearlessly" into my own life.

Most of the women I know have an entrenched love-hate relationship with not just their bodies, but with their very selves.

The "love-hate" phrase is such a cliché, though it's useful here. We who hate our skin, hair, waistline and thighs as well as endless aspects of our own personalities usually take at least minimal loving action toward ourselves. We brush our hair until it falls the way it should, we cover the gray and we buy the clothes we think are most attractive if yet still comfortable. We take enough care (love) to go to the doctor, even if we don't always make healthful choices, and we wear our seatbelts.

The hate portion of this equation is entirely too often so much stronger, and though I've spent the last year refutting these lies (for that is what they are) of ugliness and unworthiness in my own life, those lies have only receded just a bit. We can blame the media, blame society, blame our own mothers, but when we become adults we are capable and must at some point make a decision to believe differently. Make that decision to live in unworthiness, self-loathing and bitterness, or decide to embrace that which you could be, who you already are.

On an airplane last July, I read an article in a "mature women's" magazine and had a bit of an epiphany. Photography speaks to me, and I dabble in it myself, and as I read and looked at this photo essay, I began to think of my personal "hates" and ways to be more loving to myself. Those ways are still taking shape. It's a bumpy road, but I vow to continue forward, not retreat.
I link this a great deal to the spiritual growth in my life, as well as the many personal changes I've endured in my life, but those are other entries for another day.

I decided shortly after my trip to do what the women in the photo essay did: pose as a classic nude, even semi-nude. The women in the photo essay did so for a number of reasons. They had all experienced something life-changing and were asked to participate in the photo shoot and to write about how their lives and the experience of doing the shoot changed them. Breast cancer and dramatic weight change are two of the examples. While I have never experienced anything quite so dramatic, I have experienced my own life and found this a beautiful way to express love, strength, and a unique venue to speak to other women, the way it spoke to me. We ARE all beautiful and strong.

When I was thinking about the reasons I would do this, I thought about some of the things that have been said to me over the years, the ways in which it's been pointed out to me that I do have a story, that I have done things that count. Things I've pushed aside, that I am learning to hold as true. I've had four pregnancies, including one miscarriage, one traumatic birth experience and two nine pound babies. Between my three children, I've breastfed for one year. I've been a wife for nearly 20 years, a wife to a soldier in Iraq. Five years ago I had a hysterectomy (a liberating, non-cancer related event). I am legally blind in both eyes, although this is corrected by glasses. There are more, but for now I'll adress the physical, the see-able stretch marks of my life.

I have not yet found a photographer. Honestly, I've only found the courage to ask one and that arrangement fell through. Whatever your reasons, or plans, it is a leap of faith to appear nude before someone, and no less with a device to record your image. This leap requires trust, and not a little privacy.

Certainly not every woman will choose this avenue to speak of her strength or beauty. Not every woman will speak out, or act out. I'd like to believe that this act of mine will speak to my daughters, perhaps to one reader, to embrace herself with love. Will you?