The more I connect to the purity which I can feel inside my body, the more I feel the delicateness and loveliness I know is naturally me.
And the more I connect to this feeling, the more ‘stuff’ I’ve taken on that’s not delicate or lovely starts to pop up its hard and ugly head offering me a choice to make – do I want to hold on to these perceptions and ideas I’ve taken on about myself that push me down and ‘curse’ me as it were, so that I never truly claim how delicate I actually am? OR… do I make the choice to feel those ugly bits without numbing myself or going into protection and hardening (not always easy!), and feeling instead how much they hurt to hold on to – so that gently and firmly, I am able to claim that all this does not belong in me and to my way of being?
One of these false ideas which has plagued me ever since I was twelve years old is the notion that ‘I have unattractive hair on my body’ and that therefore my body in its natural state is not worthy of being loved. The irony is that I was never actually ‘very hairy’, but back then I chose to believe I was….
At this same age I had just moved with my family from Greece to a new country where my looks were darker and different to many of the other children. I was just starting high school. Physically, in many ways I was well developed – being very tall for my age and I had already started my period; my breasts had also developed and yet I still was (and felt) very much a little girl, wanting to play. Hair had started growing on my legs and underarms but it wasn’t something I paid attention to. I was still very much in that lovely innocent space where I felt there was so much joy in simply being a child.
But when I started my new school I got teased because I looked and behaved differently. Other girls my age would talk about boys a lot and how they were having sex. I didn’t know how to relate to them even though I was longing to make some friendships and fit in. Very quickly I started to stand out and got picked on for being different. One of the things I got teased about was for having ‘hairy legs’. It absolutely devastated me, shattering the exquisite innocence I was living naturally with until that point. I remember going home and shutting myself up in the bathroom with a razor and shaving off all the hair from my legs, never wanting to have that horrible experience of being teased for ‘being hairy’ again!
That was my first hair-removing experience. It was enveloped in a sense of ‘disgust’ for myself and a sense of ‘failure’ with the belief that if I didn’t get rid of ‘this hair’ I had no chance of being liked; no chance of being truly loved.
As I grew older this ill belief stayed with me and I would inspect my body relentlessly, feeling miserable when I would see hair starting to grow on my legs. I would go to great lengths to make sure I was ‘sufficiently hairless’ before going out on a date or to a party, carefully timing waxing appointments all around various events. I was terrified of being with a man and being ‘sprung’….
Over the last couple of years I have been attending the Esoteric Women’s Presentations and so much about Body Image and women’s false ideals about themselves has been discussed. The presentations would always inspire me to reconnect again to that child-like, playful innocence from when I was little and felt so precious and so beautiful from the inside. But I could never hold on to this exquisite connection because all around me, and in my life, were so many ideas, ideals and beliefs that I’d chosen to take on and cement myself with – that my body in its natural state was ‘not attractive enough’.
Holding on to this perception of not feeling good and pretty enough created a toughness and a shutting down from not allowing that natural sweet innocence to be. I created a thick hard wall around myself so that I could no longer access the sweetness I once knew so well and easily as a child. That’s what can often happen to us as women when we buy into the ‘ideal’ of what we have to look like in order to be desirable, attractive or beautiful, and ‘worthy’ of being loved. We look up to this idealised or created picture of our ‘perfect woman’; a picture that isn’t real and so we set ourselves up for almost permanent failure. We can never be good enough. And with adding further false pictures and ideals we keep building this wall around the once innocent sweetness that’s naturally inside us.
Because how can we let the natural beauty that is inside come out when we are holding on to the belief that we are not enough as we are – or not as good as the picture we stack ourselves up against, compare and compete with? I couldn’t. Instead I shut myself down, often withdrawing and being critical of myself, and of others. Instead of exuding a lovely, natural innocence, I would approach the world with resentment, feeling that the ‘world owed me one’ (or a few) because look at what it had done to me! It had teased me for ‘being hairy’!
In recent months I had a simple little turning point in my awareness that helped me turn this around. I was gently rubbing some lovely cream all over my body after my morning shower. It had become a lovely ritual to claim this time for me and really connect with my body as I do this – tenderly massaging delicious smelling cream into my legs, arms and around my hips. I would feel exquisite and take this same feeling into my day. But on this particular occasion I had some hair growth on my lower legs, a bit of stubble, and I caught myself going into automatic pilot – plonking on the cream mechanically! So I stopped myself and connected back to my legs, realising I still shunned them and therefore myself for not fitting into the ‘perfect hairless’ picture. And I realised I was still living with this picture; still holding on to it. I felt so, so sad.
Since that day, and whenever I apply cream onto my legs, I make an even more loving effort to stay present and connect to them and my body, feeling just how tender my legs are – regardless of any hair. I feel how tender and delicate my whole body is from the inside and I ask myself – how can I then choose not to accept my body how it naturally is? My body feels so precious. How can I reject this exquisite beauty that is actually me?!
As I’ve started to make this commitment to connect with my body and legs more in this way, I’ve noticed a difference with how I am when I go for a waxing appointment. In the past I would lie there (trying to keep a close eye on what was happening, just to make sure no hair was missed!) and I would feel a mixture of perverse pleasure and relief at the hair coming off my body. Yet the last few times I’ve had my legs waxed there was none of this. And instead I’ve felt light-hearted, relaxed and joyful as I lie back with some cotton pads over my eyes enjoying an eye lash tint, whilst my friend (a beauty therapist) waxes my legs… and as the hair comes off we burst into fits of giggles – often over how ridiculous it’s been (and is) to hold such false nonsensical ideas about ourselves and our bodies when we are able to feel instead a beauty that’s inside us. And with this ease of ourselves, our girly lightness returns and the whole experience is a delight, as we just have fun!
I can feel that as I start to accept my body and cherish it, things I would do in the past like waxing my legs are now taking on a very different quality. They are no longer about hiding what I perceive as being my imperfections and relieving me of an anxiety in not ‘looking perfect’. Instead the waxing and beauty treatments have started to become part of me celebrating how lovely it is to be me, and to be a woman. I love it when my legs feel silky and smooth after a waxing treatment because it confirms that same silkiness I can now feel from the inside…
And what’s just as precious to celebrate is how this once thick hard wall is now coming down. Today I no longer walk around feeling miserable and unattractive whenever I have a bit of stubble or hair growth on my legs. Instead I feel how I am opening up and blossoming and how joyful and lovely this feels, for I can feel this amazing beauty that is inside me.
It’s so sad that we dismiss and disregard our bodies, and therefore ourselves as women, because they don’t fit the perfect air-brushed picture – that’s not even real!
Our bodies are beautiful and tender with all their ‘imperfections’ because what is real and true beauty is the deliciousness and loveliness we can feel that’s inside our bodies. As we embody this beauty that’s inside us, our bodies feel this truth and then our outer ‘look’ responds to that. Our bodies glow with love, and look exquisite – regardless of our shape, size, hair-growth or whatever other ‘imperfection’ there may be.
It’s time we celebrate this true beauty that is present in ourselves, and also equally in all women.
By Anonymous