Category: BODY IMAGE

My Relationship with My Breasts (Breast Trilogy – Part 1)

~ womeninlivingness ~ 1 Comment

The first memory I have relating to my breasts is at 11 years old. I was in 6th grade  (primary school) and liked the idea of wearing a bra. My breasts had not begun to grow yet but I was interested in wearing a bra anyway. So I wore a bra to school underneath my uniform. I don’t remember the finer details of this but I do remember feeling a little clandestine about it, like I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing.

At this time I remember fantasizing about what type of breasts I would like – big ones, small ones, soft ones, hard ones, attention grabbing ones, perky ones, etc. etc.

My breasts began to develop at age 12 and I felt very sensitive about this.

I could feel that with my breast development there were other changes occurring too, such as starting my periods, and I knew this meant I was beginning my physical transformation into a woman.

But what did being a woman really mean? At this time I was unable to answer this question.   Continue reading “My Relationship with My Breasts (Breast Trilogy – Part 1)” →

YOU

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by Jeanette Macdonald, Healing Arts Practitioner, RN, New Zealand

Note from the author; Where I have put ‘* your name’, do just that and read it to yourself, or better still, have someone read it to you, with your name where it states to do so.

* your name

You have been a daughter, and, no doubt, a friend…

and you may have been a sister… a girlfriend… a wife…

a lover… a mother… a grandmother… a nurse…

a teacher… a doctor… a farmer…

an artist… a scientist…

a practitioner…

and so on

These are some of the many things you may have been and you may have done

But who you are is so much more Continue reading “YOU” →

My Body and Tattoo Designs

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by Nicole Serafin, Age 41, Tintenbar

By the time I was 30 I had 9 tattoo designs and a dozen piercings. I had always struggled with my body, a body that I never felt comfortable in; nor had I ever accepted the way that it was or the way that it felt.

Yes, I was a woman, but did I look or feel like a woman?

This I could not feel and so came the experimentation to create what I thought my body as a woman should be like. I constantly struggled with my looks, my weight – whether it be in excess or underweight – my personality; you name it, I was constantly in judgement of myself.

I began to colour & change my hairstyles, which was easy as I was working in a hairdressing salon from the age of 12 and had a mother who also supported me in doing this. Along with my hairstyles and colours I changed my style of dress, always experimenting… or so I thought I was experimenting. Continue reading “My Body and Tattoo Designs” →

Beauty Defined – Seeing Beyond the Physical Looks

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by Zofia, Asia

WHAT DO MEN LOOK FOR IN WOMEN?

When I’ve asked guys about what it is they actually love about a woman, one they are perhaps dating or otherwise, the response is usually to do with any of the following…

  • Having nice or big eyes
  • Good skin or body
  • Long hair
  • Good dress sense
  • Perfume
  • Being a good laugh, funny
  • Confidence

But WHAT ELSE captures a guy’s interest apart from the physical look of a woman or her personality traits? Continue reading “Beauty Defined – Seeing Beyond the Physical Looks” →

LOVE – Falling in Love with My own Hair

~ womeninlivingness

by Rachel Mascord, Australia

Make-over aged 15

The first time I coloured my hair, I was fifteen years of age. It was in no way a gesture of teenage rebellion as my Mum took me to get it done. My naturally blonde hair had darkened to a colour that she called “mousey”. What an awful description for a colour! It was a word that said “drab”, “dull” and “plain”. In my desperation to be anything other than “drab, dull and plain” I readily agreed to the process, having recently been dismayed by my appearance in my Year 10 school photo. I thought myself too ugly for words. My hair was the focus of critical attention, and so willingly I surrendered to the offer for transformation via a hair makeover!

Hooked Transformation ­– from mousey to blond

So I was introduced to the wonderful world of hair colouring, and the medieval torture implement known as the streaking cap. For those who are unfamiliar with this device, it is a thick rubber cap that is pulled down over your head. You feel like every hair is being pulled out… slowly. It clenches on to your head for the entire period of the colouring process… about 40 minutes (feels like 4 hours). To add insult to injury, a fine crochet hook is used to gouge into the scalp to fish out strands of hair for bleaching. You sit, coated in blue peroxide, looking like a reject alien extra for Star Wars, but the result is a lovely, natural blonde effect.

That first appointment had me hooked. The pain and suffering were forgotten when my hair was revealed, all gleaming, blow-dried and sparkling. Ah! I was beautiful, blonde, not mousey, not drab and plain. Mum was delighted too, for her blonde daughter had been restored!

My mum’s relationship with her own hair was nothing short of tortured. She deeply hated her hair, was always dissatisfied with the colour, and I never recall her being happy with a cut. There was always something wrong, and she was always wishing her hair were different… straighter, blonder…. something else. She would tear the brush through her hair in self-loathing and fury, and it was truly awful to witness. I could never understand her self-hatred: why did she not just look in the mirror and see how lovely she was? She was a stunningly beautiful woman, but all she saw was hair that didn’t fit her picture of how hair should be. Continue reading “LOVE – Falling in Love with My own Hair” →

Dress Codes in the Workplace – Dressing How I Feel

~ womeninlivingness

I am a student studying at University. I wanted to work a couple of hours a week and since this week have been actually working within the University itself.

Before I started working, I noticed some interesting things about how I thought I should look and dress for that particular job and I wanted to share this.

The first thing that came to my thoughts when I heard I got the job was – well, what should I wear?, knowing that my job is to welcome people, making sure they sign in for the class and set out the sandwiches and drinks in the break and cleaning up afterwards.

I realised that I had a whole picture of what I should ‘look like’ when doing those things – an elegant woman with tidy clothes and shoes that shone, looking and being very feminine and definitely very chic! Continue reading “Dress Codes in the Workplace – Dressing How I Feel” →

Body Hair – The Celebration of the Beauty that’s Inside Me – Inside us all

~ womeninlivingness

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…. Continue reading “Body Hair – The Celebration of the Beauty that’s Inside Me – Inside us all” →

Taking Bra Shopping To a Whole Other Level

~ womeninlivingness

by Sara Harris, Health Practitioner, Australia

Recently I have been feeling it is time… time for some new bras!! I simply feel that I deserve it! I have grown more into being me and more into myself as a woman, and have found that my breasts have changed – my breasts and I have moved on!

I never thought I would say this in my lifetime… but my breasts have actually grown! Not a huge amount, but I can certainly feel that ever since having the Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM) with the EBM trained practitioners from Universal Medicine, and committing to claiming more of myself as a woman –  my body, including my breasts, have taken on more of their natural shape and fullness.

So today was the day where I finally made it to a store that a friend had recommended a while ago. It is a very cute little boutique which has very carefully selected brands of the finest quality ‘intimate wear’. I had saved some money and had a specific and quite generous amount that I was going to spend… but I quickly learned that I was not going to be walking out with a few bras… that I may just have enough for one – good bras are expensive!! Continue reading “Taking Bra Shopping To a Whole Other Level” →

Fashion, Styling and Retail: We are all Beauty-full

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by Adele Leung , Fashion Stylist / Art Director, Hong Kong

My work has been in fashion styling, art direction, publication and fashion retail for the last 18 years.

I started out in this industry because of a very simple knowing in my heart that there is so much beauty around. Of course I didn’t know then that this beauty is within myself to begin with, but I did know it was this beauty that propels me to express. Continue reading “Fashion, Styling and Retail: We are all Beauty-full” →

Makeup: ‘Putting on a Face’ OR Enhancing the True Beauty Within?

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by Julie Goodhart, Vermont US

Wearing – or not wearing – makeup seems like a basic part of a daily routine that doesn’t require much contemplation. At least, this was certainly true for me until recently. When I first became interested in makeup, I was about 11 years old. My family and I had moved to a new and unfamiliar place. I started at a new school and much to my surprise (and very different from the place I had grown up in), all of the girls were wearing bras padded with tissues, carrying purses, and wearing lots of makeup. At that age I still felt like a kid and didn’t understand why other girls my age were in a hurry to grow up, to be like a woman. Continue reading “Makeup: ‘Putting on a Face’ OR Enhancing the True Beauty Within?” →