Celebrate, the Woman Within

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by Cherise Holt, Nurse, Australia

At a recent Women’s Presentation in Brisbane, a group of women shared how truly beautiful it is when we re-connect to ourselves as women: a connection that we override when we invest in fulfilling the roles we have adopted, or live under the pressures from ourselves and from a society that constantly tells us how and who we should be.

As women, it is important to reconnect to our bodies… what are we really feeling? In any moment, when we begin to ask ourselves this question we realise that our bodies never lie to us. If we are feeling stressed, tired, unwell or out of sorts, tense or exhausted – our bodies can feel it: or if there is something we don’t want to do, perhaps something doesn’t feel right. In addition, we may find ourselves doing too much in our day, or doing for others ahead of ourselves; or even when we are simply being hard on ourselves – we know about it. But when we make the time to stop and feel, we get to see that there is another way to be; a way that is honouring and cherishes the woman we already are. Continue reading “Celebrate, the Woman Within” →

The Things l’ve Done to Find the True Woman

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by Jenny Ellis, Practitioner and Director: UniMed Brisbane, Australia 

I started my forays into personal growth and healing back in the late 90’s when I found myself with everything that was supposed to make me feel successful and good about myself  – good relationship, a handsome, attentive partner, good job opportunities, a nice place to live, supportive family and a lovely young son. Yet I felt far from satisfied inside, and knew it wasn’t that I had higher ideas of what life should be – since I had what I’d always thought I wanted.

I realise in retrospect that it was how I felt about myself as a woman that was my main source of dis-content – unattractive, inadequate and lacking in confidence pretty much sums it up. There was always a ‘there’ I never seemed to get to, as far as feeling good about myself for any length of time.

I was in fact, far from unattractive or inadequate, but I felt it and had great ways of covering this up. Continue reading “The Things l’ve Done to Find the True Woman” →

The Woman

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by Shannon Everest, Australia

A woman belongs to herself.

She may have a husband or a partner that she loves dearly, but she doesn’t belong to this man.

She may have children, but she does not belong to these children; though she can express beautifully as a mother with her children, being firm, loving, tender and supportive.

She has a mother and father herself, and even though these parents conceived her, gave birth to her and raised her from young, she never, ever belonged to them, but always to herself. Continue reading “The Woman” →

I Am Beautiful

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by Bianca Barban, Melbourne, Australia

So many things come up when I think about how I look. First thing that pops up is, am I allowed to say that out loud? Will people look at me and judge me? Will they break down every part of me and add it back together and decide “NO, you are wrong – this is not true”. Or worse, will they think I am arrogant and laugh at my apparent lack of humility, and be critical.

I Am Beautiful and I have a deep knowing that when I was a child I knew my true beauty. It was real, it was tangible, it was full and ever present. It was confirmed in me! So what happened? Now, when I stand in front of the mirror I pick myself apart. I hear the messages of self-loathing in my head: my skin looks dry, I am getting wrinkles, my tummy is too round, my thighs too bumpy… STOP! Continue reading “I Am Beautiful” →

Being ‘Good’ or Being ‘True’

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by Sara Harris, BHSc, Melbourne, Australia

For the most part of my life I have been very conscious of looking after myself. In fact, I used to pride myself on how healthy I was, even as a teenager. I went to the gym, played all sorts of sports, didn’t eat sugar and was careful about the amount of food I was eating. I was also one to do very well at school. Always on top of everything, producing quality and quantity and getting marks to confirm me as being a ‘good’ student. I was also involved in fund-raisers and the 40 hour famine each year… out to save the world!

Looking back now, it would be fair to say that I was living in a bit of a ‘drive’ – a drive to do well, to be good, to succeed and to be the best. It may seem as though there is nothing wrong with all of this, however my body was telling me that there definitely was. I would push myself through anything, constantly, at the expense of my body. Here I was thinking that I was looking after myself by doing all the right things, but I hadn’t considered that simply listening to my body ‘first’ was actually what was needed. I see now how I kept going to the gym when my body was tired, or how I was eating food because of what I had read or what I was told was good for me, without listening to what my body really wanted. And I would work until all hours of the morning to get things done, thinking that the work would be better the more time I gave it. But why did I not give the same consideration and dedication to my body, when it is the one actually doing all of the work? Continue reading “Being ‘Good’ or Being ‘True’” →

Esoteric Women’s Health – The Journey I Can Never Walk Away From

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by Dragana Brown, London, UK

How to describe Esoteric Women’s Health, what it means and what it has done for me? Where do I even begin? From the beginning would be the obvious answer.

It began with esoteric healing, followed by Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM), followed by monthly meetings and presentations by a graceful woman, Sara Williams, and four times a year by another tender-hearted lady, Natalie Benhayon. Esoteric breast massage was an equivalent of a bombshell when I first heard of the modality: “What? Another woman massaging my breasts, surely not?!”. Ah, the importance of a truly open mind! To dismiss it without experiencing and feeling the enormousness of this profound healing modality would have been an irretrievable loss.

If I am painting a very ‘rosy picture’ about Esoteric Breast Massage, let me break the illusion here and add some more colour to the palette. It was, especially in the beginning, hugely exposing, confronting and uneasy, to put it mildly. Continue reading “Esoteric Women’s Health – The Journey I Can Never Walk Away From” →

(There is nothing sexy about) An Esoteric Breast Massage

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by Anne Malatt,  Australia

It took me years to come back for my second Esoteric Breast Massage.

I had my first one in the early days of the modality, after overcoming my initial misgivings – “that is weird”, “why do we need that?”, “ooh, that is going to cause waves”.

My first session was lovely in the sense of the setting and the practitioner, but there was nothing sexy about it. I did not like the feeling of having my breasts touched, so much so that I checked out – I left my body – and I came to realise that this is what I did every time someone touched my breasts. Which meant that I had not been truly present for any of the sex I had ever had (that was a lot of not being present!). This was very painful for me to feel. Continue reading “(There is nothing sexy about) An Esoteric Breast Massage” →

My New Bra

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by L (aged 22 years), The Netherlands

Two days ago I finally went shopping to buy a new bra. A friend of mine highly recommended a certain nice store, and so my friend and I went to visit.

This shop was amazing! A store full of bras, all stocked in piles in their little cabins. The (bra fitting) assistant was very kind and straightforward and knew exactly what type and size of bra would fit me. At first I was a little, “Ooh no! I don’t wear a C cup, I always have B or even A”. But after trying the B cup first, I actually felt the lady was right – I did need a C cup, which I normally don’t wear! So then she came with a pile of bras for me to try. With the loving support and good advice of my friend and also the assistant, I found two very well fitting bras which also looked amazing. And I can say that it was the first time in my life I had found a bra that fitted my body so beautifully. Some beautiful underwear also came with the bras, so I decided to buy them as a set. Continue reading “My New Bra” →

Permission to Wear a Dress

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by Anonymous

I grew up with a belief that I was not beautiful. I felt like the ugly duckling in my family. My mother and her sisters were very petite, had dark hair and brown eyes. I on the other hand was tall, had blonde hair and blue eyes and was told by many that I had a good ‘solid’ build, a word which I grew up to detest.

When I was introduced for the first time to work colleagues of my parents or people that my parents knew, it was always joked about that I couldn’t be my mother’s daughter and where did I come from (“was I adopted?”) as they couldn’t believe how physically different we were. Although I laughed along I was always ashamed by this and ashamed of my looks, height and build. I felt I could never be a woman because I wasn’t small and I didn’t look like the women in my family. I had a picture that you needed to be small and petite to be a girl or a woman and because I didn’t fit this picture I loathed how I looked. I also believed that you could only ever ask for help, show you were upset or be vulnerable if you were small and delicately framed. Continue reading “Permission to Wear a Dress” →

Knowing What’s Right for Me…

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As a child, I was comfortable in my body and had never consciously considered the question “What’s right for me?”… it was just naturally how I was. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I went through a growth spurt and became quite skinny very quickly. Around the same time I felt to start eating differently. I didn’t want meat pies, pizza, fish and chips or Macca’s (McDonald’s) on Fridays or the weekends. And I didn’t want cheesy sauces on my veggies, or chips, or cheese and bikkies for snacks during the day. There were also many meals that I didn’t feel like eating at all and wanted to skip. I began to be more aware of what was ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ and what was right for me and my body in terms of nutrition and my health.

I also began to enjoy exercise and loved my daily walk/jog around our neighborhood, exploring all the parks and secret pathways. I had felt to start this little exercise routine because I had done a fitness test in school grade 7 PE which involved a 1.5km walk/jog. This was the first test I had done and my body felt really heavy, sluggish and sore; I’d been surprised I couldn’t do it, not having ever done an endurance exercise before, only sprints in running and swimming.

My body began to change – not just the shape, but also how I felt. Continue reading “Knowing What’s Right for Me…” →