What is Your Relationship with Your Breasts?

~ womeninlivingness

When was the last time you stood in front of a mirror, naked, and looked at your breasts?

When was the last time you stood in front of a mirror, naked, and looked at your breasts, absolutely without any judgement?

When was the last time you washed and moisturised your breasts with the tenderness, equal if not greater to holding a newborn baby?

When did you last care for your breasts the way you care for your face?

It is well worth stopping and pondering on these questions…

So, how do we see our breasts? 

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The Power of Esoteric Breast Massage – A Tender and Unimposing Touch

~ womeninlivingness

I walk into my first Esoteric Breast Massage session, butterflies in my tummy, unsure of what is going to happen and how I’ll feel. We talk for a short while then it is time to begin the bodywork part of the treatment. As I undress, gently and deliberately folding my clothes, my bra sits atop the small pile as the last piece to come off taking with it my cover, my protection – or so I thought.

For a moment I stand there exposed and yet strangely detached. I have shut out any feelings of embarrassment by putting on my “I can deal with anything” front. Even though the practitioner has encouraged me to allow fragility and express myself so that I am comfortable throughout each part, I have auto-piloted myself into the same disguise I wear when I have a smear test i.e. I lie back with my legs in the air and check out from my body for a while, I grin and bear it. 

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Manly Women

~ womeninlivingness

I grew up in a culture where a woman’s place really is in the kitchen (or the bedroom).

There are certain social, widely accepted ‘norms’ that must be followed: the man is the head, the bread winner, the tough iron shield of the family; the woman, the woman, as my male relative would put it is the “neck of the family, supporting the head in deciding the way forward”. But in truth, the neck is to very quietly express their opinion, and only where it suits the ideals of the men because at the end of the day, it’s the head that makes the decision.

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Baring My Chest – Mammograms, Expression and Healing

~ womeninlivingness

In 2008 I had breast cancer at the ripe age of 33, and now every year I choose to have both a mammogram and ultrasound as part of my overall breast care program.

Over the past couple of years I have become more aware of how I am as I go into having my mammograms. I realized that for the first few years, I would pretty much check out so as to not to feel what was really taking place – which is that your breasts are being squished several times uncomfortably between two glass plates!

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The Birth of my Son, a Magnificent Teacher

~ womeninlivingness

In 2005 I conceived my first child, two months later I needed no pregnancy test to tell me I was with child: I can remember opening the curtains one morning, standing still and once again clocking this deep vibration, a fluttering pulse within my body that was strangely unfamiliar yet at the same quite natural, I knew. Turning to my partner, I told him we were having a baby.

I felt amazed and blessed by the power of this bodily communication I was offered by my unborn child – an inner hum that emanated through my every cell, I felt deeply humbled and radiant.

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Women – Honouring our Body Image and Appreciating our Reflection

~ womeninlivingness

When we look at ourselves in the mirror, what is the relationship we have with the image reflected back at us? How much do we appreciate ourselves?

A while ago I was in a shop trying on some clothes. The lady in the next cubicle came out looking stunning. She was trying on a beautiful dress – and her friend immediately expressed to her how gorgeous she looked. This lady did look gorgeous, and I could feel she loved the dress. The dress fitted beautifully and I could feel a grace in her quality as she stood in front of the mirror. It wasn’t that the dress made the woman into anything, it was that the woman in her beauty made the dress shine – she shone in the dress. I observed as the woman in the dress got distinctly more uncomfortable as she looked at herself in the mirror, and made some comments that picked fault in how it looked to her, and she decided not to buy the dress.

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In Saying No, I Said Yes to Love

~ womeninlivingness

Is saying “Yes” the only way to accepting another person in love?

Recently I met a man. It is pure joy every time we meet. We have a lot in common and our conversations are always deepening each other, and yet I said “No” to this relationship.

I did not say “No” to this man, only to the picture of how a relationship is supposed to look, such as the whirlwind, the intensity, the sweeping someone off their feet, as all of that felt imposing, even though it is supposed to be what love looks like.

In the human point of view, this takes a bit of getting used to, as I deeply care for him and appreciated his care for me. But what would love do in such a situation?

Love would only be loving, so I deepened first and foremost even more of the love and care I have for myself.  

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Trusting Yourself in Dating and Life

~ womeninlivingness

It’s come to my attention in recent months through conversation, that something holding many beautiful women back from venturing into the dating world is a perceived lack of trust… in men. What has been more fascinating however, and transformative for each of these women to realise, is that the very thing they use as an excuse (as it turns out) not to trust another, IS EXACTLY the thing they can TRUST IN!

Let me explain…

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Connection with My Baby – Begins with Me

~ womeninlivingness

There is a lot of talk and discussion around feeling connected with our children during pregnancy while in utero, once they are born and for the many years of life ahead to come… What I’ve noticed of particular interest is how for many, we can feel disconnected from them and also hold many pictures of what connecting with them actually looks and feels like – for a woman and equally so for a man.

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How to Start a Relationship Built on Love

~ womeninlivingness

For a long time I have been feeling I did not really choose to be in a relationship but more felt I ought to be in one because everything around me (magazines, media, movies, family, friends etc.) were telling me, that that was what you want to do as a young woman.

I did throw myself into it, literally, and would be at times quite proactive in finding a boyfriend. These relationships were very innocent and loving at the start. But later I got this feeling that there was always something missing in them.

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