I’m going to share a bit from my heart, because as they say, my mess has become my message. I’ m all about empowering women and girls to love the skin they’re in.
Tomorrow December 22, marks the beginning of my 50th year as a woman, this time around.
Way back in 1979, I was 17 years old, hung up on hating my body, feeling uncomfortable and ashamed all the time. I swore I was fat, but now that I see my pictures, I know that wasn’t the case. I just always had big thighs that looked huge in comparison to my small chest and tiny waist.
At the time, I was living happily with my dad and my step mother, Rosie. I finally knew what it felt like to be safe. It had been just about a year earlier when I finally told them the dirty secret that I had kept quiet for so many years. I had been sexually abused. No gross details, I promise. Dad and Rosie both wanted to help, but had no idea of how.
They met a woman named Florence at a Silva Mind Control seminar. Unlike Rosie’s slender and delicate shape, Florence looked more like me; short and heavy.
I loved having her come over to the house for dinner. We would all talk for hours and I was so thrilled to pick her brain and learn all about the power of our thoughts.
One day Florence invited me to The Brooklyn Museum and told me that we were making history by being amongst the first to view the opening exhibition called “The Dinner Party.”
Artist, Judy Chicago had created an amazing collection of 39 China dinner plates representing 39 significant women throughout history and honoring their contributions. Watch the video below for a 4+ minute preview of this powerful exhibition of one of the greatest pieces of feminist art ever to be created.
Displayed in a huge room on a triangular shaped table with 13 place settings on each of the three sides, each plate was handpainted with beautiful flower or butterfly images. I didn’t really know what I was looking at, because I was so naive.
Being a proud gay woman, Florence told me that the butterfly and flowers were actually symbolizing the beauty and diversity of the 39 womens’ vaginas. She told me about the artist’s bold journey in bringing this exhibition public. And despite being a little uncomfortable about the subject, I recognized the artists’ gutsiness and felt inspired by her passion.
Today I visited the Adios Barbie site and read a post entitled, “Our Vulvas: Ourselves written by co-editor, Sharon Haywood. There I saw a beautiful and inspired evolution and update on Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party work. Artist Jamie McCartney has taken the vulva and placed it front and center in her exhibition of, “The Great Wall of Vagina: 400 plaster casts of vulvas taken from women between the ages of 18 and 76 with the intent of “changing female body image through art.”
Glancing at a photo of McCartney’s work reminded me of that very special day in 1979 when seeing “The Dinner Party” and listening to Florence talk about vaginas left me with lots of conflicting emotions about myself and my body.
I know that she had good intentions and she wanted me to feel a sense of pride about being a woman, and comfortable with an open conversation about women’s vaginas, but that didn’t feel safe for me. Because of that, I didn’t want to see her again.
But now years later, I think of Florence fondly remembering that what I liked the most about her was that she always said exactly what was on her mind and didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought.
She was a tough lady and I’ll always appreciate her for teaching me the lesson of strength.
But at that time I was still a mouse.
The truth was I felt ashamed of being a woman and having a vagina. To me, one who had been sexually molested by so many random guys from the time I was 5, I felt having a vagina made me vulnerable.
In 2004 after being imprisoned by my fear and shame for nearly 42 years, my spell was finally broken when someone introduced me to a simple process of tapping called Emotional Freedom Technique that changed my life forever.
Ever since that day, I swore to myself that I would bring this powerful process to other women so that they would never, ever, ever have to live in fear the way I did.
As women, our vaginas are our most private and intimate part of our lives. Experience has taught me that the way that you feel about your vagina represents the way that you present yourself as a woman.
I spent a lot of years being ashamed, hiding from myself and others, letting people walk over me, because I felt I was inferior because I had a vagina. Today I know that’s crap.
I’ve still got a lot of hangups and fears, but I know that I can use EFT to whisk them all away.
I know that the voices inside my head telling me “I can’t and “I’m not good enough”, come from old tapes that are actually knee jerk reactions to many of those horrible memories that still get triggered now and then. But I have the tool to move past them and as they pop up, I knock ’em down.
Today I’m feeling pretty 50 and fabulous, because I’m more likely to just barrel through and do whatever frightens me most, rather than sitting by the sidelines and staying invisible.
That’s why I’m so passionate about teaching other women about Emotional Freedom Technique. Because it really does enable us to turn our fears into power. I’m a walking, talking example of the truth of that statement.
How ’bout you? What feelings do you have about your body? Do you feel anxious talking about or thinking about your vagina? What about sex? Do you think of your body as dirty, unacceptable or shameful. It’s not. It’s only our thoughts that can make us feel terrible about ourselves. The good news is you can change the way you feel about your body and your life by changing your thoughts and you do that by managing your energy.
Here’s what I’ve learned. Our bodies have an energy system just like anything else. When our energy is out of alignment, it’s kind of like having a flashlight with the batteries in reverse. Nothing works right. Our thoughts go haywire. We obsess about things. We eat out of control. We lose our tempers. We do stupid things. We fear success. We fear love. Things get crossed and rewired when our energy is out of balance.
A trauma can play out in your head over and over again, seemingly without end. We feel pain, emotional and physical. Life sucks when you’re energy is out of whack.
The good news is it’s fixable. You don’t have to be a victim of your thoughts and fears. And your future is not determined by your past.
Here’s why: There’s a part of our brain called the amygdala, which functions like a smoke alarm. When your body senses the presence of danger, it goes off, lights and sirens, but if it’s not a real immediate physical danger, it will not get processed properly by the body. The toxins that get produced in the brain, like adrenaline and cortisol build up in your body and create a neurochemical lock that shuts you down. Your blood drains from your brain and you’re left unable to think logically.
When your energy system is out of alignment, it’s like being on red alert all the time. You’re jumpy as hell. You get angry for nothing, you may cry at the drop of a hat and you just don’t feel like you’re being yourself.
The latest research shows that the tapping that is done in EFT sends a calming signal to the brain to pair whatever upsetting thought you have with a fresh sense of relaxation.
I’m a person who’s been used to living with a ton of drama for a long time. Thanks to EFT, I no longer live my life always fearing the worst. Sometimes, but not always.
As I use it and tap on my fears and doubts, I’m able to tap into powerful parts of myself more like Florence and Rosie.
Having memories of their powerful role modeling, has given me abilities to be more self-expressive and confident in putting myself out into the public and being visible. Using EFT on my fears and procrastinations, and anxieties, I can keep on moving myself out of the way so that I can help others to get past their own resistances. By sharing my story of the power of healing that EFT has had and continues to have on my life, I give other people hope for a bright future.
What can I say? EFT rocks and I’m damn well going to make sure that more people know about it.