I was six months into motherhood. I loved it. The baby daughter that had arrived was so sweet, gentle and sensitive and I stared in wonder at her, this reflection also got me pondering about myself and how I felt as a woman, a mother etc.
I came across the Esoteric Breast Massage and I felt it could possibly support me. I was a woman who was and still is interested in understanding all that it means to be a woman, and the ‘why’ of life. I was also a woman who was at a crossroads, I had moved from being a young woman with no children to being a mother and that got me pondering even more on womanhood.
I was also exhausted, bloated, emotional, anxious, not sleeping well and was aware that I wanted a fresh start for my daughter. I wanted to be the best parent I could be and having a daughter got me thinking about what sort of role model I would be.
I had heard very little about the Esoteric Breast Massage other than it is offered to support women to connect with who they are on the inside. I knew that breasts symbolise a lot for us as women, and in society they trigger a lot of ideas about what womanhood is – many of them questionable.
I also knew that I did not have the best relationship with my body including my breasts.
Could I get a truer understanding of my body and my relationship with it beyond the twisted and corrupted versions that are sold to us as we grow up – the images of being tough, sex kitten, virgin, whore, nun, mother etc, and how as women we often learn to use our bodies as commodities and place value on them solely through desirability and fertility – not for who we innately are.
What kind of woman could I be, what was my potential? What kind of mother could I be?
First and foremost, I was ready for a change, something needed to shift, I did not know what it was, but I wanted to find out.
And so, I arrive at my first Esoteric Breast Massage appointment.
I walk into a small well kept warm room, it smells good and the towels are really fluffy. I get offered a seat by the practitioner and I sit, and she talks to me and I talk to her and the tears come. They come for all the years that I have not valued myself, loved myself, the pain that I have carried from hurts, embarrassments, the seeking of attention from men, comparing myself to other women, not feeling good enough, the frustration of knowing I can be more but not living it.
I cry because I feel this hardness in my body, like a prison, a shield across my chest that says ‘do not enter’, breasts that are more like Madonna’s conical offerings, shoved out like weapons.
I cry because the practitioner is so caring, so straight up and she is really listening to me. She asks if I am ready to lie on the massage table, I am and I do – it is so warm and I am so tired and tense. She starts the massage and I feel so supported, it was warm, caring and I settle.
There was a moment in that session, where I distinctly felt the difference between the prison of tension and hardness in my body, the protection I had taken on to get through surviving everyday knocks and blows and what I truly am on the inside. I could feel this gentle, warmth inside that did not need hardness to protect itself. It felt so empowering and yet so gentle.
It was an absolute wonder of a moment. I had a reference point, I knew the truth about my body, about me. I knew I did not have to carry the heavy coat of tension around with me forever, that there was another option.
All in one session, I knew the difference, between what I had taken on in life and what I was inside as a woman. This physical knowing was my compass, I knew I couldn’t live it all right there and then, because I had some stuff to work on, but it was there, it was warm alive and flickering flame that I had felt and would not be snuffing out.
It changed my life.
A woman who loves herself, does not seek to be liked, does not accept abusive behaviour from herself or others, accepts herself as she is, and is enough being herself without all the roles and comparison.
That is the woman that I have been building over the years. It is now 2021 and there is no end to this journey, and I will be committed to this until my last breath. I am worth the development of reclaiming self-love and so are we all equally.
All I have had to do is support myself to let go of what was getting in the way of my living as the woman I was born to be. And that has meant healing, and when I say healing, I mean true healing. Rather than me spending a life time circling my issues, thinking that they are too painful, they cut too deep, that I can’t get out of them, going from one practitioner to another seeking for them to fix me, or forever mulling over it with friends and family. Instead by choice I have been looking at what has hurt me, I cry if I need to, be honest, know my part in it, learn from it and move on – truly let it go. Truly Heal.
I have come to understand that nothing that I have experienced, and without going into details there has been a lot, can stay with me if I choose to let it go – I am not broken. I have been hurt but within me, as within all of us, there is place forever untarnished, full of love and unquestionably, resolutely intact.
Consciously aware healing allows the true woman to be seen and known. Like a ship in the stormy waters, a lighthouse beamed across the ocean but it wasn’t outside of me, it wasn’t something I needed to follow or leave myself to get, it was and is within me.
This is an ongoing, ever deepening, exquisite, sometimes challenging, so worth it, steady, humble journey back to who I am as a woman, my potential, back to who I am on the inside and allowing that all to come out and shine – and not just for me or my daughter but for everyone.
Everyone we meet deserves to experience all that we are. Why hide our light under a bushel? We all are powerhouses and we all have so much to share, not by doing anything, but by being all that we are and if that means shedding some battle scars, ideas, habits that are not doing us any favours… then so be it.
Bring it on!!!
Anonymous